In an op-ed in Salon (which appears in slightly abbreviated form in the LA Times, Ehrenreich writes that women's response to the Stupak Amendment, which "will snatch away all but the wealthiest women's right to choose," has been "muted" compared with the outcry against the new mammography guidelines. This is despite the fact that mammograms for women under 50 haven't been shown to decrease breast cancer mortality, and some evidence suggests they may even increase cancer risk. Ehrenreich writes,

It's not just that abortion is deemed a morally trickier issue than mammography. To some extent, pink-ribbon culture has replaced feminism as a focus of female identity and solidarity. When a corporation wants to signal that it's "woman friendly," what does it do? It stamps a pink ribbon on its widget and proclaims that some miniscule portion of the profits will go to breast cancer research. I've even seen a bottle of Shiraz called "Hope" with a pink ribbon on its label, but no information, alas, on how much you have to drink to achieve the promised effect. When Laura Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2007, what grave issue did she take up with the locals? Not women's rights (to drive, to go outside without a man, etc.), but "breast cancer awareness." In the post-feminist United States, issues like rape, domestic violence, and unwanted pregnancy seem to be too edgy for much public discussion, but breast cancer is all apple pie.

On the one hand, Ehrenreich's comments seem like a somewhat heavy-handed indictment of modern feminism. She says, "Once upon a time, grassroots women challenged the establishment by figuratively burning their bras. Now, in some masochistic perversion of feminism, they are raising their voices to yell, 'Squeeze our tits!'" But just as not everything a woman does is empowering, not every extra-scientific position a group of women takes is a blow to feminism. Also, plenty of us have been far from muted on Stupak.

That said, however, there's good evidence that the breast cancer awareness movement as it currently exists isn't necessarily good for women. Though many fear that the new guidelines are simply an attempt by insurance companies to save money, Ehrenreich argues that the old guidelines actually pumped money into the pockets of oncologists, who offered chemotherapy for mammogram-detected cancers that might never have needed treating. Unfortunately, we don't yet know how to distinguish these cancers from those that do merit aggressive treatment — and the treatments we do have could be a lot better. Ehrenreich says,

What we really need is a new women's health movement, one that's sharp and skeptical enough to ask all the hard questions: What are the environmental (or possibly life-style) causes of the breast cancer epidemic? Why are existing treatments like chemotherapy so toxic and heavy-handed? And, if the old narrative of cancer's progression from "early" to "late" stages no longer holds, what is the course of this disease (or diseases)? What we don't need, no matter how pretty and pink, is a ladies' auxiliary to the cancer-industrial complex.

Ehrenreich's language is harsh, but as someone who suffered breast cancer herself, she knows whereof she speaks. And while research into cancer treatment is ongoing, the focus of breast cancer awareness could use a shift. Much of the focus is on women themselves — their responsibility to schedule regular mammograms, to lead a healthy lifestyle, and to perform self-exams (a practice also jettisoned under the new guidelines). It makes a certain amount of sense — individual women want to feel that they can have an effect on their health. But there may be systemic factors, like additives and pollutants, that contribute to breast cancer, and the pink-ribbon movement might do well to advocate for more research into those. And although mammograms can save lives, new screening options might be even better — cutting-edge research deserves just as much support as awareness and prevention currently get.

The "pink-ribbon breast cancer cult," as Ehrenreich calls it, may not be the sign of a large-scale failure of feminism. But women are being asked to accept a lot of symbolic gestures — like Sen. Dick Vitter's superfluous mammogram-access amendment — instead of the reproductive rights and truly life-saving treatments they actually need. Ehrenreich argues persuasively that rather than getting angry about new guidelines for a useful but flawed procedure, women should save their anger for what really matters — that we still don't know how to heal our breasts, and that the government is trying to control our wombs.

