I have some deep thinkin’ and clip-readin’ to do, so a short thing today. But good links, eh?
Stories like this make me happy I never read celebrity biographies: C. David Heymann, serial fabulist and all-around sleaze.
The president’s speech yesterday stirred up the trolls, but even I am capable of being appalled by the comments on the stories. This is but one, but every one I looked at yesterday was simply…rancid.
This story out of Germany, about an apparently coordinated attack on women by “Arab-looking men,” is simultaneously amazing and appalling. What do you guys make of it?
Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 3:49 am
The shitty things that people have said about Obama’s tears are just, well, really shitty. If they had been through the sort of experiences that he has, they might see things a little differently. At least, one can hope they might. I wouldn’t like to try to comfort the parents of a murdered child; I especially wouldn’t like to,have to do it twenty times on a single day.
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Deborah said on January 6, 2016 at 4:40 am
We should start an insomnia club. It’s 2:38am in Santa Fe right now and after reading some of the links I may not get back to sleep. Whatever happened to empathy in the world?
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alex said on January 6, 2016 at 6:17 am
The Germany story calls to mind what happened to Lara Logan while she was in Egypt covering the Arab Spring. Perhaps there’s a certain cultural attitude about women in the street being fair game. But the story also calls to mind the old bigoted stereotype that black men are after white women, so I find myself questioning just how much of this story is born of racial hysteria. Did it really occur on the scale that’s being reported? It’s not like the media never let stories get overblown before the facts get checked.
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Alan Stamm said on January 6, 2016 at 7:00 am
Trolls with no sense of decency or shame suggest that our president’s initial eye touch was to wipe in some kind of tear-inducing irritant . . . as tough he were a cheater on the mound trying to use resin to enhance his pitch.
That propels Ron Fournier, a native Detroiter who’s a National Journal columnist, to tweet: “I can wrap my head around opposing policy. Not tears shed for slain kids.”
NYT columnist Nick Kristof tweets: “He should be crying, frankly we should all be crying.”
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ROGirl said on January 6, 2016 at 7:35 am
Alex, you are right about women being considered fair game by North African men in Europe. They will follow you and try to touch you. You have to be on your guard all the time. Then there are the weenie waggers. And it can get much worse, of course.
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Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 9:04 am
According to many reports, including the personal experience of a cousin who lives in Cairo, street harassment in Egypt is nearly constant and universal. I recently read about a taxi service for women with woman driversto protect female passengers from various indignities (verbal harassment, theft, rape), which is useful, but doesn’t do anything to actually address the problem. In fact, the visibility of the service (The drivers wear pink, and the cars bear pink advertising panels.) seems to lead to road hassles with the male drivers of other taxis.
Norway is tackling the problem head on by offering classes on how to treat women for recent immigrants. If there is truth to the stories from Cologne, more such classes are needed pronto.
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adrianne said on January 6, 2016 at 9:33 am
After eight years of Obama’s presidency, I tell myself that nothing his rabid critics say would surprise me, but questioning his tears over the incredible toll of gun violence? We should all be crying. If 20 dead first-graders in Newtown, Conn., doesn’t lead to any changes in gun laws, nothing will.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 6, 2016 at 10:16 am
How weird can this campaign season get? Trump is chiding people for doubting Obama’s sincerity in his tears.
I mean, wow.
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Julie Robinson said on January 6, 2016 at 11:06 am
Hmm, I wonder how many of these women have also been harassed by men with paler skins. It’s much more accepted in many parts of the world as normal than it is here. A friend who lived in Italy was routinely groped while on public transport, and had to learn to ignore the constant comments while walking around. Nasty, sexual comments, so bad that it cast a pall over her time there.
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brian stouder said on January 6, 2016 at 11:57 am
1. Just had 1/2 of a tasty, fresh-baked bagel with cream cheese*. I suppose I’d have been better-off without it, but waddayagonna do, eh?
2. Gotta agree with Jeff; today’s Trumpet blast really was surprising. Rachel Maddow pointed out last night (as I have been telling our young folks for weeks now) that the Trump-boom ain’t nothin’ new. She focused on Wallace’s ’68 campaign, and the hateful talks he gave – to cheering white people – and the fact that he won 5 states – threw a serious wrench into the Democratic party’s machinery
3. This reminded me to report that I finished Woodward’s Butterfield book (it was only about 120 pages) which gave me enough Nixon-oddness to cap-off my run of Rockefeller and Kennedy – ’60’s mainstream oddness.
