Oscar picks, the final guesses

Well, it's that time again. The Oscars are this Sunday, and all my protestations aside (buried in long-forgotten old posts) I still care. I've already spoken about the Best Supporting Actress race in particular (and it looks like the Vegas oddsmakers haven't read Nate Silver), but here are my official guesses at who will win:

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. It's won everything else. And while I agree with others that it's a pretty weak field this year, and that the sublime WALL-E should have been nominated, in the field of nominees we have it's a lock.

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke. I haven't seen The Wrestler, since my taste of unremitting bleakness has been off lately. (The name of this blog notwithstanding.) He certainly brought the crazy to the BAFTAs, but his is the come-back of the year, and by all accounts his performance was phenomenal. Let's all take a moment of silence, however, as we all remember what his face used to look like.

Best Actress: Fine. She should have been nominated for Revolutionary Road. But please, can we give Kate Winslet her freaking Oscar already? Her performance in The Reader, as morally questionable as the film itself may be, was typically fantastic, even if it is more of a supporting role. Give it to her!

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger. Bet your house. I also missed The Dark Knight (see above re: bleakness), but he apparently pulled out all the stops for an amazing performance. And then, in the Greatest Tragedy Mankind Has Ever Witnessed, he died of a drug overdose. He's the lockiest lock that ever locked.

Best Supporting Actress: Again, I've already mentioned this. It's Penelope Cruz. She's the biggest star, she's been nominated before, and the Academy likes Spaniards.

Best Director: Danny Boyle. Easy.

In all other categories, bet on Slumdog Millionaire. If Slumdog isn't nominated, go with The Dark Knight for some minor consolation prizes.

Oh, and pray I have a light night of call this Sunday.

The Reader: a defense

The other day, the Better Half and I went to see The Reader. We had wanted to see Frost/Nixon, but were too late and had to go with a second choice. Being a big fan of Kate Winslet, I went along with the back-up choice, and I'm glad I did. While I didn't love to movie, I liked it just fine, and I thought her performance was typically fantastic.

I've read a lot of criticism of this film, and I found a typical example here in Slate. I should probably give a SPOILER ALERT, since further discussion requires that I reveal a large plot point. (I saw the film already knowing the secret, and still enjoyed it, but I don't want to presume.) Many people have found the movie morally questionable, even repugnant. I didn't see it that way.

To quote the review:

A deeply depressing indication of how the film misreads the Holocaust can be found in a recent New York Times report on the state of the Oscar race. The paper gave disproportionate attention to The Reader by featuring a wistful-looking still of Kate Winslet above the headline "Films About Personal Triumphs Resonate With Viewers During Awards Season."

What, exactly, was the Kate Winslet character's "personal triumph"? While in prison for participation in an act of mass murder that was particularly gruesome and personal, given the generally impersonal extermination process—as a death camp guard, she helped ensure 300 Jewish women locked in a burning church would die in the fire—she taught herself to read! What a heartwarming fable about the wonders of literacy and its ability to improve the life of an Auschwitz mass murderer!

I agree that, if one views the movie as a story of redemption through literacy, then it is repulsive. Similarly, to somehow excuse Hanna (Winslet's character) for being ignorant because she was illiterate would be disgusting and facile. Perhaps people have interpreted the movie this way, but that is not how I did.

I did not get the impression that Hanna was ignorant of the crimes she had committed. I did not view her illiteracy as an excuse. And I did not view her shame at being illiterate, which leads to a greater share of blame for certain crimes than she (perhaps) deserves, as anything other than misplaced and pathetic. Perhaps I am wrong, but I didn't think the film presented that viewpoint.

Similarly, I don't think the film portrays Hanna as having been redeemed because she has learned to read. In fact, when Hanna tells her former lover (all grown up) that what she has learned in prison is "to read," it is a matter-of-fact statement that that is all she has learned, and that she has neither had a morally relevant revelation of her own guilt or any kind of redemptive change of heart. She's learned to read, but that's it, and in the face of her crimes, so what? Maybe I'm missing something, but I rather enjoyed (my sense) that the film wasn't trying to absolve her. In fact, a proxy character (a little girl nearly killed by Hanna's indifference) at the end pointedly refuses to absolve her, or to accept her attempt at restitution.