Slap On A Pink Ribbon, Call It A Day [Salon]
Can Mammograms Increase Cancer Risk For Some Women? [Time: Wellness Blog]
Annual Screening With Breast Ultrasound Or MRI Could Benefit Some Women [EurekAlert]
Targeted Breast Ultrasound Can Reduce Biopsies For Women Under 40 [EurekAlert]
David Vitter Will Protect Ladies From Medical Recommendations [Wonkette]

Today's women may be unhappy (at least, that's the claim), but Buckingham must be pretty psyched — in addition to his Huffington Post column, he's got a book excerpt, a panel discussion, a top ten list, and a video clip up on Business Week's website. Here's the video:

Buckingham may be a leeetle smarmy, but he's not horrible — he doesn't think women belong in the home, nor is he one of those people who think feminism causes unhappiness (a position Judith Warner handily attacks on her NY Times blog today). He does think women are kinda miserable — as evidence he cites not just the popular Stevenson and Wolfers study, but also the nifty-sounding "Eurobarometer analysis." But the solution isn't a return to some notional age of pregnancy and pie-baking — we just have to work smarter!

According to the video, the happiest women are those who don't multitask or "juggle," because "if your entire life is spent as a juggler, you never really get to hold onto any moment long enough to feel it." I decided to multitask a little by actually juggling during the video, and I think it made me a little bit happier, but then "spending your entire life as a juggler" actually sounds pretty sweet to me, so maybe I'm not Buckingham's target audience (note to the at-home juggler: I like to use balled-up socks). If I really want to be happy, says Buckingham, I need to stop doing so many things at once.

It's a message echoed over and over again in his writing, and in his interviews with professional women. Over at HuffPo, Buckingham quotes Billie Williamson, senior partner at Ernst & Young, who proudly admits that she doesn't arrange photos of her daughter in scrapbooks. She's also "the queen of outsourcing." Buckingham writes,

House cleaning, grocery shopping, kid's birthday parties, all outsourced. You can't do everything, so don't fall into the trap of trying. Instead, find the moments in each aspect of your life that invigorate you, and imbalance your life toward those.

So one key to happiness is having servants. Another is not letting your digressive ladybrain get in the way. At BusinessWeek, Susan Peters, chief learning officer at General Electric, says to Buckingham,

I know you've all done this, where you're writing the list of what you have to get done for Thanksgiving dinner while the colleague next to you is making the big presentation. You have to discipline your mind to stay where you are and stay in the moment. I would argue that our male colleagues are in the moment, and if we're not, that's a huge disadvantage.

Men don't think about dinner when they're busy with affairs of state, and neither should you. Just outsource it. Of course, some things, like pregnancy, are harder to outsource. So just put off thinking about them for as long as possible. At HuffPo, Buckingham paraphrases Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg:

Time and again she has seen highly talented women turn down challenging career assignments because they are thinking about having a baby. Not that they actually have a baby. They aren't even pregnant. It's merely that they are thinking about it. And this thinking turns to planning, and the planning leads them to the conclusion that now isn't a good time to take on anything new. Sheryl's advice: Enough with your planning. You are on a fast career track right now, doing as much and earning as much and wanting as much as your colleagues, so stay on this track for as long as you can, and wait to see what unfolds.

Buckingham's basic thesis seems to be that women sabotage themselves by thinking about too much stuff, and if they could just think about less — perhaps by paying other people to do it for them — they'd be happier. His advice isn't stupid — if you're a successful middle-class woman. There is something empowering about refusing to manage a whole bunch of household crap, especially if you can afford to get someone else to take care of it. And it's probably true that women with the luxury of maintaining laserlike focus enjoy their jobs more. But not all women have what Buckingham calls "an excess of choice" of things to pay attention to. Plenty of women have lots of obligations and little help or money, and "quit juggling" isn't particularly good advice for them.

