There is a school of thought that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Namely, that physical attractiveness is subjective and a product of cultural norms and personal taste. This is technically true insofar as people do have different tastes and everybody is attractive to somebody. There are even freaks out there that are particularly attracted to things generally considered unattractive. But there are limits to this, of course, as a lot of folks in our corner of the sphere are quick to point out. Certain attributes, facial symmetry is typically used as an example, transcend cultures. There are arguments for curves and for slender, but there is a level of fatness that is generally not considered desirable. And while there are people that have abnormal attractions, they remain exceptions and some physical features are naturally going to be more attractive to more people.

I fall more in the second camp than the first when it comes to pictures and immediate impressions. I also believe that inner beauty (subjective, typically) affects outer in that when you love someone, you view them as being more physically attractive than others you might have rated higher from a photograph. Further, some people take universality of beauty too far, I think. They make it less a general truth and more an pavlovian sort of thing. I just don’t think it’s that exact.

One of the things I find interesting is how our tastes develop within the general hierarchy. For instance, by real-world standards Taylor Swift is a really attractive young lady. So is Kristen Stewart. Yet when I look at pictures of them or see them on TV, there is simply no doubt that I think Stewart is remarkably the more attractive of the two. Others would swear that Swift is. In the land of Hollywood, where nearly everyone is quite attractive, we almost have to take our cues from relatively subjective or even arbitrary criteria. I don’t know why I find Stewart to be the more attractive of the two. But I think it has repercussions in real-life attraction amongst people in my station. Stewart has a more steely demeanor. Not cold, exactly, but sort of determined and tough. I married someone with a similar demeanor. I don’t think that’s entirely a coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence that among all of the really attractive women on the TV show Las Vegas, the one that garnered the most of my attention was Sam Marquez (Vanessa Marcil). Same sort of steeliness in comparison to the flightier Delinda (Molly Sims) or sweet Mary (Nikki Cox). Of course, also notable is the fact that Marcil, Clancy, and Stewart have dark hair.

Some of it probably relates to the projection of personality. Easier to do when it comes to Las Vegas, where they are all playing characters with personalities, though I also think that Marcil and Sims were chosen precisely because they looked the part. I’ve never seen Kristen Stewart in a movie and I’ve only seen one Taylor Swift video, so it’s less a factor there. It’s more about the way that they smile for the camera and in Stewart’s case a slightly prominent chin and narrow features that I think I associate with a sort of inner toughness.

Why I would be attracted to a steeliness of expression I have no idea. It’s not like I like cold people. When I met Clancy, she was in a very comfortable element and surrounded by friends. She was smiling a good portion of the weekend. I was attracted to that… but I also don’t think that it’s a coincidence that it lines up with what seem to be particular biases. I have two “types” that I’ve historically been attracted to and Clancy (and Julianne, for that matter) falls into one. Conventional in appearance, conservative in demeanor, and relatively strong-willed or exuding a quiet strength. All of this has to do with personality more than appearance, but again, I think when we are looking at people we are looking for cues on personality matching.

All of this brings me to the inspiration of my post, which is Phi’s post on the comparative virtues of Meghan Fox and January Jones. As Phi and the commenters there note, regardless of who she actually is, Fox exudes a certain kind of sexiness that makes her the sex symbol that Jones is not. It’s that projection that makes her as attractive that she is to a lot of men. That projection is largely an object of not just personal preference but cultural preference. The same cultural preference that inexplicably made Angelina Jolie somehow considered attractive. The tastemakers, as far as such things go, have decided what is attractive and we take our cues from society.

Not because we’re mindless drones of corporate-enforced tastes, as some folks who swear in some aboriginal or African culture droopy breasts are considered hot and thus it’s all subjective. Rather, because people like Jones and Fox are both attractive by any normal criteria and thus choosing between them (and the thousands of Hollywood actresses that are similarly attractive) is susceptible to relatively insignificant criteria. Likewise, in real life when I would see two women at a bar or church or wherever else, if they’re comparatively equal, it comes down to relatively silly criteria such steely-demeanor or wearing glasses or something else that either indicates (a) this person’s personality could be compatible with my own (or more attractive to me) or (b) if I got together with her it would be more impressive to my friends.