Now, again, perhaps I'm missing the point. Maybe the film is trying to conflate illiteracy with ignorance, and literacy with redemption. It seems that it was certainly marketed that way. But, ignorant of this marketing and of Oprah's response to the book many years ago, I enjoyed a different film (perhaps) than intended. One that presented, in my view, a morally compromised character that, at times, evokes our sympathy, but never earns our absolution.

Thank God they didn't interview medical students

Michelle Cottle over at The New Republic had a lot to say about this article in yesterday's Times about feelings of entitlement in today's college students. From the original article:

“Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor Grossman said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”

He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.

“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”

[snip]

James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’ "

[snip]

Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

Michelle's take?

Um. No. While I understand the self-defeating doubt that we're trying to short-circuit here, there are, practically speaking, lots of ways to fail--much less fail to get an A. One of those is by not having much of an aptitude for a particular area of study. Not all of us are equipped to be rocket scientists, economists, or playwrights, just as not all of us are equipped to be actors or professional basketball players. If anything, a student who tries really, really, really hard at something and still repeatedly falls short might benefit from realizing that his talents lie elsewhere. (As could the rest of us: Not to state the obvious, but I don't want a brain surgeon who graduated at the top of his class because he had perfect attendance. I want one who is an artist with a scalpel.) Go ahead: Aim for the stars. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do something. But if you actually try that thing and it turns out that you're not so hot at it, don't whine about unfair grading. Acknowledge that you have major room for improvement and decide where to go from there. The sooner kids learn how to deal with failure and move on, the less likely we are to have a bunch of whiny, fragile, self-entitled, poorly qualified adults wandering around wondering why their oh-so-stellar efforts aren't properly appreciated in the real world.

The original post has already generated 69 comments, and I didn't feel like weighing in so late in the game. So, instead, I'm weighing in here.

I'm willing to believe that the attitudes described and decried are rampant in the current undergraduate world. (I'm sure that certain other posters might want to contribute? *coughcoughElizabethcough*) This is probably due to a variety of factors, including a high school experience where the students coasted to As, parents all too willing to harangue teachers for higher grades for their kids, and pressure to have stellar transcripts in a competitive grad school/work application pool. I don't really have anything to contribute other than my own experience from school.

I went to a six-year medical program, and so my classmates and I were (at least with regard to maturity and life experience) very much like undergraduates. I will never forget the poor, hapless plant physiology professor who got stuck with a whole pile of us one semester because of a combination scheduling/course requirement snafu. Poor guy didn't know what hit him. After every test, he was surrounded by a bevy of students, demanding to know why their answers were wrong. (Being totally comfortable with mediocrity myself, I like to think I kept my harassment to a minimum.) But it was pretty much par for the course in all our classes. For many of my fellow students, anything less than an A was unthinkable.

It was even worse when I was a resident at NYU. Since it's my blog and I can dish if I want to, I will state plainly that I met some real hum-dingers in their pool of medical students. (For the record, I also met some wonderful, wonderful people. Like this one.) I had students that would blatantly refuse to do admissions because they had already admitted that kind of patient once, and didn't see the point of doing it again. I had one student disappear for most of the day, then show up in the mid-afternoon, having obviously gotten a cut and color. And I guarantee that every single one of them got As. Hell, nobody was willing to face a student's ire for a mere A minus, much less a B.

I have no earthly idea how to fix any of this. Again, I would be delighted to hear from anyone in academia these days, and see how they handle stuff like this. But the articles sure do make me want to collectively throttle an entire generation.

The gift of Chris Buttars

It's a perverse kind of feeling that I get when I read something horrible. (Well, horrible in a certain kind of way. Natural disasters, major crimes, etc. are horrible in a totally different way, devoid of nuance.) On the one hand, the recent comments of one Chris Buttars, state senator of Utah, are just appalling, and make me want to find his neighborhood and drive around blasting Cher music. (And I don't even like Cher music.) On the other hand, the following comments (via Washington Monthly) are just the kind of hilariously awful crap that I love to write about. Regarding homosexuality:

* "To me, homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts! But I don't care."