There's really a bigger problem at work in Buckingham's advice, one Barbara Ehrenreich hints at in Bright-Sided. She says that making people feel artificially happy about their circumstances discourages them from trying to change them. Similarly, telling women that the way to get happy is to change their individual thought processes ignores the idea of collective action. Judith Warner is as skeptical about women's large-scale unhappiness as I am, but she does identify some major problems:

The wage gap persists, particularly for mothers, who now earn 73 cents for every man's dollar. Our workforce and education system is still sex-segregated, operating along generations-old stereotypes that steer most women into low-paid, low-status, low-security professions. Women pay more for health insurance than men, have more extensive health needs than men, and suffer unique forms of discrimination in their coverage. (Women may be denied coverage because they had a Caesarean delivery or were victims of domestic violence - both "preexisting conditions.") Regardless of the number of hours they work, they continue to do far more caretaking and housekeeping work at home than do their husbands. And discrimination against mothers (but not fathers) in the workplace is all but ubiquitous.

Women aren't going to solve any of these problems by saying "in the moment" or by putting off thinking about kids as long as possible. In fact, these techniques actually make systemic change less likely, because (again, as Ehrenreich says about positive thinking) they make it seem like any woman who isn't happy is just doing something wrong. It's revealing that Buckingham lists the wage gap as one of his top ten "myths about the lives of women:"

The oft-quoted 77¢ on the dollar figure is accurate. But almost all of the gap is caused by different levels of experience. Women interrupt their careers and that leads to being perceived as having less experience.

Buckingham may not believe in the wage gap, or in other social problems keeping women from achieving parity. But those of us who do see the large-scale social ills Warner enumerates understand that we're not going to fix them by looking inward at our own brains. We need to turn outward, and join forces with other women, women whose troubles are bigger than not having the time to scrapbook. Ehrenreich said it well: "the threats we face are real and can be vanquished only by shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world." Even if it involves a little juggling.

How Women Handle Success [BusinessWeek]
Words Of Wisdom From Strong Women [Huffington Post]
When We're Equal, We'll Be Happy [NYT]
Ten Myths About The Lives Of Women [BusinessWeek]
Why Are Women Unhappier Than They Were 40 Years Ago? [BusinessWeek]
Marcus Buckingham On Strong Women [BusinessWeek]

Ehrenreich made her name taking on the humiliations and inadequacies of American low-wage jobs in Nickel and Dimed, and in Bright-Sided she identifies a similarly large-scale enemy — a sort of positivity-industrial complex composed of big corporations (who want optimistic, obedient workers), motivational speakers and coaches (who want to sell materials on how to be more positive), and even medical researchers (who feel pressure to support the "sexy" idea of mind over matter). These forces combine, she argues, to enforce a "deliberate self-deception" that not only masks real unhappiness but has led our country into danger.

Bright-Sided is especially strong in its critique of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, which Ehrenreich identifies as a rehash of earlier self-help books, and even of some principles of magic. She points out that the ideas promulgated in The Secret — say, that you can "attract" a life partner by making room in your closet for his clothes, or a car by putting a picture of it on a "vision board" — require a universe in which other people are slaves to your whims. She describes an interview in which Larry King found himself in "an odd situation for a famous talk show host — having to insist that he, Larry King, was not just an image on someone else's vision board but an independent being with a will of his own." A world where no one else has free will, Ehrenreich points out, is "a god-awful lonely place."

Ehrenreich also writes persuasively that the popularity of positive thinking in corporate America — she cites the rise of "self-described management gurus" like Tony Robbins and the book Who Moved My Cheese? as examples — has served to blind workers to their ever-decreasing job security. "Outplacement" firms teach the newly unemployed to think of layoffs as a good thing, and Who Moved My Cheese? tells readers that the most successful people (or rather, mice) are those who don't "overanalyze or overcomplicate things" — with the result that workers are less likely to complain about their employers' increasingly capricious control over their lives. Ehrenreich writes,

By and large, America's white-collar corporate workforce drank the Kool-Aid, as the expression goes, and accepted positive thinking as a substitute for their former affluence and security. They did not take to the streets, shift their political allegiance in large numbers, or show up at work with automatic weapons in hand. As one laid-off executive told me with quiet pride, "I've gotten over my negative feelings, which were so dysfunctional." Positive thinking promised them a sense of control in a world where the "cheese" was always moving. They may have had less and less power to chart their own futures, but they had been given a worldview — a belief system, almost a religion — that claimed they were in fact infinitely powerful, if they could only master their own minds.