There were a lot of songs that came out directly or tangentially related to 9/11, particularly amongst country musicians. However, I don’t think that any of them really captured the mood like the famous and infamous song that came out the next year. Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” was an is a controversial song, but whether one views it as a healthy reflection of patriotism or an ignorant reflection of jingoism, it was the song of the time. As far as I am concerned, there really was no other. We were wounded and we were angry and whether he was being opportunistic as his critics charge or as earnest as his recounting of the song suggests, he understood. I remember reading an article at the time from some music critic who was complaining that there was no song that captured our mood. Though in his defense this song had not come out yet, it was pretty apparent from the piece that the song he was looking for was an anti-war song. But it wasn’t a Buffalo Springfield time. It was a Toby Keith one.

There was ultimately never going to be any response than injured pride and anger. There was never going to be any result but war. The wars that we chose and how we conducted them are subject of debate (though not here, please), but not the essential truths of anger and war. Those that criticize Keith’s song as jingoistic or ignorant ultimately miss the point. You can’t wish away human nature or what everyone else is thinking or feeling. Either because he was feeling the same thing that three-quarters of the public was feeling or simply because he had eyes and ears, his song reflected an understanding surprisingly (or not surprisingly, really) absent in our mainstream entertainment at the time.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill are seeking tax breaks — for their constituents:

New York Representative Jerrold Nadler, who wants to exempt his own six-figure constituents from the tax hike he supports. Mr. Nadler’s bill would “require the IRS to adjust tax brackets proportionally in regions where the average cost of living is higher than the national average.”

In other words, the various tax brackets would apply to residents in certain regions at higher income levels versus other parts of the country. A family with an income of $50,000 or even $1 million in Manhattan would pay less federal income tax than a family with the same earnings in Omaha. The bill is called the Tax Equity Act, but a more accurate title would be the Blue State Tax Preference Act.

“The basic costs of life in the New York region are much steeper than in most parts the country,” says Mr. Nadler. “The reality is that a dollar in New York isn’t worth nearly as much as a dollar in Spokane or Knoxville or Topeka. It’s time for our tax code to take reality into account when assessing someone’s tax liability.”

This, to me, would fall under the “Fairness is Subjective” tag, if I had tags. From the perspective of a Coaster, this makes perfect sense. If $200k does not mean as much in New York City as it does in Boise, Idaho, then why should they be taxed more? Why should the Boiseans get to take home more of their money than Bostonians? The Federal Government actually takes into account cost-of-living when it comes to wages – I made less as a Census Courier than someone on the Coast did. Of course, that shows some of the inexactness of these calculations. According to the Federal Government, my very affordable home city of Colosse is actually considered a high-wage area. They do it based on income and the statistics are skewed by the inordinate number of engineers that make it look like everyone with a bachelor’s earns a whopping big salary. Not that the Truman family complained! But seriously, when it comes to wages, I think that this is a fair question. And yet, when it comes to taxation, I am actually disinclined to be all that sympathetic.

I am more inclined to extra taxes that come with living on the coast as a sort of luxury tax. Living in places like NYC or the Bay Area is considered to be desirable. You can earn a good living in the very affordable Boise, if you want the take-home pay. But few choose to do so. In fact, they often disdain places like Boise. Which is their god-given right! But that they choose to spend their money living in a more desirable place rather than choosing to spend their money on big screen TVs and power-wheels for children in a less “desirable” place is not something that the government should particularly show favoritism to.

A lot of this comes down to a subjective opinion, though, as to whether or not people living on the coast in metropolii is more desirable or less desirable than living in smaller cities in the interior. It’s probably pretty obvious where I stand on the issue, though others look at cities like Phoenix and the like as environmental catastrophes while NYC and DC have public transportation and are less sprawling. And it’s hard to consider these issues without also considering how we ourselves would prefer to live. If we would ourselves prefer to live in cosmopolitan places with millions of others, we don’t think that people (by which “we” is meant) should be penalized. If we would prefer to live in places that are affordable, it seems unfair that should be penalized by cutting into one of the big advantages of living in places like these. Personally, I lived on the coast in an expensive city in the northwest and there was a lot to like about it. But there is also a lot to like about the city that I come from, large but affordable.