Now I’m in the (surprisingly brief, and strikingly small) Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between the World and Me, which is quite good.
After that, it’s witches in 17th century New England, and then Custer
*contrary to today’s headline
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Suzanne said on January 6, 2016 at 12:52 pm
Yep, haters gonna hate: https://www.facebook.com/NYDailyNews/posts/10153188750242541
Really Fox News?
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Hattie said on January 6, 2016 at 1:00 pm
I read German and am looking at articles and response on Huff Post Germany. Most of it is what you would expect,but the cultural differences are there. One is an underlying assumption that women should serve men and never antagonize them. The corollary is that those women who were attacked must have done something to deserve what happened to them. Additionally, the thinking about women’s rights is like something out of the 50s or 60s. One commenter even said the women had it coming because they were advertising sex without delivering the goods. And that underexposed 15 year old sluts were driving men mad. So they are nuts on the subject but the cultural differences make for a slightly different mode of nuttiness.
The stuff about immigrants and refugees is about would you would expect: expressions of racism, tolerance,hypocrisy,etc.etc. in the comments.
Germany is so male dominated, Merkel notwithstanding,that the Huff Post is about the only place I’ve seen extensive pieces and comments by women outside the traditional realms assigned to them. I’m researching the differences now.
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Deborah said on January 6, 2016 at 1:08 pm
I need some advice from you dog owners. We have a neighbor, a young single woman, relatively newly moved in who has a beautiful dog, looks like a golden retriever, that she allows to roam around the neighborhood at all hours. The dog (a female) was in our backyard at 4:30 this morning. She shits all over the place in our yard and leaves her chew toys hither and yon. That’s aggravating but it also makes me worry for the dog’s safety. Our building is at a dead end and cars come tearing down the narrow lane to turn around in our parking lot which has become the dog’s playground. I worry about the dog and it’s not fair for me to have to do that. Little Bird has already talked to the young woman once and this morning we wrote her a carefully worded note. She doesn’t live in our 5 unit building, but in one of the nearby houses which is a furnished unit, most of the people who have moved in there don’t stay long, it seems to be a kind of temporary place for people to live until they find something permanent or until they move back out of town for whatever reason. We’re hoping this young woman is on a short term lease but it’s hard to know. There is a fence and a gate around her property but there are big gaps in the gate that the dog can get through easily, and dog’s owner very well knows this. The woman is very young and doesn’t seem very responsible. My question to you is what else can we do? I have thought about offering to get her some chicken wire or something to make the gate more secure and helping her install it, but I’m a little peeved that I would have to bother with that. Of course Santa Fe has laws about not letting your dog run around like that but I don’t want to get into calling in the authorities. There are also plenty of dog parks where she could take her dog to romp and play safely under her supervision.
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Hattie said on January 6, 2016 at 1:45 pm
More top of my head stuff on the Cologne incident: There was a very short clip on Spiegel Online interviewing women at a demo against the foot-dragging of the press and police.
The young women said they were groped on public transportation, accosted on the streets and in general were feeling less and less safe in public. One older woman said it was a change in the culture caused by North African immigrants.
With the lack of substantive reporting on the incident, that’s where it stands now. Very fragmentary.
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Hattie said on January 6, 2016 at 1:47 pm
Sorry for mistake filled posts but trying to get the goods here across the language barrier.
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nancy said on January 6, 2016 at 1:52 pm
Hard to see this as being ignored by the press at this point. It’s on Page One of the New York Times, and half of right-wing social media is using it to demonstrate how cultures were never intended to mix, etc.
I’m more interested in what seems to be a coordinated assault. It sounds like a very large crowd of men swept into a densely packed area and started playing Grope the Whore (you realize I’m using that term ironically, right?). It suggests planning of some sort, but what a thing to plan — it doesn’t really count as terrorism in the classic, violent sense, and if they really wanted to spread fear, I’d think the more isolated gang rapes perpetrated in India would be the model.
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Deborah said on January 6, 2016 at 2:21 pm
I think we had a thread about this a few months back. I remember when walking down the street as a teenager, wearing perfectly normal clothes resulted in guys cat calling from cars passing by. I don’t think that happens as much anymore to young women. I realize there are still times and places when/where it does happen, but it seems to be less from my observation. I also remember when friends of mine when we were in our early 20s would travel to Spain or Italy would tell stories of literally having to run from place to place when they were out alone because they would be chased and harassed by young men. I don’t think that happens as much anymore, at least I never saw it when I have been in Spain or Italy in the last few years. The groping reports are troubling and sad, not that general harassing is OK, not at all, but the physical aspect is an escalation. Also, obviously this coordination of the despicable behavior by multitudes is scary.The world seems to be devolving in so many ways, or maybe it’s always been that way and I didn’t hear about it. It’s certainly depressing.
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nancy said on January 6, 2016 at 2:39 pm
When Heather went to Portugal a few weeks back, I was reminded of a story a friend told me, about having the most miserable vacation of her life in Lisbon, thanks to near-constant street harassment that crossed every line of decency, which is to say, as bad as the comments were, some men actually touched her. This woman had long blonde hair, which some people told her was an incitement in swarthy Portugal. Heather never mentioned not enjoying herself, so I assume she didn’t have a similar experience, but it’s one of those things I worry about as Kate gets older and will inevitably want to travel the world.
Interestingly, a couple I used to work with quit the paper to join the Peace Corps, and served in Islamic Central Asia. The woman also had long blonde hair, and said that while it always drew stares, no one ever said or did anything untoward to her. A few would ask if they could touch it, and she usually let them, but they were always respectful and always asked first. Better manners, maybe.
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Heather said on January 6, 2016 at 2:59 pm
That’s interesting, Nancy, because I experienced wayyyy less street harassment in Lisbon (none) than I have in cities such as Paris or Rome. I remarked on it to my friend and she thought it was because Portugal has a more formal culture. Maybe I didn’t have that experience because I’m older now, or because I passed for Portuguese, at least until I started talking.
The Cologne things remind me of the incidents at the New York Puerto Rican parade, what, a dozen years ago? Where a lot of guys suddenly started circling and attacking women. It was big news, same M.O. as what happened in Germany.
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Heather said on January 6, 2016 at 3:00 pm
The U.S. incident I mentioned was 16 years ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/13/nyregion/35-scary-minutes-women-tell-police-of-assaults-in-park.html?pagewanted=all
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nancy said on January 6, 2016 at 3:01 pm
I should probably note that this woman’s experience happened in the mid-80s, too. Jeez, am I old.
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Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 3:09 pm
Deborah, you might wait a few days, say until Sunday, and, if your carefully worded note doesn’t work, write another saying that, while you’d hate to do do, for the sake of the dog’s safety and your own peace of mind, you’ll report her to the authorities if she doesn’t take care of the problem within 48 hours. You’d be giving her one more explicit warning, which is fairly generous in that it’d be the third time you tried to address the situation with her. You could, I suppose, offer to help install the chicken wire, but I wouldn’t offer to pay for it.
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Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 3:12 pm
Men in packs. Always bad news.
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Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 3:35 pm
Some afternoon entertainment: On Twitter, WaPo writers (and some readers) are celebrating the birthday of the Style section by posting links to their favorite Style pieces. Use the hashtag #StyleFaves to find ’em. Here, a sweet 1990 piece about color crayons by the great Henry Allen. Many, many other delightful pieces to peruse.
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Deborah said on January 6, 2016 at 3:36 pm
I had a business trip in Portugal back in the mid 90s. My meetings were in the city of Oporto. When I arrived at my hotel from the airport in a cab, without thinking I handed the driver a tip with my fare. He acted really embarrassed and refused the tip. I didn’t think much about it except that it was probably customary not to tip there, except when I mentioned it at a business lunch my client said that it was bad form for a woman alone to tip a man in their culture. So I certainly didn’t do it again.
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brian stouder said on January 6, 2016 at 3:42 pm
This dovetails (in a fairly direct way) the
Ta-Nehisi Coates prose I’ve been reading.
As a dad of daughters, including one who has seen Guatemala and who looks forward to seeing more of the world, this can instill (within me) the sort of surfable fear that Donald-the-Dude Trump is hangin’-10 on
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MichaelG said on January 6, 2016 at 4:06 pm
My wife was born and raised in Lisbon and I have traveled there with her several times. I never witnessed nor did I ever hear anything from her about rude male conduct toward women.
On the other hand, I see it every day here in my neighborhood. “Hey, Baby…” From pedestrian males and from car windows. I don’t know how the women and girls put up with it.
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Judybusy said on January 6, 2016 at 4:06 pm
When I travelled with my blonde, attractive niece in Italy in 2011, I did warn her about possible harassment. It happened only once, and it went over her head since it was in Italian. I just ignored the guys and nothing more happened. I travelled to Brazil at age 20 and got a couple comments, but nothing as scary as Germany.
Deborah, I agree with Jolene’s approach. I am biased because you all may recall one of our cats was killed by a dog whose owner often let him off leash. I would have no hesitation in calling the authorities at this point because of this experience. That cat’s sister is now 19, hanging in there, but we still miss her brother after 16 months. I work at being a good, responsible dog owner, and it really bothers me when others are careless.
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Deborah said on January 6, 2016 at 4:09 pm
Here’s my two cents about the Bundy ridiculousness in Oregon. Can you tell I’m bored? It’s snowing again so I’m stuck inside (again). While I think the situation is idiotic, I will say that the BLM is not a well managed agency. Having “Management” in their title is oxymoronic. Our land in Abiquiu has a lot of BLM land around it. We back up to a national forest (Carson Nat’l Forest) and we look out on to a large swath of BLM land. It doesn’t seem to take care of business very efficiently. It’s a weird combo of public and private, maybe that’s why. They allow cattle to graze on some of it around us with certain restrictions and fees but they aren’t very good at collecting the fees or monitoring the use. A vast amount of land in the west is BLM land and I suspect the problems aren’t all in northern NM. It’s funny to us how many people we know in Chicago have never heard of the BLM and don’t have a clue what it is. And these are very intelligent people too. Even after the first Bundy situation in Nevada, when it was all over the news. When the old Bundy guy racked up a million in fees, something is wrong with this picture, I mean that must have taken decades.
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Kirk said on January 6, 2016 at 4:13 pm
Dogs are like guns. Way more people have them than are fit to take care of them.
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Heather said on January 6, 2016 at 4:15 pm
As a tangent, I will add that I loved, loved, loved Lisbon and have nothing bad to say about it. You should all go.
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Jakash said on January 6, 2016 at 4:21 pm
That IS a sweet piece about crayons, Jolene. Of course, we were not one-percenters, so I don’t know if we ever actually had an official box of 64, though friends certainly did. ; ) I shudder to mention it, but we often had generic crayons, if you can imagine stooping so low…
“one of the 20 most recognizable smells among American adults” Indeed, and probably the most evocative one, for me.
Has the “coloring for adults” trend been discussed here at nn.c? Is it a charming, nostalgic, stress-reducing hobby or another sign of the infantilization of America, along with 40-year-olds dressing up and carrying light sabers to wait in line for a sci-fi movie? All I know is that I can’t see my mom or dad participating in either, though that’s not necessarily the gold standard for determining what makes sense…
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nancy said on January 6, 2016 at 4:24 pm
I vote for infantilizing.
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brian stouder said on January 6, 2016 at 4:28 pm
Deborah, the other day I heard a reporter reference “the sagebrush rebellion of the ’70’s” –
and then I vaguely remembered a teacher I had in junior high school (circa 1975) who had a big, color-coded line drawing of the United States with the header “FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND”.
This was before everyone had computers and printers – and I believe it was a project that a student had painstakingly produced.
‘Course, most of the west was a big orange splotch – and I thought “Oh, uh-huh”.
Leaving aside grazing land, presumably the 21st century contest is for mineral rights (ie – oil)…
but in any case, the last people on this damned Earth that have any right to bitch about “government” are the westerners!!
America’s move west was one big super-sized ‘guhmint program’ – even the big cattle drives that gave rise to the cowboy mythology and ethos was driven by government contracts to feed the US army. (and let’s not forget the transcontinental railroad project, or the homestead act, both of which were also massive government programs!)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 6, 2016 at 4:48 pm
My American Indian friends, interestingly, find all this Bundy/YallQaeda stuff funny. Funny in a bitter, sardonic sort of way, but funny. Along the lines of “It’s a bitch getting pushed off of land you had every reason to just sort of assume was yours through use and right, isn’t it? We feel your pain. Maybe you need a good long sweat, eh? Come sit over here, look out for the rocks.”
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Brandon said on January 6, 2016 at 5:04 pm
Has the “coloring for adults” trend been discussed here at nn.c? Is it a charming, nostalgic, stress-reducing hobby or another sign of the infantilization of America, along with 40-year-olds dressing up and carrying light sabers to wait in line for a sci-fi movie?
33. nancy said on January 6, 2016 at 4:24 pm
I vote for infantilizing.
Not as bad as the aforementioned Star Wars cosplay or full-body zippered pajamas, with Superman logo, in the menswear section of department stores.
—–
Girls to end after season six. Six seasons!
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Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 5:25 pm
I vote for coloring as infantilizing too. There are lots of hobbies that are probably not much more demanding of skill or creativity, but still . . .
You are exactly right about the Homestead Act, Brian. My great-grandfather was a homesteader. Prior to that, he was, I think, pretty much a hooligan. There’s a family rumor that he was chased by federal marshals for selling liquor to Native Americans. I don’t know how much truth there is to that rumor, but it was the Homestead Act that made him a landowner and, thus, the foundation for prosperity in subsequent generations. Affirmative action for white people, I call it.
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Charlotte said on January 6, 2016 at 6:41 pm
A couple of links about land management/Bundys:
Salon on land management: https://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/no_ones_talking_about_land_use_regardless_of_what_the_bundys_think_we_still_need_the_feds_controlling_public_lands/
TPM on why they picked the bird refuge (a refuge the Hammonds had been violating for decades, which is why they were “targeted” (or justly prosecuted) by the BLM and refuge managers: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/why-malheur-wildlife-preserve-is-relevant-in-the-militia-fight
Here’s a piece on why the Bundys haven’t been more aggressively prosecuted: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/bundy-oregon-showdown
And there was a good op-ed in the NY Times this morning (something I find myself saying less and less these days):http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/opinion/in-oregon-myth-mixes-with-anger.html
There is also a separate issue of private rich guys buying up ranches that come with big grazing allotments and closing them to the public … sometimes using “public/private partnerships” like the Nature Conservancy and American Prairie Reserve to push agendas that mostly serve to lock up land in private hands. Those guys seem far more insidious to me — they sound so reasonable, they have such nice Patagonia outfits, they serve you such lovely food and put you up in nice lodgings on their private reserves while telling you how they’re saving the world. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.
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Sherri said on January 6, 2016 at 6:42 pm
Don’t forget all the government funded water projects in the West, too. When I was growing up in the Tennessee, there was still great appreciation for FDR for TVA, at least, because there were people still living who could remember life before electricity was widely available. That seems to have faded. I don’t know if there was a similar appreciation in the West for what the federal government accomplished, or if the myth of the rugged individualist has always held sway over that.
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Jolene said on January 6, 2016 at 6:57 pm
On TV tonight: A new season of “American Crime,” an anthology show, meaning that each season begins with a new story and a new cast of characters, though, in this case, with some of the same very good actors. Here is Hank’s review. Short version: He thinks it’s very good. On ABC at 10 PM EST.
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David C. said on January 6, 2016 at 7:53 pm
Deborah @17. When tRump rants about PC, I have no doubt a lot of what he longs for are the good old days when men could harass women and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it. If it does end up with him going against Hillary, he’s going to get even uglier than he has been. She’ll mop the floor with him.
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brian stouder said on January 6, 2016 at 8:22 pm
David C – given tRump’s hairstyle, the imagery you provided of Sec Clinton ‘mopping the floor’ with him got me laughing out loud!
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Deborah said on January 6, 2016 at 11:22 pm
We started watching Borgen tonight. I bought the DVD set of 3 seasons. I know some of you had watched it before, is that all there is? Just 3 seasons or does it continue? We watched the first 2 episodes of season 1. It’s quite good.
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Sherri said on January 7, 2016 at 2:12 am
Just 3 seasons, Deborah. I loved Borgen.
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Brandon said on January 7, 2016 at 2:16 am
https://newrepublic.com/article/126580/radical-history-1960s-adult-coloring-books
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Linda said on January 7, 2016 at 6:17 am
The best, pithiest takedown of the Western myth was,camazingly, by George Will, decades before he became a predictable hack, something to the effect that Western ranchers made the average welfare mother look like the model of self-sufficiency.