The book can be unforgiving at times. Ehrenreich writes provocatively of her own battle with breast cancer, and of the criticism she faced from other sufferers for admitting she was angry. She also notes that the (highly questionable) claims that "positive" people are healthier can degenerate into a kind of victim-blaming — one patient said, "I know that if I get sad, or scared or upset, I am making my tumor grow faster and I will have shortened my life." And she cites one study showing that women who see benefits to cancer may even "face a poorer quality of life" than those who don't. At the same time, Ehrenreich doesn't make much distinction between negative events we can resist in some way and those we simply have to accept. She mentions that breast cancer therapies haven't improved all that much since the 1930s, but this isn't for lack of effort or research, and some women thinking of cancer as a "gift" hasn't stopped the search for a cure. Ehrenreich's critique of the whitewashing of her own and other women's feelings is apt, but at the same time, a cancer diagnosis represents for many people a powerful loss of control. It's little wonder that many try to find a silver lining, and a little inhumane to discourage them from doing so.

Other forms of positive thinking, especially that imposed by employers, are far more damaging to society. Ehrenreich mentions the role of optimistic yes-men in the financial crisis and the Iraq war, but she could have condemned even more strongly the movement that seeks to convince people that losing their jobs is awesome. While looking on the bright side of a layoff may make sense on a personal level, it also discourages any sort of collective action. Ehrenreich writes in her postscript that "positive thinking has been a tool of repression worldwide" and that "the threats we face are real and can be vanquished only by shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world." The latter seems like the real key point of Bright-Sided — that convincing ourselves that things are already good can keep us from making them better, both for ourselves and for others — and I wish Ehrenreich had made it more forcefully throughout her book, not just in the postscript. It's a message that deserves to be heard.

Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion Of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America [Amazon]

We've written a bunch on the specious claims of the study called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," but Ehrenreich throws in some of her own useful critiques, including the fact that black woman actually seem to be getting happier, and that something as small as finding a dime can throw off the "measurement" of happiness. But her most important new insight is that the happiness study in question has actually been around for a while, and its recent popularity may have more to do with marketing than with truth. She writes,

So why all the sudden fuss about the Stevenson and Wolfers study, which first leaked out two years ago anyway? Mostly because it's become a launching pad for a new book by the prolific management consultant Marcus Buckingham, best known for "First, Break All the Rules" and "Now, Find your Strengths." His new book, "Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently," is a cookie-cutter classic of the positive-thinking self-help genre: First, the heart-wrenching quotes from unhappy women identified only by their e-mail names (Countess1, Luveyduvy, etc.), then the stories of "successful" women, followed by the obligatory self-administered test to discover "the role you were bound to play" (Creator, Caretaker, Influencer, etc.), all bookended with an ad for the many related products you can buy, including a "video introduction" from Buckingham, a "participant's guide" containing "exercises" to get you to happiness, and a handsome set of "Eight Strong Life Plans" to pick from. The Huffington Post has given Buckingham a column in which to continue his marketing campaign.

HuffPo bills Buckingham somewhat breathlessly as a "leading expert in personal strengths," but at first glance his advice doesn't seem particularly terrible. Happy women, he says, focus on moments of fulfillment in their lives, and don't beat themselves up over weaknesses or force themselves to adhere to an artificial standard of "balance." I'll buy that. Problem is, that's exactly what Buckingham wants me to do. His column, "What The Happiest And Most Successful Women Do Differently," concludes with a discussion of his "Strong Life Test." He writes,