Of course, we are all born someplace. If you’re born on the coast and stay there simply because it’s what you know or because it’s where your family is or what-have-you, it does seem unfair that you should be penalized for living there with higher tax rates with assumptions of a comfier standard of living than you have. But people are penalized for where they are born all the time. Most of the people that grow up where I live, if they want to work in any sector but agriculture or the service industry, are likely going to have to move. As long as a good bulk of the increased cost-of-living in the cities is a product of it being a more desirable place to live or because of the labor requirements or regulations that make it more expensive, I still say: luxury.

And on a pragmatic level, taxing the coasts is pretty useful because… that’s where the rich people are. That’s where the money is. There’s no indication that either party in Washington is remotely worried about the deficit, but even if they only want to provide cover for the next government program, there’s only so much money to be raised by taxing the super-rich in the interior US. That’s where the money isn’t.

I’ve been up for all but 90 minutes of the last 22 hours. I didn’t mean for it to be this way. I found out last night that I would be needing to drive Clancy to the airport for her trip back to Delosa to visit her family. The original plan was that she would drive herself, but she got absolutely slammed with patience this week and the result was that she was running a sleep deficit that made the 2+ hour drive to Alexandria dangerous. Her flight was at 6am this morning, so we would be leaving here at around 3. Unfortunately, the short notice made it difficult for me to properly timeshift to being awake and ready to drive at 3 in the morning which was, actually, about the time I went to bed last night. Had I thought about it, I would have resisted more than I did. But I was too tired to think and so resistence probably would not have been worthwhile. I tried to take a nap yesterday afternoon, but only managed to get 90 minutes in before nature called and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep.

Getting to the airport was no problem. But since I’d been yawning since about 11pm (my body is simply not cooperating, I’m never tired at 11pm) I spiked myself on caffeine for the drive home. Now I’m home and somewhere between hopped up on caffeine and exhausted. Oh, and I’m stuffed because I ate one of the Best Omelette’s in Arapaho at that place I stumbled across when I was stranded in Meriwether.

To hear is lawyer tell it, Mark Ashford was walking his dog when he saw a man erroneously pulled over for failing to stop at a stoplight. He volunteered to the driver that he saw what happened and would testify for him in court. The officers asked to see some ID. A scuffle occurred and Ashford was eventually charged with Interference and Resisting Arrest. The charges were later dropped.

Here’s the story, here’s a video taken of the incident:

There are a few ways to look at this. Strictly in terms of excessive force, it’s not entirely clear that excessive force was, in fact, used. This is the case, however, only if you stipulate to the apparent legitimacy of the arrest. It looks to me as though Ashford did indeed resist arrest at around (2:48) and didn’t fully stop until he was subdued.

What is not clear, however, is the legitimacy of the arrest. The officers went apespit when Ashford pulled out a camera to take a picture of the officers to document the event. Perhaps not the wisest thing to do, but not something that should be illegal (more on this in a bit). However, does the illegitimacy of the arrest which Ashford resisted absolve him of resisting arrest? I can see the merits of both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, if he did nothing wrong to warrant the action of the officers, why should he be held accountable for his actions during the illegimate police action? There seems to be something vaguely… unfair about that. It’s like trying somebody for murder, finding out that they did not commit said murder, but then finding out that they had lied about their alibi and charging them with perjury.

Of course, in this case, both the charges interference and resisting arrest charges against Ashford were dropped. Would this have happened if there had been no video account of the incident? I’m not sure. Had Ashford not fought back and had the cameraman lost interest, it’s also quite likely that this never would have garnered attention and it’s possible that he would have been convicted of interference. So in a sense, he was rewarded for fighting back. That’s not good.

