So the Post Office is raising rates again, and in order to soften the blow they're introducing the Liberty Stamp. For 41 cents now, you get a stamp that will always be honored as first class postage.
Now I get the marketing and how this might be a good idea, and as someone who still mails letters and bills frequently I'd be the target demographic to buy up a bunch of them. Say over the next 50 years I'll go through 10,000 stamps. I could buy them up now for $4100.00. Except that's a hunk of change to invest, plus at what point will it be most advantageous for me to use my stockpiled postage? There has to be a cutoff point for most everyone to stop using the USPS because it will be too expensive, and then everything will move to electronic correspondence.
Prediction? Liberty Stamp is a big flop, like the neverending attempts to get Americans to use dollar coins.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
From Front Porch To Back Seat--Beth Bailey
Like many of you, I have heard a lot over the past month about Laura Sessions Stepp's new book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose At Both. I'm 9th in line on CPL's waiting list for it, so in the meantime I turned to this book. I remembered reading it in high school or college and being favorably impressed. On rereading it, I have to say that I'm awfully disappointed that NPR did not think to get Beth Bailey and LSS on air together for a critical thinking skills smackdown on dating through the ages.
Here is the thesis of Unhooked as I have gleaned it from the media coverage: Younguns these days don't have relationships, they just have indiscriminate sex. And they talk about it openly, which is bad. If you want sex, you should be discreet and sneaky about it. And the hookups are bad because they don't allow for the learning curve of how to decide what you want in a partner which is why dating around is such a marvelous thing. Or, girls get themselves into these exclusive proto-marriages in which they stagnate. Oh, and by just having sex you don't learn how to handle negotiation and the relationship skills you need in a long term relationship with a single person. And why women losing out on these valuable skills is something we should be concerned about (as opposed to any relationship skills gap men might have) is because women are the sexual gatekeepers.
No, I am not making this up. Go look up some of the coverage on this book. To complicate matters, LSS's book is supposedly based on some sort of private survey research combined with in-depth interviewing, so it sounds awfully anecdotal, but I haven't read the book.
Bailey's book is historical in nature--she's taking her evidence from articles, college archives, and the like. Like LSS, she concentrates her research on how young people (high school and college aged) dated and courted from about 1900-1960, and what the changes in custom and practices reflect about America and personal relationships. The main thrust is that by about 1920, courting had moved from a practice that took place in a girl's home under her parent's eyes and was a fairly serious step on the course to marriage (think the fundamentalist Christian dating practices of the modern age) to an activity that took place outside the home and involved the purchase of entertainment, food, and the privilege of being in a public space. Therefore, dating becomes less about any personal sparkage than a popularity contest in which girls compete to prove to boys that the pleasure of her company is a valuable commodity worth paying for. Keep in mind, this popularity contest can only function in a stratified and regimented society, hence youth culture. Because really, once you're out of college, you are competing in a different level about different things, no? Mostly.
Also worth noting is that dating is a serious activity that determines a girl's worth, but the goal is to have a lot of beaux for the early part of the century. Then in the 1950's there's a shift, and exclusive relationships are the ideal. Why? WWII. The US didn't lose a whole generation of the men the way Europe did with WWI with 5 years of war and a flu epidemic, leaving a lot of single women with no eligable marriage partners. WWII and the GI Bill brought a lot of men back into an artificial youth culture of the college campus, where men were a scarcity and needed to be snapped up. Plus with the general tone of the time pushed marriage and settling down and rebuilding the country to a generation who had grown up with first the Depression and then the war, and who were frankly tired and exhausted, and the young just adopted the values being pushed on their elders.
But sex! People weren't having all this premarital sex, right? Bullshit!. Sexual activity has always gone along with dating. What has changed is a) what people do (Bailey charts the changes in what is considered acceptable--the Victorians thought that handholding pushed boundaries, but by the 1930's necking and petting are commonplace practices) b) where they do it (namely the car--lookout points and parking spots emerge as a way of using public peer pressure to not let activities go too far) and c) what consequences you face for your activity.
Bailey's book is concise, very enjoyable and illuminating. So far she kicks LSS's ass on the research and thesis, but I'm still waiting for Unhooked.
Here is the thesis of Unhooked as I have gleaned it from the media coverage: Younguns these days don't have relationships, they just have indiscriminate sex. And they talk about it openly, which is bad. If you want sex, you should be discreet and sneaky about it. And the hookups are bad because they don't allow for the learning curve of how to decide what you want in a partner which is why dating around is such a marvelous thing. Or, girls get themselves into these exclusive proto-marriages in which they stagnate. Oh, and by just having sex you don't learn how to handle negotiation and the relationship skills you need in a long term relationship with a single person. And why women losing out on these valuable skills is something we should be concerned about (as opposed to any relationship skills gap men might have) is because women are the sexual gatekeepers.