[The Strong Life Test] measures you on nine life roles— Advisor, Caretaker, Creator, Equalizer, Influencer, Motivator, Pioneer, Teacher, and Weaver. More than likely, your life calls on you to play all nine roles some of the time, but, even so, you are not a blank slate—your personality doesn't shift and morph according to the demands of every unique situation. Instead, as we all do, you have some consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, patterns that are distinctive and that remain stable across time and situations. These patterns come together in a Lead Role, a role you return to time and again, a role that you and your closest family and friends recognize as the core of who you are. Your Lead Role will help you to know where to look, in any domain of your life (as a spouse, relative, mother, or employee), for the kind of moments that will strengthen you the most, invigorate you the most, bring you joy, excitement, and fun. The Strong Life Test doesn't give you all the answers, but it tells you where to start.

Buckingham may be planning on elaborating on this test in a later column, but for now, you have to buy his book. Whereupon you'll find yet another example of the "better living through categorization" school of self-help. No doubt Buckingham has helped some people, but the fact remains that he and his ilk are basically in the business of slotting people into boxes. Motivator, Pioneer, Teacher, decline in female happiness — all of these are broad, relatively amorphous categories in which lots of people can probably recognize something of themselves. This recognition may be enough to mask the fact that nobody really knows how to make people happier on a large scale. And the things that might work — like, say, affordable health insurance with mental health parity — aren't in the power of self-help authors to provide. Some of these authors may have valuable insights, but mostly, what they have are buzzwords and catchphrases — and "declining female happiness" may just be the latest one of these.

Are Women Unhappier? Don't Make Me Laugh [LA Times]
What The Happiest And Most Successful Women Do Differently [Huffington Post]

And yet, despite all the good reasons to hate the pink ribbons — see Barbara Ehrenreich's 2001 essay "Welcome to Cancerland" for more on that and pretty much everything else in this post — doesn't it feel a bit grinchy to object strenuously to them? Raising awareness is good, right? And hey, when you buy that beribboned candy bar or make-up brush or spatula, you're donating money to a good cause, right?

Maybe, maybe not. As Aimee Picchi writes at AOL's Daily Finance, the breast cancer-specific packaging is more an indication of savvy marketing than corporate benevolence. In some cases, there's no guarantee at all that part of your purchase price will go to a charity; Procter and Gamble will only donate two cents of your pink Swiffer purchase if you have a specific coupon that appeared in newspapers a couple of weeks ago, for instance. In others, the fine print tells you there's a cap on donations — e.g., $15,000 for Herr's Whole Grain Pretzel Ribbons — so if you buy the product after the limit's been reached, your money goes exactly where it would go if you bought the normal package. And in still other cases, such as Hershey's Bliss chocolates, the donation is not only capped (at $300,000 there), but entirely separate from sales of the product, so there's no reason at all to buy the pink package unless you like your chocolate gendered.

Why co-opt the pink ribbon if you're not even raising money for breast cancer research? Because, like Axe body spray, fruity malt liquor and backhanded compliments, women go nuts for it. Picchi cites a recent Boston Globe article that says market research has found that "79 percent of consumers would likely switch to a brand that supports a cause, all other things being equal." And a recent study at The University of Michigan "found that not only can companies raise prices and make higher profits on the sale of products that benefit a cause, these companies' entire brand portfolios can experience a 'spillover' increase in sales and profits, which more than compensates for the money given to charity." Giving a little bit of money away — or at least appearing as if you might — actually makes big money. It's "a competitive business strategy," Hershey spokesperson Jody Cook told Picchi. "We know the pink ribbon resonates well with our customer, and our main target for the Bliss brand is women and mothers, so it's a perfect fit." (It also "fits in with [Hershey's] corporate values," but Cook doesn't specify whether she means charitable values or shareholder-pleasing ones. Could go either way.)