It’s also dicey terrain as to whether someone should believe they are allowed to resist arrest on the basis that they believe the arrest to be illegimate. There is an argument to be made that when a police officer tells you to put your hands behind your back, you should do so. Nothing good comes from resisting. Ever. So putting this into law clarifies this a bit. Do as your told, sort it out later. The alternative is not just that people guilty of no crime resist arrest, but that people that erroneously believe that they haven’t done anything illegal resist arrest. Leaving aside the legal ramifications (because you simply convict those that did something else illegal of resisting arrest, too), the end result is a lot more people getting beat up which serves nobody.

It’s analogous, I suppose, to the rationale used by a lot of schools with regard to school fights. We were taught never to fight back because anybody caught fighting, regardless of who starts it, gets a minimum of 3 days in-school-suspension. The downside to this rule is that it was patently unfair to those that did not start fights and were expected to stand there and take it, run away, or get suspended. But the policies did have a degree of utility. Knowing that it didn’t matter who threw the first punch made you avoid baiting people into punching you. It stopped a lot of fights before they really began simply because the rules were so clear. There is a similar argument to be made, I suppose, for obeying an officer. An officer tells you to do something, you do it. If he’s telling you the wrong thing, we’ll take care of that later.

Of course, that requires a great deal of trust in law officials.

Ultimately, though, this was brought about because of something that has been getting increasing attention lately. Namely that cops really don’t like being on camera (unless it’s their own). The cameraman should be glad that he was in Colorado because had he been in Maryland or a number of other states he could have been charged with a felony. Ashford probably couldn’t have been charged because he was taking a still-photo (I think?) or if not that than because he was never given the opportunity to take the picture before all hell broke loose.

I have more to say on the subject, but I should probably avoid getting too far off track. It does seem to me, though, that whatever our laws on video-taping cops are, they need to be clearly expressed. The wiretapping laws that are being used now are dubious on the face of it because one doesn’t really know whether one is breaking the law or not when they bring the camera out. If prosecutors and cops really believe that it should be illegal to record your interactions with the police, they need to push for a law. And they have to be able to defend its necessity and fairness.

The Brits are looking at reducing doctor hours. Doctor ours in the US have actually be falling somewhat. Not only because of the limits on residency, but because as doctors’ jobs have become less enjoyable, they start doing less of it (per week, anyway). Of course, an average of 55 hours a week to 51 hours a week isn’t exactly slacking off. An argument that lawyers should cut back on their hours, too. Given how many lawyers are unemployed these days, that could be considered a jobs program!

Speaking of international medicine, a look at how wealth matters in cancer survival rates in Canada. They control for how early the diagnosis was, which is good, but it’s hard to control for all of the ways that wealthy people and poor people treat their bodies differently. If one is healthier to begin with – as wealthy people tend to be over poor people – it’s not surprising that cancer outcomes are going to be different, as the article notes.

I complain all the time about office dress codes in the United States (down with the casual office environment!!). Apparently, Europeans are pretty bad, too. Kudos to India, though, for being the best.

While I would be a hard-ass when it comes to office attire, I tend to be in favor of letting people decorate their offices as they want. And the science backs me up!

I roommated in college with someone that I knew beforehand. It didn’t work out greatly, but it was still better than the lottery that I would have played had I not known him. I wouldn’t have minded this, though.

Is psychology biased towards western undergrads? Pretty obvious, when you think about it. Why is this something that nobody thought about?

Sometimes it’s better to have rules than to wing it.

A PDF on prostitution and how it’s changing.

Sweet 8-bit graphics.

This one is for Peter.

The local two-drop theater showed Scott Pilgrim vs The World a couple weeks back. I really didn’t know much about it other than that it starred that nerdy guy from Juno and that it was based on a non-superhero comic book. One of my favorite movies of all time, Ghost World, was similarly based on a comic, so that was a point in its favor. But mostly it was just about time I saw a movie at a theater again. I’m really, really glad I did.

Back when I was single, one of my habits upon meeting someone with whom I might have a future was to run up a catalog of the guys (and sometimes not-guys) they had dated. I’m not positive why this held such a fascination with me, though I suspect it had to do with an insecurity on my part that I was somehow illegitimate compared to most guys. I could write a post on that alone and maybe at some point I will. But I, like a lot of you, went through junior high and much of high school never really garnering much interest from the opposite sex while those around me seemed to be having a better time of it. And when I finally did get a girlfriend, it lasted for years. So in addition to my insecurities, it was also somewhat alien to me the notion of having a series (large or more often relatively small) of people in your past. Anyhow, so I would tally up her exes and then invariably compare myself to them. Were they more legitimate guys? Were they more or less attractive than I was? Why did their relationship fail? Am I at risk of having a relationship fail on similar grounds? Am I able to overcome what guilt or hurt the other guy (or not-guy) caused her?

It was through this prism that I watched Pilgrim. That was the metaphor that pervaded my viewing of the movie. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it involves protagonist Scott Pilgrim meeting a girl, Ramona, and getting into a duel with her League of Seven Exes. Her ex-boyfriends. Some have looked at this movie as a geek fantasy about “protecting the girl,” but I almost entirely watched it through the lense of the above metaphor. It wasn’t about the exes. In some ways it wasn’t even about Ramona. It was about his insecurities regarding her more lengthy romantic past than his and the baggage that she told him about almost immediately. On a sidenote, one of the lessons I learned the hard way is that when a girl tells you first thing that she has baggage, believe her. At the least she is being very honest and she has baggage, but also it’s frequently the case that she is laying the groundwork for “I warned you!” when things fall apart as a way of evading responsibility.

This particular insecurity dogged me from most of my early relationships. Julianne only had two or three exes and only one that lasted more than a month or so. But the guy – whom she dumped – was an instant topic of interest to me. It took me less than a week to determine that I had nothing to worry about from him and it took me a month or so to determine that there was simply no way the guy stacked up against me. Julie and I were right for one another in a way that they weren’t. He made a play for her early in the relationship and she shot him down cold.

This tendency of mine became most pronounced when it came to Evangeline. Eva had a more substantial romantic history and a more dramatic one. She had more baggage. The figures from her past loomed particularly largely. I didn’t even have to ask about them the same way that I had to ask Julie about her ex. She unloaded on me the first week I knew her as I unloaded on her. And immediately the cataloging and appraising began. Unlike with the others, this actually turned out to be very helpful in seeing what was to come. Before we were ever even officially together she ended up back with Shane, the ex that I had immediately focused in on as the most likely to cause problems (despite the fact, at the time, she hadn’t spoken to him in two years). I wasn’t even worried about the guy that she was dating and leaving at the time, but I was worried about Shane. And I was right.

Of course, that was the thing. Though I often had a better idea of what was going on than she did because of my keen analytical skills and all that crap, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It helped me see the oncoming storm, but it didn’t give me so much as an umbrella. Shane came and went and then came Vince. Vince did not have a whole lot going for him, but he was nonetheless a figure from her past and she had a little obsession with her past that wasn’t exactly of much help when it came to ridding myself of the non-productive cataloging instinct. And as soon as Vince entered the picture, that was when I knew it was time for me to leave. And she, either by virtue of seeing how crazy everything was making me, knew it was time for me to go. I used to joke that it would only be once I was out of the picture and became a figure from her past that I would become important. It turned out not to be a joke so much as the absolute truth. I was too dim to get it, but she made a play for me about eight months into her relationship with Vince. Then, after Vince when she got together with my friend Kelvin, she cheated on him with me near the outset of the relationship.

Once I was a mythical Ex, suddenly I wielded a certain power. Ramona’s exes in the movie were similar in that regard. Their powers coincided with whatever their “hooks” were – whatever made them interesting or attractive. Brandon Routh’s character was a Vegan whose awesome powers depended on his diet. Despite being a musician and looking like Routh, Veganism was his hook. It was only when he could demonstrate that he was not a Vegan that he was able to vanquish his enemy. Ramona’s ex-girlfriend could go intangible, as is the case when confronting a relationship of your partner that you can’t seem to fully gab onto or understand (except, perhaps, through pornography). The musicians had musical powers. And so on. Her Shane was a guy named Gabriel, whose success made him larger than life. And so on, and so on.

The movie doesn’t carry off the metaphor perfectly. At times it can’t decide how pseudo-real it wants to be. There is a point where one of Scott’s bandmates asks why being a Vegan gives someone special powers. In terms of reality, this is a good question. But in terms of the ethereal nature of the metaphor, it’s blatantly obvious why being a Vegas is a selling point. It’s something that Ramona or any future girlfriends can point to in order to demonstrate what makes her boyfriend special and unique. Being a Buddhist or a writer has a similar hook, I’ve noticed. Moreso than guys – though we do it, too – there seems to be an attraction among women (or the perception amongst guys of such an attraction amongst women) towards guys with a demonstrable uniqueness. Veganism, Buddhism, or writing. It’s worth noting that this is all in addition to, not in placement of, being of appropriate attractiveness, fitness, and other more superficial qualities.

I personally managed to conquer – more or less – the cataloging of exes by the time I met Clancy. I went through the usual motions of finding out about her romantic past. But she was not particularly forthcoming. She would tell me when she was ready. There was no telling when she would open up, so we would be sitting and having a conversation when something reminding her of someone would come up and the next thing I know she would be telling me all about some important thing from her past (sometimes romantic in nature, something not) and I would have to shift gears into “Information Gathering Mode.” Ultimately, though, it was the case where I determined early on that she, unlike Eva and I, did not have the fixation on her past. Even when I belatedly found out about her somewhat brief history with Rick, the friend who introduced us, I was relatively unphased. It turned out that my relationship with Clancy was best judged on its own merits. My contribution to the relationship had nothing to do with my predecessors and all to do with me.

The movie touches on this point, but it comes at a place in the movie where the metaphor is being muddled again. But despite all of this, I really enjoyed it a great deal. It’s definitely something I am going to get on DVD when it comes out. I don’t know how many of you I can recommend it to since I think my enjoyment of it revolved pretty heavily around my personal hang-ups. Though if you like oddball, you may enjoy it regardless because it is so joyfully unhinged.

Before she lost her radio show, Dr. Laura took the position that if you have kids in the house, you shouldn’t date at all. A counterpoint. I think that the trend that for kids to be happy the parents must be happy is a little too self-satisfying to be entirely accurate and thus is taken as a license to do whatever you want (and, sometimes, tear a family apart). However, if parents are miserable and lonely that is going to bleed over into their children’s lives. Besides which, having two parents in the household (in the event that dating leads to remarriage) is still, often, going to be better than one. Depending, of course, on the quality of the step-parent.

The limits of social sciences. On the general topic, Megan McArdle points out the flaws of new social science “evidence” that people are not meant to be monogamous.

A look at Linda McMahon, the Republican nominee for the US Senate seat in Connecticut, but HC favorite Jonathan Last. The question arises as to how much steroid use in the WWE should be an issue. I find it difficult to argue that it should not. McMahon made her millions in a dirty business. Of course, that never stopped us from watching, did it?

When Steven Slater went nuts on that JetBlu plain, my first question was whether or not he was an ex-cop, having recently read this article. It’s an interesting tactic, though the flier in me doesn’t know if he wants flight attendants to be bossier than they already are.

Is the Justice Department really going to put HIV-negative inmates at risk for the sake of political correctness?

When I first read about a State House candidate in the DC suburbs in Maryland lying about having played for the Dallas Cowboys, I assumed that he was hiding the fact that he played for the Redskins’ arch-rival. I was wrong.

Mark Kleimann supports the legalization of pot but opposes the legal sale of pot. One of the ironies of the pro-pot movement hating tobacco companies has always been that tobacco companies would almost certainly be the first and primary entrants into the cannibis market. Kleimann does not actually believe this to be so (Why the heck not?! Their stellar reputation?! Their impeccable morals?! I would be really interested to know his rationale.), but considers corporate America getting its grubby hands on it problematic enough. Maybe there’s something to what he’s saying as a good in-between legalization and prohibition, but I have to wonder if a drug market that the vast majority of people don’t have access to is ultimately going to solve the crime problems associated with Mary Jane. In some med-only states, the partial availability has actually caused quite a bit of crime as those that don’t have access to the ostensibly legal product do what they have to do to get it.