* "They say, 'I'm born that way.' There's some truth to that, in that some people are born with an attraction to alcohol."

* "They're mean! They want to talk about being nice -- they're the meanest buggers I ever seen. It's just like the Moslems. Moslems are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it's been taken over by the radical side. And the gays are totally taken over by the radical side."

* "I believe that you will destroy the foundation of American society, because I believe the cornerstone of it is a man and a woman, the family.... And I believe that they're, internally, they're probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of. Yep, the radical gay movement."

Let's go through these, one by one, shall we?

Actually, I'm going to pass the first comment by. He's free to think I'm a pervert. I'm free to think that he's an antiquated lunatic reactionary theocrat. Fair's fair.

On to the second quote. Yes, some people are born with a predisposition toward alcoholism. Some people are also born left-handed. Or really tall. Or gay. Or looking like Jake Gyllenhaal. Now, these are not equivalent things. Some are wonderful. Some are neutral. Some are really bad. Apparently, Sen. Buttars thinks that being born with a predisposition toward loving members of your own gender is the same as being born with a predilection for melting your liver and ruining your life. I don't actually experience it as being that way, since my life is much, much better for having the Better Half in it, and alcoholics seem a bit worse off when they're on the sauce.

I'm not sure which "they" Buttars is referring to when he says we're mean. Some of us are very mean, it's true. Some of us are bitchy and unkind, some of us are jerks, and I wouldn't wish the company of some of us on anyone. Then again, some of us are very nice. I suspect that Buttars doesn't know many gay people personally, and experiences us mainly in the context of having our rights serially abrogated, which hardly brings out one's best.

That last statement is so ridiculous as to be almost beneath rebutting. Look, Chris. I don't want to destroy traditional marriage. I don't want to destroy America. I don't actually know any gay or lesbian people that do. (And I know a fair number of gay and lesbian people, unlike you.) If the America you love is one in which people you don't like keep quiet and in their place without challenging the hegemony of morons like you, then it deserves to be replaced with an America that looks suspiciously similar, but with fewer miserable people. Canada seems to have avoided going up in flames since gay marriage was legalized. Spain hasn't slid into the sea. And, while Tom Brady had an off year, Massachusetts as a whole appears to be surviving.

I also think it's hilarious that a Mormon is rallying in support of traditional marriage. Because there've never been any conflicts there, now have there?

Sorry about the Apology

Kudos to our readers for successfully baiting the bloggers!

Today's post, a day late and a dollar short (I promised to post on Tuesday, and to include a syllabus -- more on that below), is a response to a question about why Muslims never seem to apologize:

Just wondering if you might have a few words of snark for religions that, oh, publicly execute raped women, or topple stone walls on top of gays. And, as far as I can see, the soi-disant moderates of these religions don't even bother to register a protest when this stuff happens. Can we get a witness?

I responded (making the assumption that the snide reference was to Islam) that there is a flood of Muslims who disavow and criticize oppressive misrepresentations of Islam.

Since beginning to compose this post today in the snippets of free time (obligations to my parish and family coming first, dear readers), a further comment has been made crossing the line from critical to blatant, willful ignorance fueling Islamophobia. I won't bother reproducing it here, but you can read it in the "Stupidity is non-discriminatory" thread).

Here I'm going to ignore the advice of Holy Scripture, "Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself" (Proverbs 16:4) but take the advice of Holy Scripture, "Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes" (Proverbs 16.5 Go figure...). I'm responding because the views expressed are hardly unique.

The promised syllabus is going to have to wait another week -- not because there is a lack of sources, but because there are many and to provide a useful annotated bibliography requires more time than I can provide in the week before Ash Wednesday. Writing about this, as I do below (at crazy length), I can do in bits of free time. A useful syllabus takes a different kind of research that can't be done from my laptop at work. Sorry about the delay.

Now, in scholastic tradition, I will lay out a series of arguments. There's nothing funny in this post; if you want funny, I suggest going to "Allah Made Me Funny" instead.


Argument the First: There is a significant movement in every Muslim community working against extremist fundamentalism.

The assertion has been made moderates don't protest acts of violence carried out by Muslim extremists. This assertion is patently untrue.

Yes, there are a number of Muslim-majority countries with extremists governments or judiciaries, just as as well as Muslim majority countries which are fully democratic but may have radical muslim movements. In each of these countries, there are also movements of Muslims who believe that Islam and human rights (including equal rights for women) are totally compatible. Here are just a couple : Sisters in Islam (Malaysia), Change for Equality (Iran). There are more, but that reference work is part of the syllabus project that you'll just have to wait for.

Being a human rights activist is dangerous work in countries that don't respect human rights -- witness the murder of Zil-e Huma Usman in Pakistan-- and so it's not surprising that those countries which are both Muslim-majority and non-democratic, we hear less about the activists. The murder of human rights activists in Pakistan is seen as a proof that Islam is undemocratic. Is the murder of human rights activists in Burma a proof that Buddhists are fanatical oppressors?

What is true, is that protests by Muslim moderates are very rarely covered by the press for a variety of reasons. One reason is that what bleeds leads; a story about rabid bearded men is going to get more play than a peaceful protest or letter to the editor. Another reason is that a number of developing countries have oppressive governments that suppress such protests -- and most Muslims live in developing countries.

Finally, there are a number of Muslim majority countries that have very good human rights records. Morocco, for example, has enacted a number of reforms that support women's rights (while the United States voted down the Equal Rights Act a number of years ago). Malaysia is a large Muslim country with a strong matriarchal and matrilineal culture. Indonesia has a steadily improving human rights record. [Interesting side note, there is a higher percentage of women in the Iranian parliament than there is in the US congress; ditto for the percentage of women at University/College. I'm not saying that Iran is great on women's rights, but that perhaps the pot shouldn't be so quick to call the kettle black.]

If you compare neighboring Muslim and non-Muslim countries in a given region, you don't see any strong correlation between religion and human rights (for eg, Burma, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia -- only Malaysia, a Muslim majority, is not ruled by a military junta [or in the case of Thailand, recently ruled by a junta though now a democracy again]). There is nothing within Islam or any other religion that predisposes folks to extremism -- the factors that lead to oppressive state regimes have to do with economics, education, colonial and military history.


Argument the Second: Who should be apologizing, and to whom?

I do not expect the pope to apologize for the rape and violence carried out in the name of Jesus by the Fundamentalist Church of Later Day Saints. Yet both the Pope and the FLDS both consider themselves Christian, and the Pope is the leader of the largest group of Christians in the world. I don't expect Thich Nhat Hanh to apologize for the actions of the Burmese junta, even though Burma is majority Buddhist and particularly discriminates against their Christian and Muslim minorities. I don't expet Elie Wiesel to apologize for sections of Deuteronomy that encourage Jews to rape war captives ( cf. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 ).

Why would I expect that Muslim moderates, working to uphold an Islamic tradition of human rights, apologize to me or to the West in general? Am I God because I'm an American, that they should apologize to me?


Argument the Third: Crimes Committed by White Christians are treated as abnormalities, while crimes committed by Muslims are treated as "Islamic"

Until very recently, it was legal in Texas to kill your wife if you discover she is committing adultery (Article 1132 section 2 in, Title XV of the Texas Penal Code, which you can read thanks to google books here) . This is not seen as a tenant of the Christian faith, though the law was written by a majority Christian state and is supported by Christian scriptures (Deuteronomy 22:21; while Jesus prevented the carrying out of this penalty, he also stated that he did not intend to change one iota of the law [Mt. 5:17-18], and did not directly disavow the Deuteronomic text). If a man kills his wife for adultery, on the other hand, under sharia (Islamic law) this would be considered murder.

The gruesome beheading of Aaisiya Hassan this week in New York is a murder case, and would be treated as murder in Islamic courts as well. It is not an act condoned by Islam. While sharia, like Jewish, Christian and other religious laws, does have a death penalty for adultery, the penalty is almost impossible to carry out in Islam -- it requires two respectable witnesses to have seen the actual act of penetration, and by seeing the act they themselves become less than respectable witnesses. As far as I can tell from the hadith (the acts and sayings of the prophet), the Prophet Mohammed worked to make sure to minimized the use of the death penalty -- a dramatic and liberal reformation for his time.