Still, one might argue that some good is being done, and no obvious harm, so why fuss? Blogger Jeanne Sather calls bullshit: "Breast cancer is a disease. Not a marketing opportunity." (At her blog, The Assertive Cancer Patient, you can see Sather sporting a T-shirt that reads "Fuck awareness. Find a cure." The "u" in "Fuck" is a pink ribbon.) Exploiting a devastating disease in order to reap greater profits — while pretending it's all about funding research, at least until you're directly questioned about the fine print — may be legal and may even be "good business," but man, is it ever icky. How many consumers realize their pink purchase is probably not doing a damned thing — or that any donation the company does make to charity is likely to be far exceeded by the extra dough they pocket by essentially tricking customers into believing every pink ribbon equals a donation? Says Sather, simply, "This is wrong."

But as much as I like to blame corporate greed for pretty much everything up to and including the fact that I'm a little sleepy right now, those of us buying the pink shit need to take some responsibility, too. Barbara Brenner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action, told Picchi, "People have come to believe that if they just do what they're told by corporate America, whether buying a product or doing a walk, they'll solve the breast cancer problem and not have to think about it." My instinct is to argue that the problem isn't entirely about the sheep factor, or the ostrich factor, but about not knowing what else to do. Sather suggests that "if consumers really want to help fight cancer, they should consider directly giving money to organizations such as Gilda's Club, Team Survivor or Breast Cancer Action," but that only works if a personal donation is in the budget; one of the reasons people do walks and buy pink-ribboned candy bars is that it's a way to contribute when one has limited finances. But then, Sather adds, you could also "offer to help a cancer patient personally, such as doing her grocery shopping." Oh. Right. That probably would be more helpful than hoping 2 cents of my Swiffer purchase will go toward a cure. And the fact that I wouldn't have thought of it unless one of my friends or family members was diagnosed with breast cancer goes to Brenner's point. The primary attraction of cause-associated products is that you can congratulate yourself for doing something good without actually doing anything.

The least we can do as consumers, then, is follow the advice of Breast Cancer Action: "Think Before You Pink." On a list of "critical questions to ask yourself before you buy pink," the website makes not only all of the points Picchi does, but an even more disturbing one: Some of the companies donating money to breast cancer research are also doing things that might be causing it. "BMW, for example, gives $1 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure each time you test-drive one of their cars, even though pollutants found in car exhaust are linked to breast cancer. Many cosmetics companies whose products contain chemicals linked to breast cancer also sell their items for the cause." And pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly might be the worst "pinkwasher" of all, having recently begun selling rGBH (bovine growth hormone) which has been banned in Canada, Australia, Japan and the EU, in part because it's linked to cancer. Lilly also happens to do a couple billion dollars a year in cancer drug sales. It seems horribly cynical to explicitly connect those two things and ask the obvious question — would the folks at Lilly actually be happy if cancer rates went down? — but history has shown us it ain't necessarily tinfoil hat territory.

At best, we can say that the links between cancer and some of the chemicals in question aren't conclusively proven — and I'm all for keeping in mind that correlation is not causation — but it's certainly worth taking a moment to consider whether we're indirectly supporting cancer itself while attempting to support a worthy cause with our purchases. And then take a moment to read the fine print on a beribboned package and find out where, if anywhere other than the corporation's coffers, our money is going. And then maybe see if one of our neighbors needs someone to make a run to the grocery store.

Pink ribbon overkill: Are companies exploiting breast cancer campaigns? [Daily Finance]
Sick of pink [Boston Globe]
Welcome to Cancerland [Barbara Ehrenreich]
Think Before You Pink [Breast Cancer Action]

In an interview for Elle magazine, Ehrenreich blasts the ideology surrounding thinking positively which changes an optimistic outlook into a demand for complacency in the face of life struggles. She argues the need for people to silence those who are critical is stifling the development of society. However, what I found most compelling is what she says in Elle about the impact "positive thinking" has on social justice:

BE: Two weeks ago, I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at a meeting where people who were about to be laid off told their stories. A woman next to me said that when her unemployment insurance runs out, she'll live in her car. Then, another woman said, "Well, we have to remember to be positive, and that means don't watch the news, don't read the newspaper, just concentrate." Oh my God, I ask, how can this be happening? It's about how unattractive whiners and complainers are, and how they should be shunned.

