The .Plan

Today’s XKCD was too good not to post. (Click for full size)

Michael Vick gets arrested for making dogs fight and killing the ones that can’t. What happens next is predictable:

He said that he was “disappointed in myself” and that “dogfighting is a terrible thing and I … reject it.”

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Vick said. “Not for one second will I sit right here and point the finger and try to blame anybody else for my actions or what I’ve done.

“Through this situation I’ve found Jesus,” he added. He vowed to redeem himself, saying, “I have to.”
–Vick pleads guilty, apologizes, CNN, August 27, 2007

Well. At least he didn’t say, ‘I need to go to rehab‘.

In 2005, Neil Strauss published a book entitled The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists in which he profiled Erik Von Markovik, also known as “Mystery”, apparently one of the most successful pickup artists in the world. Von Markovik went on to write his own book, How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed: The Mystery Method. He now makes a living by helping men do exactly that.

These days, Von Markovik is getting press because he now has his own reality television show on VH1 entitled “The Pick-Up Artist“. Part “The Apprentice”, part “America’s Next Top Model”, and part “Survivor”, this television show follows 8 socially incapacitated men — including the requisite “45 year-old virgin” — who have been given the honor of participating in Von Markovik’s training program on how to pick up women. They are competing for the title of “Master Pickup Artist”.

The first two episodes of this show have been compelling enough to generate repeat viewings. There is just enough character development to make viewers wince when ‘Spoon’ (Stephen Poon) admits to the camera, “I’ve never failed… because I’ve never asked a woman out”. It’s big fun to watch Von Markovik (and his wingmen, ‘J Dog’ and ‘Matador’) teach their tried-and-true methods for bedding beautiful women. And, although the guys are competing against each other for the title of “Master Pickup Artist”, in contrast to many reality television programs these contestants seem to have developed genuine attachments to each other; they find solidarity in their collective ineptness when it comes to picking up women.

Yet, while watching scene after scene of failed pickups can be quite amusing, there is something off-color about what is going on. Something happened to me this weekend to illuminate the underbelly of this humor.

In his book How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed: The Mystery Method, Von Markovik discusses one tactic known as “negging”. In a nutshell, the “neg” is a strategically placed comment that is more or less an insult targeted at a woman in conversation. It is designed to lower her self esteem and make her more vulnerable to the guy’s advances. This is how Von Markovik describes the “neg”:

A “neg” is a concept. A “neg” is a statement or action one would make to briefly disqualify oneself from being considered a potential suitor. It’s not an insult, I’m not putting the girl down. For instance, if I’m in a group of people and I say, perhaps to my girl of interest, “Hey, can you pass me that napkin, please? Thank you.” I go to blow my nose and I look at her and I say, “What, are you gonna watch?” She’ll laugh, of course, and I’ll blow my nose. I’m not insulting her by doing that but I am disqualifying myself as being considered a potential suitor. Her friends know I’m not after her — I’m blowing my nose in front of her!

Then the friends are disarmed and she’s gonna think to herself, “He’s not after me.” If she’s particularly beautiful, she’s gonna wonder why. The only solution to why is either that he’s gay, in which case he’s not threatening, or he’s so accustomed to beauty that he must have beauty in his life. So he must be pretty selective and a hard-wired attraction switch gets triggered.
–Tracy Clark-Flory, “The Artful Seducer”, Salon, August 6, 2007

This weekend at a former classmate’s wedding, I found myself in a situation in which I was interacting with a woman I had just met. At one point during the conversation, right before a photo, I asked her to check my teeth for any pieces of partially chewed vegetable playing peekabo among my incisors. At that instant, I found myself thinking, “hmmm. I guess that could be a ‘neg’” — even though such a maneuver was the farthest thing from my mind, and even though I had harbored not the slightest interest in scoring a ‘pickup’.

So maybe watching the show isn’t such a great idea.

Only several more years and I can qualify to be the 45 year-old on “The Pickup Artist: Bahama Escape!, Vol. 14″. Let us hope I make it that far.

What does it take to achieve excellence?

Susan Athey is the first woman to win the John Bates Clark Medal (awarded not every year, like the Nobel Prize, but rather only once every other year — to the best economist under 40 in the United States).

Here is a description of her dedication to her craft:

I am going to recount one story about Susan’s work habits. Last year, she was expecting her second child. I got a call that must have been late at night her time. She was trying to complete a few minor things on a project she and I were involved in on timber auctions in Australia. After a few minutes I asked, “So, you must be due soon; how is it going?” Well, apparently, it was going slowly. Susan was clearing her to-do list from the delivery room! We chatted for a while, and for the next hour emails continued to come in. The baby was born soon after.
–Joshua Gans, “Knowledge Network”, Stanford Business Magazine, August 2007

(Hat tip to The .Plan.)

Tomorrow the New England Journal will publish a study that has statistically identified a genetic risk factor for periodic leg movements in sleep. Though this study is identified as being about “periodic leg movements in sleep”, clearly it has implications for reifying the syndrome known as “restless legs syndrome”.

The Restless Legs Foundation is identified as one of the study’s sponsors. GlaxoSmithKline (manufacturer of ropinirole, FDA-approved to treat moderate-to-severe primary “restless legs syndrome”) is identified in the foundation’s 2006 Annual Report as having contributed greater than $250,000 to the foundation. Likewise, Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (manufacturer of pramipexole, also FDA-approved to treat “restless legs syndrome”) is identified as having contributed greater than $150,000. The foundation’s total revenue was $1.48 million in 2006, suggesting that a minimum of 25 percent of revenue was derived from two drug companies with a clear financial motivation to improve the diagnosis and (pharmacological) management of “restless legs syndrome”. The benefits of collaboration between drug companies and the disease treatment advocacy groups they sponsor, as reflected in sales of prescription medications, have been clearly documented (1-5). Although some disease treatment advocacy groups argue that a broad funding base may shield them from undue influence by drug companies (5), readers of the study should note that the Restless Legs Foundation appears to have a narrower revenue stream.