According to the United States Department of Justice, over 50% of murders in the United are committed by family members -- spouses, relatives or boyfriends/girlfriends. Quite honestly, the idea that "honor killings" are a particularly Muslim idea is not supported by the data. "Honor Killings" are against Islamic law, and the rates of such killings are comparable to that in other societies including here in the US.


Argument the Fourth: Secularists and Atheists are not Immune to Stupidity

Dan has already made the argument that stupidity occurs with fundamentalists in every religion, so I won't repeat it much further. I will say, though, that violent fundamentalism is not caused by religion. Religion is a convenient vehicle, but some of the worst genocides of the modern era have been carried out by atheists (Stalin, the Khmer Rouge), secularists (Ataturk), and neo-pagans (Hitler, who claimed both to be Catholic and lamented the loss of pre-Christian pagan religion and worked to restore it in Nazi propaganda). Eliminating religion would in no way end racism, sexism, homophobia, or the violence that accompanies these sins.


Argument the Fifth: The West shares some culpability in supporting Extremists within Islam

It is interesting to notice how much modern Islamic fundamentalism is borrowed from Western sources -- the nasty anti-semitism coming from fundamentalists, for instance, often uses a source created by Christians, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The recent stance against Darwinism by some Muslims (including Yusef Islam) is likewise a copy of Christian fundamentalism. Nor should we forget that the United States funded and supported the Taliban for years. What would Islam look like today if we hadn't been giving money to Muslim extreemists in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and been giving that support instead to pro-democratic Muslim movements?

Is it all the evil colonialsts fault? Of course not. We're talking about grown adults here, and idiots like Ahmenidjad have only themselves to blame for being stupid, violent, anti-semitic homophobes. But I object to a kind of exceptionalism that believes that every other religion has 'outgrown' violence except Muslims. We continue to inform one another, in both directions -- witness Pete Sessions, a Republican congressman from Texas, who declared to the National Review that the GOP should model themselves on the Taliban.


Arguement the Sixth: Islam was historically the most progressive religion viz. human rights, and many Muslims are working to restore Islam to the progressive edge.

At the beginning of Islam, Muslim countries had the most progressive stances in the world on the rights of women and religious minorities -- rights to own property, to be safe in ones home, the right to divorce, access to education, etc. This at a time in Europe when women were chattel and Jews were being killed in progroms.

Until this last century, married women in Christian countries such as the United Kingdom could not own property. Women did not have the right to a divorce even from an abusive husband. It was legal to kill your wife in Texas (and several other states) if she commits adultery; it is still legal throughout most of the United States to discriminate against someone if they aren't heterosexual, and it is still legal in many states to rape your wife -- permission for spousal rape being largely based on the writings of Saint Paul. Women did not gain the right to vote in some parts of Christian, calvinist Switzerland until 1971 (and in at least one canton in 1990). Perhaps we should be apologizing to Muslims for how many of our governments have treated women as well as racial and religious minorities? Oh sorry, it's only Muslims that have to apologize...


In conclusion...

Yes, there are huge areas of civil rights in some Muslim-majority countries that need to be addressed and fixed, and every one of the Muslims I know (and that's hundreds) are working to address those issues. Some of them are vocal activists, others work quietly behind the scenes or within their own communities without feeling the need to issue personal statements to Christians about their commitment to human rights.

Yes, we err if we think that because our nation is killing hundreds of Muslims a week that we should cut them some liberal 'slack' about human rights. And we err if we lie about the violence of the West and pretend that Islam is a uniquely violent religion. Such lies may boost our own egos and insescurities, but they do a grave diservice to Muslim human rights activists and put them in a terrible bind -- when we repeat those lies, we help perpetuate the false impression that "human rights" is a Western trojan horse for attacking Islam.

I believe human rights across the world will improve much more quickly if we are honest about our own shortcomings as well, and if we hold everyone to the same standards and expectations, without resorting to anti-religious bigotry.

But where else can I find such great material?

I love feeling like I'm ahead of major publications, even if a bunch of people read them and a couple dozen people read me. (Thanks, couple dozen!) So this morning's article in The New Republic made me feel like I'm ahead of the curve. I've been making fun of Politico for a while now. From the article:

On the evening of January 22, a few hours after his administration's debut news conference, Barack Obama made a surprise visit to the cramped quarters of the White House press corps. It was meant to be a friendly event, and Obama glad-handed his way through reporters and cameramen, exchanging light banter as he went.