ELLE: Can we draw out any other dynamics between positive thinking and the kind of winner-take-all social order we've shaped ourselves into, beyond the way business has employed the doctrine to manipulate employees and sell mortgages?

BE: You don't worry about social inequality if you're a positive thinker, because you, too, can become rich just by modifying your thoughts. So why be concerned that some people are off in the stratosphere in their personal jets while you're waiting for the bus?

ELLE: And if you're poor, you must not be thinking right.

BE: It's your own fault. In fact, most of the measures of quote-happiness-unquote that positive psychologists offer are really about how much we can accept the status quo. So even though I consider myself a fairly energetic and upbeat person, I never do very well on happiness tests.

ELLE: Surveys are always showing that conservatives are happier than liberals, traditional moms are more happy than feminist moms.

BE: If you're not at all bothered by human suffering – great. But if you have a vision of human happiness that includes all those people who are currently suffering, you've got to do something about it.

I believe, in some ways, agitating for social change is the most positive form of thinking there is. In order to do so, we must believe that one person can make a difference, that our opinion is worth voicing, and that the world can become better – if we are willing to make an effort to shape it that way.

Bright Sided [Barbara Ehrenreich]
Positively Perverse [Elle Magazine]

MEGAN: Hey, Spencer, want to talk about sexism for a minute? Because I think the McCain campaign just about got tired of it.

SPENCER: First of all, don't type so loud.

MEGAN: What kind of drinking did you end up doing last night?

SPENCER: I went to Townhouse after leaving Solly's, but by the time I got to Townhouse I was pretty much ready to call it a night. Anyhow. Second of all, you think Campbell Brown is going somewhere else with this, but no!

MEGAN: FREE SARAH PALIN!! I love how Campbell Brown led off with, excuse me while I pull an Olbermann and rant, it's kind of completely awesome. If only she sounded angrier, though. I like my outrage to sound more outraged.

SPENCER: Did you say you want outrage? Outrage this morning?

MEGAN: Why, yes, I feel like I need to get my day started with something and I haven't started brewing coffee...

SPENCER: Then feast on the wellspring of all outrage: the greatest op-ed ever penned. Barbara Ehrenreich in the New York Times paints her fingernails black, turns on Cradle Of Filth and unleashes an argument the country is absolutely unprepared to accept.

GREED — and its crafty sibling, speculation — are the designated culprits for the financial crisis. But another, much admired, habit of mind should get its share of the blame: the delusional optimism of mainstream, all-American, positive thinking.

Wait, what did you say?

The tomes in airport bookstores’ business sections warn against “negativity” and advise the reader to be at all times upbeat, optimistic, brimming with confidence. It’s a message companies relentlessly reinforced — treating their white-collar employees to manic motivational speakers and revival-like motivational events, while sending the top guys off to exotic locales to get pumped by the likes of Tony Robbins and other success gurus. Those who failed to get with the program would be subjected to personal “coaching” or shown the door. The once-sober finance industry was not immune.

I think my dick is hard.

MEGAN: It's too early for me to comment on your erections, so I'll simply say that I love that she's basically like, everyone on Wall Street was a delusional asshole!

SPENCER: Oh but it runs so much deeper than that. The locus for the crisis is within the soul of America. You see, you did this, in a sense: you fell for a comforting delusion, you weak-willed sucker, and you let yourself be exploited — she's saying this in the fucking New York Times! — and now look at yourself.

MEGAN: God doesn't really love you! The universe will never be stacked in your favor!

SPENCER: She goes sooooo far in this direction. By the end of the piece she finds it in her heart to praise the Puritans

Americans did not start out as deluded optimists. The original ethos, at least of white Protestant settlers and their descendants, was a grim Calvinism that offered wealth only through hard work and savings, and even then made no promises at all. You might work hard and still fail; you certainly wouldn’t get anywhere by adjusting your attitude or dreamily “visualizing” success.