It’ll be interesting to see how Apple’s 99c TV-rental service goes. For some people, it’ll definitely be cheaper than cable. However, I can’t imagine it will actually destroy cable unless they can offer sporting events. It’s funny how some of the same people that freak out when Internet providers start tiering their service are also irate that cable providers and content providers go with the all-you-can-eat system (with all-you-can-eat pricing, of course). My main concern, though, is that cable has been the source of much good TV that people watch because they can in order to pay extra… but who is going to pay 99c to rent a TV show that they’ve never seen? Apple may well succeed her, but possibly at the detriment of the wide variety of available options we now have.

The subject of urban (and non-urban, for that matter) decay and crime has been a particular interest on Hit Coffee as of late, so in that spirit a look at the Detroit.

I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy lately. I’ve finally reached the most recent season, in which Dr. Miranda Bailey and her husband separate with the intent to divorce. It ultimately came down to a desire on Bailey’s part to undergo a fellowship rather than take a (better paying, better hours) job as an attending at the same hospital. Her husband issues an ultimatum. She argues that a marriage that rests on an ultimatum is not really a marriage.

Now I am biased on this subject ten ways from Sunday. My wife is a doctor and underwent two fellowships upon graduating. What I was hoping would be three of four years of residency-hours/residency-pay turned into six (with a year of unemployment or employed in a different state). At no point did I issue an ultimatum, but had she started talking about yet another fellowship, I would have seriously considered it. I had bent about as far as I was capable of bending. After we were done in Cascadia, I did make one more gesture of six months so that she could bone up on her skills for a few specific procedures that never seemed to pan out while we were in Cascadia. Point being, if she had said “one more fellowship” I would have said “no.”

Now, Bailey’s husband was objecting to a first post-residency fellowship. But she was a surgical resident, which is five years instead of Clancy’s three. Plus, they had a kid that he was left alone with and that cost money that she wasn’t particularly making as a resident and wouldn’t make as a fellow. That’s not to say that he was right and she was wrong. They’d been on the skids often enough that I had forgotten that they hadn’t split yet. But his request was not unreasonable and that he put it in the form of an ultimatum.

But, reasonable or not, in what form but an ultimatum can somebody say “enough!” to something that is going wrong? Ultimatums have something of a bad rap because they’re supposed to be controlling. But marriage requires submission to somebody else’s desires. At least sometimes. And if you never draw a line, there’s no end to the degree that one partner or the other can do what they want regardless of what you want and you have no choice but to follow. Or you can leave without giving forewarning that the next straw is the last, as though that’s more.

That’s not to say that ultimatums are always reasonable. I think that generally speaking, it’s a bullet that can be fired maybe once a decade or so. If a person is having to repeatedly issue ultimatums, it’s a sign that there are some serious problems. It means that either one person is abusing ultimatums or the other wants to walk as close to the line as possible without going over it.

I take threats of firing someone in the same manner. If my job is in danger, I do want to be informed about it. But if it happens more than once, it more likely than not means that either I am not well-suited for the position or that they are using threats on my job as a motivation tool, which is unacceptable. I’ve never had my job threatened more than once, though, so that theory of mine has never been tested.

Relationship-wise, I don’t think that I have ever had an ultimatum issued against me. I issues some vague ultimatums while with Evangeline (“Things are going to need to start changing or I’m outta here”, things like that”), but I’m not sure if those count and they were indicative of a relationship in (constant) trouble. A slightly more “real” ultimatum came towards the end when I put a deadline on it. The deadline was a month and about three weeks into that month I found out that she was becoming romantically involved with someone else.

Anyhow, everyone on the show seemed to simply accept that ultimatums were unacceptable. This included Richard Webber, the big boss man. What’s notable is Webber’s wife gave him an ultimatum that he would give up medicine entirely. I don’t recall it being presented in quite the same harsh light. Perhaps because male ultimatum’s about a woman’s career are considered unduly controlling, perhaps because Webber had been unfaithful early in their marriage and she could use that against him, perhaps because we kinda knew and liked her while Bailey’s husband only seemed to show up when something was very wrong.