the Scott Stein http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/ en-us 2007-01-11T19:01+00:00 Under the Knife http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1165957124.shtml I've been blogging even less than usual the past two weeks, and expect that to continue for maybe another few days leading into Christmas. At least this time I have an... Scott Stein 2006-12-19T17:12+00:00
It wasn't anything major--I had my deviated septum undeviated--but it was surgery and was the first time I've ever been under general anesthesia. I've had "conscious sedation" a few times before, but this was the first time for the real thing, in a hospital with the tube down my throat and all that. I wasn't particularly worried, though I wasn't looking forward to the discomfort that I was told might come after, if there was packing in my nose and I had to breathe through my mouth (it turned out that there was no packing, but I still couldn't breathe through my nose, and probably won't be able to well until I see the doctor on Thursday). I understood that it is a minor procedure, as these things go, and I knew of a few people who had the operation with no complications. But I also knew of one person--the first cousin of a good friend of ours, a man in his twenties--who never woke up, the sort of freak thing that makes people nervous about anesthesia. But you can't live your life worrying too much about freak things, and I had the surgery because I believed it would help in my ongoing epic battle with nasal allergy symptoms. It remains to be seen how much it helps. Anyway, I had no complications. Like I said, not a big deal, though my nose feels like it's going to explode at the moment.

For the record, I did not use the deviated septum as an excuse to get a nose job. As several of my Jewish friends and colleagues joked upon learning of my surgical plans, "It's a shame you don't have a real Jewish nose, since they're going to be working on it anyway." Alas, my nose is a stereotype-defying disgrace to my heritage and, though it is currently swollen, I am already about as handsome as a man can be.

I am dashing this off in a semi-lucid haze, before the painkillers send me back to sleep. While I ordinarily don't need an excuse not to post anything for a few days, now I have one, and I'm using it (though maybe I'll have something else shortly). While you're waiting for my return, you can visit Book Promotion, Next Level, and actually spend some time touring the sites mentioned there. Consider participating. ]]> Greatest Hits http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1158089351.shtml I'm busy making what I hope will be final edits on my forthcoming novel, Mean Martin Manning, and will probably have little time for blogging for several days. So I'm... Scott Stein 2006-09-12T19:09+00:00 Mean Martin Manning, and will probably have little time for blogging for several days. So I'm going to steal a page from the music industry and, like a rock group that releases a greatest hits collection after recording only two studio albums, I will post links here to the greatest hits of the Scott Stein. I've been blogging since June 2006, almost a whole four months, and if you're just discovering me or came to my blog late, here's a good sampling:

I wrote about technology in Digital Cameras and Lost Childhood Memories and Serendipity Still Serendipitous.

Only a Theory is about bumper stickers and Evolution.

Be Happy They Wear Those Gloves (or Annals of Desperate TV Writing, ER Edition) takes on the sexual habits of America's most popular doctors.

In Armstrong--Harder than Hard, I distinguish between Neil and Lance.

Happy Birthday recounts my son's birth and is a reminder of how fortunate we are.

Meaning Enough offers a closer look at the copy on a toy package.

I note political correctness at war with itself in "At Risk for Overweight" and do some math after getting a sandwich in Lies, Damn Lies, and Subway.

In Praise of Consumer Culture is my answer to people "sick of the excesses of a nation..."

The challenges of writing and publishing are detailed in The Story of a Story: "The Stacker" and Novel Beginnings.

I proposed the Circumcision Jewish Conspiracy Theory, which for some reason has not yet caught on.

Here and there I've been posting brief reviews called "Book Notes."

For my humorous fiction, read Kangaroo Court and The Last Peanut.

Finally, I gave One More Reason I'm Not on NPR and tackled hysterical book blurb nonsense with This Is Not Chick Lit, or, What Gloria Steinem Doesn't Know Could Fill a Book, my most popular post to date, since Frank Wilson and Reason's Hit and Run both linked to it, which led to others linking to it.

That's it for the first four months. I hope this keeps you busy and entertained for a few days and makes you want to subscribe (free) or visit every week. And, of course, please read more about Mean Martin Manning.
]]> Customer Service Award http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1157675061.shtml At the deli counter I ordered lunch to go. "Turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato, light mustard."... Scott Stein 2006-09-08T00:09+00:00
"Dark mustard?" she asked, taking notes.

"Yes." It was close enough.

"What kind of bread?"

"Rye."

"White?"

"No, rye."

"Rye," she said, writing it down. "Sorry about that."

A couple of minutes later I was home and ready to eat my sandwich. It really was a delicious turkey on white bread with mayo.]]> The Suburban Author in his Natural Habitat http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1156604888.shtml ... Scott Stein 2006-08-26T15:08+00:00
Photo credit: Mrs. the Scott Stein

If this picture makes you hungry, that's because it should. I don't mess around.
]]> Circumcision Jewish Conspiracy Theory http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1155156636.shtml At my nephew's bris a couple of weeks ago, my son asked me to hold him up so he could see what the doctor/mohel was doing. I tried to explain. "Why... Scott Stein 2006-08-09T20:08+00:00 Independent Online (via Drudge), "Male circumcision 'lowers risk of HIV infection by 60%'." We'll see whether this increases the procedure's popularity, and whether the study stands up to scrutiny.

In any case, some will continue to oppose male circumcision. One of the arguments I've heard is that it decreases sensitivity and sexual enjoyment for the man. If this is at all true, I have trouble believing that there is a major difference. As a circumcised man myself, I can't imagine sex being much more enjoyable than it already is. But if it is true, it leads me to a conspiracy theory, which I had fun making up today after reading the Independent Online piece and Michael Medved's column, "Why the world hates the Jews," (whatever you might make of it), in succession.

Some people argue that the Jews have a genetic intelligence advantage, which accounts for their disproportionate representation in medicine and law and their achievements in business. Some argue that they have a culture shaped by history that emphasizes success and education, which accounts for their disproportionate representation in medicine and law and their achievements in business. And of course, there are all sorts of sinister conspiracy theories that try to account for their disproportionate representation in medicine and law and their achievements in business.

I would like to propose the Circumcision Jewish Conspiracy Theory to account for their disproportionate representation in medicine and law and their achievements in business. It's simple, really. Circumcision leads to decreased enjoyment of sex, though not decreased enough to prevent the propagation of the genetic lines of those circumcised. But it does decrease sexual pleasure just enough to allow men to focus on something other than getting laid, at least part of the time. Its effect is probably most pronounced in the hormone-saturated teen years, which explains why Jews excel in school in comparison to their circumcision-deprived peers, and why so many end up going to medical school. Achievement during these years has lifelong ramifications. Over the generations this slight edge in ability to think of something other than sex has been the cause of the Jewish cultural valuing of education and the achievements of the Jews as a people, a slow, cumulative consequence of thousands of years of cut penises and slightly decreased sexual pleasure.

If the theory is correct, then we should see increased rates of achievement from nations and ethnic groups that reflects their percentage of circumcised men and the percentage of male circumcision for past generations.

One objection could be that male circumcision leaves out half the population--women. But it doesn't. For one, less voracious sexual appetites among men would also leave women with more time and energy to focus on concerns other than sex. Also, to the extent that patriarchal societies were guided in intellectual and economic achievement by men, because women were excluded from these activities, we would expect male circumcision to have a disproportionate overall impact on the group's achievement levels as a whole. Even in societies where women are no longer excluded, the cultural pattern would have been established long ago, when women were excluded. Thus, we see that the effects of male circumcision reaches down through the centuries. This poses challenges for other groups, who might wish to emulate the Jewish success that was caused by male circumcision. Even if these groups begin to approach the near 100% circumcision rate of Jews, it would be many generations before the groups reaped the circumcision windfall.

If you think it's a stupid theory, you're right. I don't know that it's much stupider than some of the stuff people say on the subject. Anyway, if you'd like to add to the silliness, feel free to post a comment to rebut or support the Circumcision Jewish Conspiracy Theory.

(Note: Whether this attempt at humor is in good taste or not, and whether there is anything funny here or not, is for the reader to determine, but I won't provide a forum for bigotry, and will remove comments as needed. I don't want real conspiracy theories. Just the mock ones.)
]]> Literary Snobs Looking for Love http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1154536881.shtml Thanks to Frank Wilson, I read this story in the Guardian Unlimited about people judging in a romantic way and even flirting with people based on the books they... Scott Stein 2006-08-02T16:08+00:00 Frank Wilson, I read this story in the Guardian Unlimited about people judging in a romantic way and even flirting with people based on the books they are reading in bookstores and elsewhere. I'm sure lots of us judge people by the books on display in their homes (or the lack thereof), by the books they tell us they're currently reading, or even by the music they listen to or movies they like. Maybe judge isn't the right word. It could just be curiosity. If you're like me, when you see someone reading a book, you want to know what it is. Maybe the curiosity has an element of judgment in it, or for some is a pathetic sort of self-esteem boosting, or is just a search for kindred souls. The Guardian Unlimited article focused on the flirting aspect. That I don't do. I am not trying to find a date based on reading preferences. There was a time, though...

I was going on a first date with a woman who lived near Philadelphia. I lived in Manhattan, and we shared a couple of phone calls before the date, though we had briefly met in person, so it wasn't blind. We knew little about each other. The person who gave me her number had told this woman that I was a writer (at the time I had a couple of published stories, an unpublished novel, and an MFA degree). During our first phone conversation, she asked me, innocently enough, if I'd read any Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I liked Marquez (still do), but what mattered was that she didn't ask me if I'd read any James Patterson. I was more militant about my literature back then--if she'd wanted to know if I shared her appreciation for a hack, I would have looked forward to the first date with less enthusiasm. I don't know if I would have canceled it, but that she enjoyed a good book was definitely a plus. I wasn't that big a literary snob--if she wasn't kind, didn't look good or have a sense of humor, or couldn't hold up her end of a witty conversation, we wouldn't be approaching our seventh wedding anniversary, no matter what she liked to read.

I’m less a literary snob now, have been cured to some extent of the MFA affliction. That someone enjoys a fluffy book here and there doesn’t mean anything to me. Some of the people I’m closest to in the world wouldn’t know a good book if it fell on them. Some of them have a better chance of having a book--any book--fall on them than actually reading one. Plenty of people read nothing but good books and are miserable ignoramuses. And plenty of books that are anointed good, by people in a position to be anointing things, suck. Anyway, I don’t object to a good thriller or a beach read. My wife enjoys a diversionary novel as much as anyone. Still, as a writer, I’m glad that I married someone who read The Life of Pi and, despite really liking it, was concerned about the ending enough to make me read it to see if I would have the same problem she did. (I did.) She isn’t a writer (she’s a teacher), but delights in finding the one false note, a skill I have come to value. Not that I was hoping to marry an editor, but when so much of your life is devoted to writing novels, it’s nice to share that life with someone who knows when one is good.]]> Don't Feed the Animals http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1153927009.shtml ... Scott Stein 2006-07-26T15:07+00:00 Meaning Enough http://scottstein.powerblogs.com/posts/1153101361.shtml One of the presents my son got at his birthday party today was Imaginext's T-Rex Mountain (by Fisher Price). The toy features sound effects, lights, moving parts, dinosaurs, and cave men... Scott Stein 2006-07-17T01:07+00:00
When I was in advertising, I wrote copy for toy packaging (dog toys, too), so I know how full of shit the descriptions on these things can be. It's my guess that the copy on T-Rex Mountain's box is not ideologically driven. Most likely, someone in the marketing department believes that some parent out there might have additional motivation to buy the toy because the box says the following (complete and unedited):
Imagine...a primitive civilization of humans and dinosaurs, living in a lush, green land. One side--the predators--is using up its natural resources, wiping out everything and everyone that gets in their way. The other side--the ecovores--wants to preserve their land. And they're willing to fight to make that happen. The battle begins at T-Rex Mountain: Will the predators succeed in destroying the land, causing their own extinction? Or will the ecovores stop the destruction and make the land a place where dinosaurs and humans can live together peacefully for all time? In the world of Imaginext, anything is possible!
Ecovores? For pure nonsense, it's hard to think of its equal. Not that there's any point in deconstructing the babble on the side of a toy box. The toy itself has no message and gives no indication of eco-anything, so the eco-copy must have been added later, after the toy was developed. The packaging will be in the trash tomorrow and my son will not encounter any incoherent socially conscious messages on the box, as it should be. Because for four-year-olds, an epic battle between dinosaurs and cave men is meaning enough.

On a related note, see Nick Gillespie's "Suffer the Little Children: The grim 'fun' of highly partisan kid lit"]]>