Re the April 25 issue: 

“Loved your piece about business/economic privilege! It’s so true!” – SM

“Your suggestion – ‘Unless you have run a successful business for at least five years, don’t talk. Just listen.’ – I can definitely see that on a t-shirt. Brilliant!” – RC

“Your essay on ‘The End of Unbiased Reporting’ was insightful. And correct. In the old days, you could argue that a newspaper or news channel was biased. But today, it goes way beyond bias. It’s competing fiction factories!” – LS

Re “Poor Wreck That I Am” in the April 21 issue, GM had this to say: 

“Thanks for that piece, Mark. I too have suffered from depression and anxiety since my late 20s. To this day I still wonder how I was able to start and operate a business for 30 years, have employees, sell said business, and yet, after all that, still appear to be very ‘successful’ to the outside (however success is defined these days). The ‘am I worthy’ or am I suffering from the ‘imposter syndrome’ always haunted me. I wondered when I would be found out. It is only in the last few years that I am becoming more comfortable with myself despite being a crotchety 73-year-old worrying if my comb-over is noticeable to anyone. Catholic upbringing perhaps? I always knew I was not alone.”

My Response: I get it. You could divide the world into three groups: people that never get depressed; people that get depressed but not clinically depressed and so believe depression = sadness, and people that know what real depression is.

Here’s a piece I wrote on the subject after my last serious bout.

From AS, re “A New Rule for Discussing Economics” in the April 25 issue: 

“I liked your comments about capitalism.

“When I owned my restaurants, I always had people come up to me and say things like, ‘I should open a restaurant. I’m a great cook and my friends love my food.” Or, ‘You have a gold mine here.’

“It was crystal clear to me that those people had no idea what went into running a business, let alone restaurants. Your companions that day reminded me of all the people who think you unlock the door and then count your money at the end of the day.”

From AS: “I’d hate to be a cop!” 

“To acquire a concealed carry permit, you had to take eight hours of instruction, including an hour on a firing range. Veterans excused. So aside from getting a little safety training, someone had to put forth extra effort to carry a gun. I wonder how many people already had guns before concealed weapons were allowed in a state like Florida, and how many ran out and bought one.

“The new law passed in Florida by your buffoon governor was passed and signed by Ohio’s buffoon governor at least a year earlier. Ohio finally beat Florida in the arena of stupidity. Before that, policemen would see you had a permit for a weapon when they ran your license and were allowed to ask if you had a firearm. Now they can’t ask. I’d hate to be a cop now more than ever.”

From TS re the Open Carry Question: 

“I’ve been on the fence about this subject for a long time. I shared the popular idea that the visible presence of guns would dissuade criminals. However, I live on the nicer side of a college town. And just this summer, two drivers got into a road rage incident, drove to the supermarket by my house, and shot each other in the parking lot like it was a 19th-century duel.

“I understand road rage. But obviously, if neither man had a gun, they would likely still be alive. I even wonder what would have happened if only one had a gun. The part of me that has some faith in humanity thinks that even an enraged driver wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man. But if you see someone else draw a gun and you have a gun as well – well, of course you are going to fire.

“I also believe that criminalizing the ownership of guns at this point would only mean that law-abiding citizens give up their guns and criminals have a field day. But again, it only seems like open carry laws have succeeded in turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into trigger happy gunslingers the moment an opportunity arises. Do we really trust ‘law-abiding citizens’ to become judge, jury, and executioner in the heat of the moment?”

From RC re Paradise Palms: 

“I’m delighted to hear of and read about your magnificent efforts to beautify and engage South Florida in a way for everyone to experience. This note is just to let you know that you are appreciated and respected.”

From MN, a friend and award-winning filmmaker, re the April 4 issue: 

“Great newsletter. Thank you, Mark. And such an important note about false confessions and the Innocence Project. My first documentary – 120 Years – which I made in 2018, is about an unbelievable wrongful conviction case in New Haven and the layers of corrupt policing and prosecution that produced that wrongful conviction and insulated it from legal accountability. I learned similar mind-blowing lessons about the extent of misconduct while making that film.”

Check out MN’s documentary here. 

From SL, re my Journal entry in the April 7 issue:

“Your connections to your high school buddies inspire me to reconnect with mine. No other people can help you remember who you were, for better or worse. Mine used to call me Latrine. Maybe that’s why most of us fall out of contact with high school friends, like in Stephen King’s Stand by Me.

“Good thing you have more recent friends, like me, who do know your generosity and loyalty.

“Keep writing my friend.”

Re the Mar. 28 issue: 

“Check out this article. It ties in with what you’ve been saying about the government’s position on the COVID vaccines. (These people are, irredeemably evil!)” – G

“A bummer about killer bees in your owl houses. One idea that might help is putting glasses of beer for the killer bees to drink. That’s worked for me in the past with stinging not-sweet bees.” – AD

Re the Mar. 28 issue: 

“The jiu jitsu video was great! It reminded me of the time when Rhonda Rousey was an MMA champion at 135 pounds. I asked you if you could take her. I expected you to say, ‘Oh yeah, I’d kill her.’ Instead, you gave a resounding, ‘NO, she’d kick my ass in 22 seconds. She would weigh in at 135, but by fight time she’d be 155. I wouldn’t stand a chance.’ The video: case in point.” – AS

“Just read your article about Yayoi Kusama and thought you would like to know of the Kusama Exhibit at PAMM. S and I have been fans since stumbling on her work at the Tate Modern many years ago. We have seen her here, and in Cleveland, Washington, Boston, and are planning to go to Miami at the end of April. Below is a picture from the NY Botanical Gardens Palm Dome exhibit 2021.” – KK

Hunt, Gather, Parent 

By Michaeleen Doucleff

352 pages

Published March 2, 2021

K heard Doucleff speaking about this book and thought it might make a nice gift for the parents of our grandchildren. But she wanted to read it first to make sure it wouldn’t be suggesting things she wasn’t comfortable endorsing.

As the title suggests, the author takes an anthropological approach to discovering what sort of parenting practices produce which sort of responses in children. I’m a sucker for that kind of thinking – and so, I’m reading it now.

I was a tad disappointed with how it opens: Doucleff, an NPR science reporter, announces that she has just “hit rock bottom as a mom.” The problem? Her three-year-old daughter Rosy, though “whip smart” and “wildly courageous,” has frequent tantrums in which she slaps, bites, and overturns furniture.

Doucleff assumes that this is normal behavior for a child of her age. But then she remembers her time researching stories for NPR in Mexico, and how the Mayan children all seemed to be extremely well behaved and helpful around the house.

“What was going on there?” Doucleff wanted to know. Did the Mayan moms know something she didn’t know? Could they be doing something that all the parenting books she had read had not covered?

“This sounds like an idea for a new book,” she must have thought. And so she set about to write that book by traveling to rural villages in Mexico, Canada, and Tanzania, observing the child-rearing practices there, and then trying out those that look like they work on her daughter.

In Mexico, she discovers that Mayan parents – mothers and grandmothers, mostly – put their kids to working around the house as soon as they can pick up a spoon. The caregivers keep watch, but provide little in the way of correction or praise. Helping out isn’t considered a chore, but an opportunity to be a contributing member of the family. (They call it acomedido.) According to Doucleff, the kids eventually develop useful household skills. More importantly, “they pitch in naturally, because they feel like part of the family enterprise.”

The research continues in a freezing Arctic village. Inuit parents view kids as “illogical, newbie citizens trying to figure out the proper behavior,” says Doucleff. So when their children misbehave, they don’t take it personally. They certainly don’t shout, she says, since that would just teach kids to shout, too. Instead, they remain placid. They either go silent and simply observe the behavior, or walk away.

Okay, fine. This is not scientific research per se. Nor is it even proper anthropology. But it’s interesting. And if, as I continue to read on, Doucleff continues to draw conclusions about parenting that I agree with, I will readily recommend her book to our kids.

Watch an interview with Michaeleen Doucleff here.

From RO: 

“In your July 22, 2022 post, you talked about the idea of ‘cultural appropriation’ – how normal, and constructive, it is for people to try things they see people from other cultures doing. I was recently reminded of that post when I saw a couple of videos on YouTube that talked about this same idea. I think you might enjoy watching them.

“Click here and here and here.”

From PJ: 

“Your bit about the sentencing of the Canadian rapist in the March 10 issue [LINK]was disturbing. It reminded me of another story I read about a father being jailed because he refused to call his own child by the pre-teen’s preferred pronouns! What the F**k?”

From SL: 

“Your blog continues to be an enjoyable and educational read… I loved your piece on your editor in the March 21 issue.[LINK] I feel the same way about my editor.”