1. Buttle F, Boldrini J. Customer relationship management in the pharmaceutical industry: The role of the patient advocacy group. Journal of Medical Marketing 2001;1:203-214.

2. Moynihan R, Heath I, Henry D. Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering. BMJ 2002;324:886-891.

3. Mintzes B. Should patient groups accept money from drug companies? No. BMJ 2007;334:935.

4. Ginsberg T. Donations tie drug firms and nonprofits. Philadelphia Inquirer, May 28, 2006, page A01.

5. Rubenstein S. Industry fights switch to generics for epilepsy. Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2007, page A1.

This is decent sushi. I recommend the sushi ngiri and sashimi here, especially the toro. The “chef special rolls” are okay, but the sushi chefs unfortunately go overboard when it comes to sauces. For example, the Caterpillar Roll and the Albacore Dream Roll were respectively smothered in eel sauce and ‘house special’ sauce. At the end of your meal, you may have to ask for the coconut-pineapple ice cream — it’s supposed to be free, but when we ate here I think the waitress forgot to bring ours out.

As I was leaving Sushi Bistro and driving down Balboa, I noticed a hole-in-the-wall restaurant between 6th and 7th. Long line outside. Guess I know where my next sushi meal will be.

Funny. Now that I’m actually doing (well, learning about) family therapy, I’ve become much more attuned to patterns of unhealthy discourse between myself and the significant people in my life.

What studies pioneered by John Gottman, a psychologist and emeritus professor at the University of Washington have rather convincingly shown are the marital patterns likely to result in divorce. In his famous “love lab,” the Family Research Laboratory, Gottman observed more than 3,000 couples during three decades of research, analyzing their discourse, including arguments, and recording their physiological responses. What he concluded is that it wasn’t whether people fought 69 percent of his subjects never resolved their conflicts but how they fought. The relatively happy couples did not escalate disagreements; they broke tension with jokes and distraction and made “repairs” after arguments. When wives raised issues gently, for example, neither partner’s heart rate exceeded 95 beats per minute and the ratio of positive to negative comments during a fight was an amazing five to one.
–Laurie Abraham, “Can this Marriage be Saved?”, New York Times Magazine, August 12, 2007

A view from the inside:

‘I can’t date someone with a different belief system” is what he told me… So much for dating a proud, progressive, and ostensibly tolerant liberal. But with him, as with other liberals I know, tolerance does not always extend to appreciating someone else’s differing political views. Now living in Cambridge and having grown up in the suburbs of Boston and gone to school at Yale, I’ve been surrounded by liberals for nearly all of my life. Most would be astonished to hear that they’re the most intolerant people I’ve ever met…

As a gay recovering leftist – to my eternal shame, I canvassed for Ralph Nader in high school – I have grown accustomed to having difficulties in the dating world. At Yale, most people knew me as “the gay conservative” for a column I wrote in the school paper, and my notoriety – not the source of sexy fascination that I might have hoped it to be – certainly did not help my dating prospects…

Most gay people are liberal, and this is somewhat understandable; the left has embraced gay rights as a part of its political agenda, whereas the right, with some important exceptions, has not. But for many gays, liberalism is just as much a visceral, reactionary tendency as it is a positive affirmation of political belief. Many gays I know – especially those from red states – blame conservatism writ large as the villain that repressed them for so many years. Thus, their homosexuality dictates their political views on everything. For these gays, it is just as much a part of the “coming out” process to be a loud liberal as a proud homosexual.

But there’s nothing about my homosexuality that dictates a belief about raising the minimum wage, withdrawing immediately from Iraq, and backing teachers’ unions: all liberal causes that I strongly oppose.
–James Kirchick, “Left Out”, Boston Globe Magazine, August 5, 2007

Stories like this really anger me.

The offender, Larry W. Moore Jr. of Augusta, was convicted in North Carolina in 1994 of indecent liberty with a child, a felony. This week he was convicted for the second time of violating a requirement that he register. Under the new law, a second violation carries an automatic life sentence…

The law requires offenders to register their address and forbids them to live or work within 1,000 feet of not only schools and day care centers but also churches, swimming pools and school bus stops. It expanded the definition of a sex offender and raised penalties for violating registry requirements.

Homelessness is not an acceptable excuse. “One of the requirements when you become a sex offender is you have to have an address,” said Sgt. Ray Hardin of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office in Augusta…

Georgia’s law is not the only one that has made it hard for offenders to maintain legal residences. In Florida, the state authorized five offenders to live under a bridge in Miami after they were unable to find suitable housing that they could afford. In Iowa, a victims’ group found that offenders tried to comply with the registry law by offering addresses like “rest area mile marker 149” or “RV in old Kmart parking lot.”
–Shaila Dewan, “Homelessness Could Mean Life in Prison for Offender”, New York Times, August 3, 2007

Or this one.

In a surprise to parent groups and their lawyers, a judge issued a statewide restraining order Friday prohibiting a self-described pedophile from coming closer than 10 yards to any minor in California…

Noting that it would be hard to walk down the street without running into a minor, Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert and law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called the order “basically expulsion from the state or house arrest.”

“In the absence of legally adequate probable cause, you can’t tell somebody that he can’t walk down the street whenever there’s a child within 30 feet,” Mr. Volokh said.
–Michael Parrish, “State Puts Restrictions on Self-Described Pedophile”, New York Times, August 4, 2007

The running here is definitely not as nice, especially with the unremitting fog cover. But I’m trying.

September 16:

September 30: