Is blogging so stressful that it should be considered "a young man's game"?

The NYT asks.

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch.... Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he said.

AND: Isn't this the truth?

Have you ever seen such shameless traffic-baiting from the failing New York Times? Are they really feeling the Pinch this badly? And yet, I’m touched. So here’s a sympathy link.

It's really a dilemma. Should one link to these pathetic, absurd things? And aren't we pathetic to link to them when they talk about us?

I'm seeing a bunch of posts mocking the NYT article — mainly for pitying bloggers who complain about their working conditions. For example, noting the tales of bloggers getting heart attacks, Dr. Helen writes:

Funny, I had a heart attack before I started blogging. Now I am fine. Coincidence? I think not. Some bloggers actually see their craft as therapeutic. Perhaps it depends on your mindset. And as I have said before, I think many people who blog don't feel well to begin with. If they did, they might be out doing less sedentary things. So, some, though not all, may come to the keyboard already with health problems.

I think the mindset that makes blogging oppressive is doing it for money. I don't think Dr. Helen is blogging for a living, and I'm not blogging for a living. I get money from ads, but blogging wouldn't be so fun and fulfilling if I was depending on it for my livelihood. Some of the bloggers described in the article were working for someone else and getting paid $10 a post. At my rate of blogging — which is pretty intense and 365 days a year — that deal would bring in less than $30,000 a year. That would in fact be not sustainable. I'd feel like an idiot working this hard, getting this many readers, and only making that much money. Warning alarms would be going off in my head constantly: You have a terrible job! Feelings of self-doubt and regret would torment me. Friends and family would tell me I'm crazy, and I'd have a special segment of my brain playing a tape loop: Am I crazy? Am I crazy?

So is blogging "a young man's game"? If it's a game, it's several games. One is for young men and women: Use it as a calling card. Get some recognition and leverage it into a job in journalism, a nice book deal, or something else more substantial. Blog hard, but not for too long, and make it work as a means to an end. An older person changing careers might do this too. But there are many other games to be played through blogging: You can amplify another career (a career that brings you real income). You may care passionately about your cause and or your beliefs, something that you might otherwise contribute money to. You can do it with no idea of improving your income but purely for personal satisfaction.

Know why you are doing it and pay attention to whether it is doing what you want it to do for you. That's good advice for anything you do by choice. I think the stress people feel — in blogging, as in many other things — comes from the unattended-to knowledge that what they are doing doesn't make sense.

Glass enclosures.

In the Oceania room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ADDED: Since commenters seem unfamiliar with human costumery, let me add this picture I took a few weeks ago at the Museum of Natural History. (These are African.)

"I calculated that every time I have a Medicare patient it’s like handing them a $20 bill when they leave."

"I never went into medicine to get rich, but I never expected to feel as disrespected as I feel. Where is the incentive for a practice like ours?"

The political desire for more "preventive" health care for everyone meets the shortage of primary health care providers.

"I can't wear flat shoes. My feet repel them."

Just one of many interesting things about Mariah Carey.

She insists on wearing high heels at all times, and has even been filmed in her stilettos while using her home-gym equipment.

"Wisconsin is in many ways a liberal state... but its electorate showed this week that it favors judicial restraint over activism."

John Fund at the Wall Street Journal comments on the defeat of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler:

[T]he liberal majority on Wisconsin's Supreme Court [has] made so many suspect calls [beginning] immediately after Justice Diane Sykes stepped down to join a federal appeals court. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle replaced her with Mr. Butler, a former Milwaukee judge and public defender who had lost to Ms. Sykes by a 2-1 margin in a nonpartisan race in 2000. Justice Butler soon wrote the infamous decision in Thomas v. Mallet, which created a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach to product liability. Wisconsin became the only state to adopt a "collective liability" theory in lead paint cases: Whether a company actually produced the lead paint that harmed a claimant was irrelevant to its guilt or innocence....

... Louis Butler's bid this year for a full 10-year term was bound to be contentious. Teacher unions, trial lawyers and Indian tribes (which had benefited from the court's controversial expansion of casino gambling) poured money into third-party ads attacking [his opponent] Judge Gableman. They were matched by business groups such as Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran ads noting that Justice Butler had earned the nickname "Loophole Louie" from fellow public defenders for winning reversals of his clients' criminal convictions. Justice Butler made the mistake of embracing the nickname, claiming it was "affectionate." Voters weren't amused.

Fund's bottom line is in favor of judicial elections as "a check on the judiciary."

If judges are umpires [as Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts once said], the best way to ensure that they make the right calls is to bounce those who abuse their power from the game.

"On one day in Canada, he made $475,000 for two speeches, more than double his annual salary as president."

What do we think of all the money Bill Clinton has made giving speeches in his post-presidential life? It makes up more than half of the $109 million the Clintons have earned in the past 7 years.

Womanly ads in the green subway car.

Here's the car (at the NY Transit Museum):



I love this one (brassieres and war bonds):



And this — Who knew Chuckles would keep you alert? And look how enthusiastically that strange man is wielding his Chuckles at her.

Replacing Linda Greenhouse at the NYT...

... is Adam Liptak.

The resume is impressive. But what impressed me [i.e., Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet] most in my discussions with Adam was his remarkable ability to talk about the law with sweep and simplicity. It was striking that these are the precise qualities that make Linda such a great reporter.

"For me, 'I had an abortion' should be as morally loaded as 'I had a Pap smear.'"

Amanda Marcotte's morality:

The underpinnings of the moral angst about abortion — the idea that a woman has no right to pry loose a flag a man has planted in her (even if he agrees with her decision, as most men in this case do), or that she should be punished for having sex — offend me to the core, and that many women go through anguish over getting abortions depresses me.

Well, it offends me to the core that you think material like this helps preserve abortion rights (which I support).

The subject of the post at the link is actually this "I was raped" T-shirt that was written about on a NYT blog today. Marcotte is saying it makes a lot more sense to wear an "I had an abortion" T-shirt than to wear an "I was raped" T-shirt. Both shirts can be seen as an attempt to conquer shame, but obviously the messages are very different. The "raped" shirt is intended to help rape victims "own the experience," but it advertises the fact that the wearer has been attacked and overcome. Is that the first thing you want everyone to know about you? If it is, you ought to think through why it is.

The "abortion" shirt, on the other hand, admits that you've done something for yourself that involved sacrificing what many people believe is another human being. Why do you want to say that by T-shirt? In Marcotte's view, it's to show that you're proud of "taking care" of yourself "despite all the misogynist messages out there." I thought it was more to normalize abortion — to make it seem ordinary, widespread, and something that would be done without shame by nice, upstanding women.

When straps were straps and soap was profound.

A subway car from the early 20th century (at the NY Transit Museum):



I loved the old ads on display. Let's concentrate on the soap:







ADDED: One more:

At 4:44 on 4/4 (i.e., today) you can hear "4 Minutes."

Here. (And it's in a very cute waiting mode now.)

ADDED: I'm still getting the clock after 4:44, so now this cute gimmick is just annoying me...

AND: I would never have posted and linked to this if I hadn't been led to believe the website would show the video. I feel so used. I will need to compensate via blogging by saying something mean about Madonna. Let me do it right now so I can move on. Ugh! Have you seen what Madonna's hands look like these days? They're hideous!

Wisconsin citizens seem to have demonstrated their liking for conservative state supreme court justices.

Does this mean somone can defeat Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson when she runs for a 4th term next year?

No one has announced plans to run against Abrahamson yet, but the election is a year away. Jim Pugh, a spokesman for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, said conservative judges — Diane Sykes, Patience Roggensack, Annette Ziegler and now Michael Gableman — have won each of the past four contested elections.

Gableman was elected Tuesday, beating incumbent Justice Louis Butler, the first time a sitting Supreme Court justice has been ousted in 41 years.

But who dares to challenge the monumental Shirley Abrahamson? Now that an incumbent has lost, perhaps someone with far more weight than Gableman will step up. People around Madison are stunned — stunned enough that I can see it from Brooklyn — at Butler's loss to someone who was quite obscure:

... Gableman wasn't well known before he decided to challenge Butler in this year 's race. Hailing from a one-judge county in far northwestern Wisconsin, Gableman announced his candidacy less than six months ago and defeated Butler, of Milwaukee, by 51 percent to 49 percent

So who will take on Shirley Abrahamson? I'm not calling for her defeat, please note. I am only saying that, given the Wisconsin voters' taste for conservative judges, we deserve top-quality conservative candidates.

ADDED: Here's a map showing the voting pattern in the Butler-Gableman election:



I think this says a lot about Wisconsin. My Wisconsin is that dark blue square down at the bottom.

Air America suspends Randi Rhodes for using nasty language not on her show, but in a comedy performance.

How incredibly pathetic. It's a comedy routine, using exaggerated language, insulting Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro in a style similar to the way Kathy Griffin insults Hollywood celebrities. Doesn't Air America know anything about comedy? (oh wait....)

Here's the offending routine (NSFW). I'm not saying this routine is very good, but it's obviously in a comedy genre that is quite common, and comedians need some room to breathe.



Here's the official response from Air America, which notes that Rhodes was appearing "on behalf of Air America" at an event "sponsored by an Air America affiliate station." Good luck inspiring comedy from your on-air personalities after this... not that you were getting much of it before.

The peace sign turns 50 today.

It was designed in 1958 for use at a ban-the-bomb rally by Gerald Holtom, who said: "I drew myself . . . a man in despair . . . put a circle around it to represent the world." It's been used by lots of different causes over the years, and whatever you think of those causes, you have to admit that it's a great logo.

Though I was in high school and college during the Vietnam era, I never wore a peace sign. In fact, as far as I remember, everyone I knew thought it was dumb and embarrassing to wear a peace sign — like the way a hippie would be depicted on TV.

Can a fat woman win Miss England?

This is like the perennial question whether a plus-size can ever win "America's Next Top Model." Anyway, Chloe Marshall is a big topic of conversation because she's either helping young females with their self esteem or setting an unhealthy bad example.

"Optimal Sex Takes 3 to 13 Minutes, Study Finds."

Noted.

A tip: Set 2 egg timers.



Sex seems to be something like a boiled egg. Got to be at least soft-boiled, and even if you like hard-boiled, don't overcook.

And here's a handy dual timer. Set one side for 3, the other for 13: