Stop caring what anyone else thinks about whether or not you: work, have a nanny, breastfeed, spank, let your kids watch TV, buy organic food, have a pool in the backyard, vaccinate, send your kids to away camp, or any of the other myriad things about which there are differences of opinion. It’s a colossal waste of your energy. As Dr. Spock said, trust yourself. I relish seeing the vicious attacks on this board, because it’s good practice for hardening myself to the outside world’s opinion. No matter what I do, someone will be outraged by it, which I find incredibly liberating – I can do anything I want! Subject, of course, to my own judgment, ethical standards, and economic circumstances, factors that mean a lot more to me than what some outsider thinks.

Wasn’t there recently a study that found that the AIDS epidemic in Africa stems from the fact that many people there engage in sexual networks (i.e, in which each person has multiple partners at any given time) rather than the monogamy or serial monogamy more prevalent in the rest of the world? The theory, I believe, is that if one person becomes infected with HIV and introduces it into the group, over time most of the group will become infected. Serial monogamy is much safer, even if over the long term you have the same number of partners.

Both of my kids, by the age of two, knew that people come in two genders and that certain traits (like wearing skirts or shaving the face) were more-or-less exclusive to one or the other. This strikes me as the most basic human knowledge. They were able by this age to understand much more abstract concepts – to identify letters, colors, and shapes; to count objects; to recognize things in real life that they had only seen drawn in books and vice versa; to know when someone was being silly and laugh accordingly; to understand how the presence of one thing implies that of another, even if it is unseen (e.g., a key implies a lock, an umbrella implies rain, a scoop implies ice cream). People are incredibly smart, and no more so than when they are very young and all about absorbing information and sorting it into patterns. "It was generally assumed that it wasn't until preschool -- when kids split into gender segregated groups -- that they started to recognize gender stereotypes or expectations." This is ridiculous! Perhaps the greatest intellectual triumph of a person’s early years is the learning of language. Are you telling me that it is news to researchers that toddlers understand the difference between the words "he" and "she"? Or how to recognize which of a playmate’s parents is the mommy and which is the daddy? Once a child can distinguish between genders, the unique attributes of each get stored in their brains as reliably as any of the other data they process every day in such copious quantities.

to Toronto.

The cure: having a second child.

The students were equipped with recorders, so they were obviously aware of the study. What exactly were they told about it? If I were in their position, knowing that my words were being recorded, I would probably subconsciously alter my speech patterns. Men might have upped their verbal content so as not to have a lot of "dead air." Women might have lowered theirs by speaking more carefully so they didn't come off as ditzy. In other words, if the subjects knew they were being recorded, I would hardly say the results are valid.

I don't think voters are going to respond to a few isolated raids that result in a couple hundred deportations and a slap on the wrist for a factory owner or two. This will do nothing to stem the tide. It's just all too obvious to everyone that there simply aren't enough negative consequences to disincentivize illegals from coming here or employers from hiring them. If either party gets serious about this issue, that party will sweep in 2008.

Great post.

This is really the only alternative. And tell them why as you're leaving. If enough people leave in protest of poor working conditions (which constant exposure to the Chinese water torture of a relentless, barking cough is), then management will find some way of addressing this problem, whether it be putting the guy in an unused conference room, sending him home on disability, firing him if they can do it legally, etc.

If you don't want to get this drastic, I think it's acceptable to tell the guy every so often, in as nice a way as possible, that his coughing is interfering with your ability to concentrate. The more aware he is of the spill-over effects of his problem, the more aggressive he will be in seeking help. I also think it's acceptable to call your supervisors' attention to the situation, again in as nice and "team-player" a way as possible. If they let you do it and it's feasible *and* it doesn't annoy you too much, I think headphones or ear plugs are a possible solution (this wouldn't work for me as I can't stand the things). But I doubt any of this is going to work.

If I were the cougher I'd be absolutely mortified at causing this much annoyance. Although a lot of vitriol is being directed at the LW here, I don't see anything wrong with him/her anonymously venting an extreme level of irritation to an advice columnist. My tendency is to wonder whether the cougher is being considerate enough of his coworkers as well as the people he has to deal with on the telephone (it's horrible to be coughed at over the phone - sounds like gunshots!).

Why are we supposed to draw lessons from the successes of a "semi-fictionalized" teacher? Where is the hard data, or even the honest anecdote, to back up Kozol’s assertions?