But Politico reporter Jonathan Martin wasn't there to chat. Martin pressed Obama about the president's decision to nominate William J. Lynn III, a former defense lobbyist, to deputy defense secretary and about Obama's pledge to curtail the influence of lobbyists. The exchange turned tense. "See, this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here," a visibly exasperated Obama said. Martin wouldn't relent. "I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys--that's all I was trying to do," the president added. Within an hour, Martin and Politico writer Carrie Budoff Brown reported the exchange on Politico's website: "OBAMA FLASHES IRRITATION IN PRESS ROOM," the headline read.

I love that headline. "OBAMA SHOWS ANNOYANCE WHEN ANNOYED BY SOMEONE ANNOYING." The article goes on to describe how this brainless non-story got picked up by other media outlets, eventually landing in the intellectual cesspool of Limbaughland. Thusly is our Republic strengthened.

In fairness, Politico did break a number of stories, including the Giuliani travel expenses mini-scandal, the McCain "how many houses do I own?" gaffe and the budget for Sarah Palin's wardrobe. (One could argue that all of them are pretty picayune, but at least they appeared to say something important about the candidates in question.) And it's obviously easier to make fun of crappy reportage than it is to generate good journalism.

Even so, Politico is a great source of easy material. Today, for example, there is this dunderheaded offering:

President Barack Obama and his team of change agents may think every tactic in their political arsenal is original — but in turning their fire on the capital’s process-and-power-obsessed political class they’re actually indulging in a time-honored Beltway tradition.

Pitting Washington Insiders against Real People, as Obama and his top aides have increasingly done in recent weeks, is often a refuge for presidents who have suffered missteps or drawn critical coverage, particularly in their early weeks in office.

What a stunningly stupid, speculative opening sentence! Jonathan Martin may think that he's a ninth-order paladin, but he's actually an overpaid hack.

Nowhere has Obama or his team indicated that they think "every tactic in their political arsenal is original." This is a ridiculous straw man, created in the service of facile political "analysis." Further, if Martin would like to argue why Obama shouldn't decry the actions of Washington Insiders when said insiders have been the source of a lot of his recent woes, I'm all ears. Heaven forfend he should do something other politicians have done!

A not-incidental benefit from this us-vs.-them strategy: A new administration that has just won a smashing campaign victory gets to go back to what innocent bystanders might say looks a lot like campaigning.

Oh, how very droll. "Innocent bystanders," indeed. I'm sure those innocent bystanders are simply detached observers, who have no vested interest in concocting a story from weak tea. Apparently campaigning in favor of policy goals signals a wholesale failure of some kind, though what in particular Obama is doing to deserve such arch commentary is beyond me.

Anyhow, in the rush to remain ahead of the Washington journalistic pack, this kind of vapid writing is commonplace at Politico. I still read it, and am grateful to have a ready-made source of risible fodder for the ol' blog. But I hope it doesn't herald the trend in which political journalism is heading.

An open letter to parents everywhere

Hi. I'm Dan. You may or may not know me in real life, though if you're reading this blog it's probably a safe bet that we're personally acquainted. (Unfortunately, the people I would most like to read this are people who aren't friends or family. Don't take this personally, F&F! Stay cool!) If you read this blog, you're probably aware that I'm a pediatrician. I may not be your pediatrician, but as a pediatrician, I'm going to go out on a limb and speak for pediatricians in general.

It serves absolutely zero purpose for you to be a mean, demanding jerk to members of my office staff, the phone triage nurse, or anyone else involved in the care of your child. Even if your tune suddenly changes when I enter the exam room or take your call, and you are respectful to me, I will already know if you were senselessly rude to the people who are just doing their jobs taking your initial call or checking you in. I may know full well that you are just a concerned parent, and will try to remind myself that you're probably really nice when you're not stressed and tired with a sick kid. But it does nothing for our relationship when I have to stifle feelings of anger on behalf of my coworkers before we've even exchanged a word.

Thank you. That is all.