No, I am not making this up. Go look up some of the coverage on this book. To complicate matters, LSS's book is supposedly based on some sort of private survey research combined with in-depth interviewing, so it sounds awfully anecdotal, but I haven't read the book.
Bailey's book is historical in nature--she's taking her evidence from articles, college archives, and the like. Like LSS, she concentrates her research on how young people (high school and college aged) dated and courted from about 1900-1960, and what the changes in custom and practices reflect about America and personal relationships. The main thrust is that by about 1920, courting had moved from a practice that took place in a girl's home under her parent's eyes and was a fairly serious step on the course to marriage (think the fundamentalist Christian dating practices of the modern age) to an activity that took place outside the home and involved the purchase of entertainment, food, and the privilege of being in a public space. Therefore, dating becomes less about any personal sparkage than a popularity contest in which girls compete to prove to boys that the pleasure of her company is a valuable commodity worth paying for. Keep in mind, this popularity contest can only function in a stratified and regimented society, hence youth culture. Because really, once you're out of college, you are competing in a different level about different things, no? Mostly.
Also worth noting is that dating is a serious activity that determines a girl's worth, but the goal is to have a lot of beaux for the early part of the century. Then in the 1950's there's a shift, and exclusive relationships are the ideal. Why? WWII. The US didn't lose a whole generation of the men the way Europe did with WWI with 5 years of war and a flu epidemic, leaving a lot of single women with no eligable marriage partners. WWII and the GI Bill brought a lot of men back into an artificial youth culture of the college campus, where men were a scarcity and needed to be snapped up. Plus with the general tone of the time pushed marriage and settling down and rebuilding the country to a generation who had grown up with first the Depression and then the war, and who were frankly tired and exhausted, and the young just adopted the values being pushed on their elders.
But sex! People weren't having all this premarital sex, right? Bullshit!. Sexual activity has always gone along with dating. What has changed is a) what people do (Bailey charts the changes in what is considered acceptable--the Victorians thought that handholding pushed boundaries, but by the 1930's necking and petting are commonplace practices) b) where they do it (namely the car--lookout points and parking spots emerge as a way of using public peer pressure to not let activities go too far) and c) what consequences you face for your activity.
Bailey's book is concise, very enjoyable and illuminating. So far she kicks LSS's ass on the research and thesis, but I'm still waiting for Unhooked.
Emma Tupper's Diary--Peter Dickinson
This is one of my favorite childhood books. I was thrilled to find the same edition I read as a kid in a thrift several years ago, and it is one of the keepers from the huge book stash. Published in 1971, its themes and plot have come around again, and a smart production company should scoop it up for a film adaptation. Update the story slightly, transplant the setting to the Finger Lakes, Michigan's Upper Peninsula or Minnesota, and you will have a hit.
Emma Tupper has grown up in Botswana, and now at 14 she's a student at an English boarding school. Her father has arranged for her to spend her summer break with distant cousins she's never met, the McAndrews, in the Scottish Highlands at the ancestral family home. Emma's goal is have an interesting summer that she can chronicle it in her diary and win a school prize (I was a student at an American boarding school, and I can tell you that even in the 1990s we did weird shit like this). Emma's got a cool intellectual independence that makes her a great foil for the McAndrews--imperious and bossy Andy, removed Finn, and rebellious Roddy. The McAndrews start the summer on a low note with news that the family liniment company is failing, and it seems like it will be a quiet summer of sailing, sun and nature walks when inspiration hits.
Since the loch is said to hold a monster like Loch Ness, and since there's a Victorian era mini submarine in the shed that would be usable with a little rehab, and since Andy got dumped by a tv journalist who didn't think he was all that grand, and since they have nothing else pressing to do, why not concoct a con by decking the sub out as a sea creature, inviting the journalist up, and see what happens? And that's what they do. And it would have been great fun, had Roddy and Emma not taken the sub out at night and discovered that there is something special about the loch.
So we have an awesomely outrageous adventure tale with ecological themes, and very snarky British humor. I love this bit where Andy instructs Emma on the family history:
"You see, Cousin Emma," said Andy, "there was this Russian prince who fell in love with your grandmother when he spied her from afar at a Highland Gathering at Balmoral. Instantly, he insinuated himself into the bosom of the family, disguised as a --"
"Labrador retriever?" said Emma, seizing the moment when Andy was slopping a spoonful of fruit into his mouth. She had noticed all the McAndrews using the pauses of eating as a method of thinking up their next lie without seeming to hesitate.
"Shut up. You have no soul, you beastly Saxon. Romance means nothing to you. He disguised himself as a second under-footman, so great was the sacrifice he was prepared to make for love. He paid secret court to your grandmother, poor foolish girl. Her heart was won. The night was fixed. The carriage was ordered, with muffled wheels. A sloop waited at Mallaig, ready to whisk them back to the splendors of the imperial Court. With a beating heart she waited at her window. Came the rattle of hooves on the bridge. Head high, she walked into the dark and climbed up beside the driver. One kiss, then the whip cracked and they were away."
"How super," sighed Miss Newcombe.
"It wasn't as super as all that, actually. Her clock was fast and she'd climbed up beside a travelling trouser salesman called Tupper, who hadn't been having much luck in the Highlands because of our preference for the kilt. He only stopped to ask the way, but after that kiss--"
Andy made the mistake of stopping for another mouthful. Emma, who normally lived in a world of facts, suddenly felt that she could do it too.
"Let me guess the rest," she said. "Everybody in the house rushed wildly in pursuit and was never seen again. The Russian had gone away to prepare for the elopement, and now when he arrived at the right time he found the house empty. So he just waited. He waited for years, and in the end he married and had two boys and a girl. He's still alive, but he has to pretend to be interested in beetles so he can go away to Geneva when anybody comes who might notice his Russian accent. Why don't you all go back to Moscow and claim the throne of the Czars? I'm going to have a double helping of my cream. Will you please tell me the real story some time, Mary?" (54-55)
Emma Tupper has grown up in Botswana, and now at 14 she's a student at an English boarding school. Her father has arranged for her to spend her summer break with distant cousins she's never met, the McAndrews, in the Scottish Highlands at the ancestral family home. Emma's goal is have an interesting summer that she can chronicle it in her diary and win a school prize (I was a student at an American boarding school, and I can tell you that even in the 1990s we did weird shit like this). Emma's got a cool intellectual independence that makes her a great foil for the McAndrews--imperious and bossy Andy, removed Finn, and rebellious Roddy. The McAndrews start the summer on a low note with news that the family liniment company is failing, and it seems like it will be a quiet summer of sailing, sun and nature walks when inspiration hits.
Since the loch is said to hold a monster like Loch Ness, and since there's a Victorian era mini submarine in the shed that would be usable with a little rehab, and since Andy got dumped by a tv journalist who didn't think he was all that grand, and since they have nothing else pressing to do, why not concoct a con by decking the sub out as a sea creature, inviting the journalist up, and see what happens? And that's what they do. And it would have been great fun, had Roddy and Emma not taken the sub out at night and discovered that there is something special about the loch.
So we have an awesomely outrageous adventure tale with ecological themes, and very snarky British humor. I love this bit where Andy instructs Emma on the family history:
"You see, Cousin Emma," said Andy, "there was this Russian prince who fell in love with your grandmother when he spied her from afar at a Highland Gathering at Balmoral. Instantly, he insinuated himself into the bosom of the family, disguised as a --"
"Labrador retriever?" said Emma, seizing the moment when Andy was slopping a spoonful of fruit into his mouth. She had noticed all the McAndrews using the pauses of eating as a method of thinking up their next lie without seeming to hesitate.
"Shut up. You have no soul, you beastly Saxon. Romance means nothing to you. He disguised himself as a second under-footman, so great was the sacrifice he was prepared to make for love. He paid secret court to your grandmother, poor foolish girl. Her heart was won. The night was fixed. The carriage was ordered, with muffled wheels. A sloop waited at Mallaig, ready to whisk them back to the splendors of the imperial Court. With a beating heart she waited at her window. Came the rattle of hooves on the bridge. Head high, she walked into the dark and climbed up beside the driver. One kiss, then the whip cracked and they were away."
"How super," sighed Miss Newcombe.
"It wasn't as super as all that, actually. Her clock was fast and she'd climbed up beside a travelling trouser salesman called Tupper, who hadn't been having much luck in the Highlands because of our preference for the kilt. He only stopped to ask the way, but after that kiss--"
Andy made the mistake of stopping for another mouthful. Emma, who normally lived in a world of facts, suddenly felt that she could do it too.
"Let me guess the rest," she said. "Everybody in the house rushed wildly in pursuit and was never seen again. The Russian had gone away to prepare for the elopement, and now when he arrived at the right time he found the house empty. So he just waited. He waited for years, and in the end he married and had two boys and a girl. He's still alive, but he has to pretend to be interested in beetles so he can go away to Geneva when anybody comes who might notice his Russian accent. Why don't you all go back to Moscow and claim the throne of the Czars? I'm going to have a double helping of my cream. Will you please tell me the real story some time, Mary?" (54-55)
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