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Suzanne said on January 7, 2016 at 7:23 am
A few weeks back, some Facebook friend of mine posted pictures of her finished adult coloring book creations with a mention of how many hours it took her to finish. I don’t know. I guess to each his/her own, but it seamed a little silly to me. But then, even though I spend too darn much time on Facebook, much of it is spent thinking, “Really?? Did I need to know that about you?? And no, I am not going to type Amen to receive God’s blessings.”
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basset said on January 7, 2016 at 7:45 am
the smell of crayons… back in the 80s I was in Winfield, Kansas right after a tornado tore a big section of exterior wall off the Crayola factory there, exposing the melting vats. Could smell it a long way off.
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beb said on January 7, 2016 at 8:32 am
Considering the stream of stories about girls being sent home from school because their clothes were deemed too sexy for the boys I don’t think America is all that different from Germany.
Adult* coloring books strike me as something for people to do who have too much time on their hands and don’t know what to do with it. If I’m bored I read. Of course I’d read even when I have a ton of stuff to do. Infantilizing always seemed to me to imply assuming a level of helplessness.
* Adult is one of those words, like gay, I wish we could get back from the smutty world.
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brian stouder said on January 7, 2016 at 9:07 am
If this ‘adult coloring book’ discussion had been occurring one month ago, I’d have said “Huh? Wha?” –
but as the extended-family Christmas get-togethers occurred last month, I learned about it.
I’m with Beb; gimme prose to ponder, rather than lines to color within*, and I’m happy.
If nothing else, tidbits will attaché themselves to you, and come out of your mouth in general conversation, and/or you’ll do OK as the family watches Jeopardy
*and indeed, these coloring books are quite intricate, and if you price the colored pencils (or whatever they call them) the next time you’re in Michaels (or wherever) – you will be AMAZED how expensive they are! Forget Crayola’s 64-pack. If memory serves, a packet of 12 colored pencils (or whatever) is in the almost-$20+ range…!
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Heather said on January 7, 2016 at 9:14 am
I thought the point of the coloring books was the meditative aspect, not the final product. But I don’t know. Why not just color or draw?
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alex said on January 7, 2016 at 9:34 am
I have an early memory of coloring. Or not coloring, as it were. In nursery school I absolutely hated coloring. Holding the crayons and applying pressure made my fingers hurt. And if I colored a person’s face blue, or made an animal like a rabbit or a dog purple or green or whatever color, the crotchety old bag in charge would chew me out for using wrong colors. So I would just pass off other already-done pictures in the coloring books as my own. Until one day when the old bitch called me on it. She recognized a picture as one I’d presented before. I think I got slapped for it and had to miss out on cookies and milk that day. It was a Lutheran nursery school. My mom stuck me there because it only a block from home and it gave her a few hours of time for herself each day.
Eventually I came to like using crayons as I got older and art class was one of the few things I loved in school.
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Connie said on January 7, 2016 at 9:37 am
I’m with you Brian, give me a book. I never could color within the lines, don’t expect to be able to start now.
Adult coloring get togethers is a new trend for library programs. The debates librarians have had online regarding whether copying pages of a coloring book is fair use or a copyright violation are quite amusing.
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Bob (not Greene) said on January 7, 2016 at 9:49 am
Oh, look, if you want to give coloring a whirl in your dotage, I know where you can buy a poster. I know the guy who creates them personally! https://www.etsy.com/listing/257337896/my-big-electric-coloring-poster?ref=shop_home_active_3
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 7, 2016 at 10:43 am
Just looking at the words “Burnt Sienna” leaves me in a wistful reverie. And I’ve barely been out of the Midwest much. Thank you, Crayola.
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Judybusy said on January 7, 2016 at 11:41 am
I’m with the rest of you about the coloring fad. It especially seems to appeal to women, and I can see it as an act of meditation. However, my first reaction– was that it was infantilizing–remains my core opinion about it. There are a dozen things I’d rather do: read, cook, garden, bike, take the dog for a walk, make love, write in my journal, volunteer, XC ski, go birdwatching, clean house, watch a good movie. In no particular order.
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