MEGAN: If I remember correct, success was actually the only sign that God didn't actually hate you and you might not be going to hell after all.

SPENCER: Here, some would object that Ehrenreich has now hit the bedrock of absurdity. But FUCK THAT. If ever there was a time for some overcorrective excess, it has to be when Henry Paulson pulls a $700 billion figure out of thin air and says the part of his plan that reads "no oversight" really indicates that he "wants oversight."

MEGAN: Which is very 1984 of him.

SPENCER: I think I scrawled this op-ed in Sharpie on my desk at homeroom.

MEGAN: I skipped homeroom for 3 or 4 years in high school. And I never got caught, because I was too "good" to be doing that.

SPENCER: I got suspended. My mom had to take a day off from work and hear from a guidance counselor how I was at risk of joining a cult. But look at me now, asshole.

MEGAN: Yeah, here I am 15 years later and I am still chronically tardy. But at least I don't give a shit about motivational speakers, so I'm not completely deluded.

SPENCER: What to make of Ehrenreich's final graf?

When it comes to how we think, “negative” is not the only alternative to “positive.” As the case histories of depressives show, consistent pessimism can be just as baseless and deluded as its opposite. The alternative to both is realism — seeing the risks, having the courage to bear bad news and being prepared for famine as well as plenty. We ought to give it a try.

This is clearly a cop-out. She spent the previous 700 words arguing that pessimism is realism. I'll bet her editor put this in there, they fought about it for hours, and then she decided that she didn't actually care because God doesn't care.

MEGAN: Well, realism is pessimism to non-pessimists. Pessimists think nihilism is pessimism.

SPENCER: Meanwhile nihilists are beyond such concepts, much as they are beyond your lying, timid morality.

MEGAN: Well, I'm guessing she's no big fan of the Hope campaign.

SPENCER: HAHAHAHAHA yeah Ehrenreich totally isn't voting for Obama. Not that it appears he needs her anymore.

Turmoil in the financial industry and growing pessimism about the economy have altered the shape of the presidential race, giving Democratic nominee Barack Obama the first clear lead of the general-election campaign over Republican John McCain, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national poll.

MEGAN: I think the country is no longer filled with optimists anyway:

Just 9 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as good or excellent, the first time that number has been in single digits since the days just before the 1992 election. Just 14 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, equaling the record low on that question in polls dating back to 1973.

SPENCER: Next up: America rejects God. Storm heaven; and unleash hell!

Black civil rights weren't won by suited men (or women) sitting at desks. They were won by a mass movement of millions who marched, sat in at lunch counters, endured jailings, and took bullets and beatings for the right to vote and move freely about.

Barbara thinks Hillary is cynical and pragmatic to the point of political futility and basically indicates her skillset would be better-suited to the corner office than the presidency. And Bob is merely troubled by the willingness of America to regularly demean, exploit, belittle, grope, abuse, and throw away the rape kits of one half of its populace. (Also he is so cute!) Go read both of them and read some people with real opinions for a change!

Hillary's Real MLK Problem [Huffington Post]
Politics and Misogyny [NY Times]

*Could you tell that was a joke? That was a joke. Designed to offend you, avoid earnestness, save space, etc.

He claims:

When it came time to raise my own little girl I made sure to expose her to sports, cars and soccer balls. She could've cared less. Three-year-old Ava was passionate about cooking, baking, her nails, edible makeup and anything having to do with princesses. I was terrified she was going to grow up to become a Republican."

The hot accessory right now is a sparkling tiara, reports The Seattle Times. "Something shocking happened last year," says Susy Korb, executive vice president and creative director of famed jeweler Harry Winston. "We sold two tiaras within two weeks in the U.S. These were real people, accomplished people, celebrating life's milestones with tiaras." But Korb doesn't connect the dots between worshipping Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Belle with the desire to wear a crown. "Americans didn't grow up with royalty so it's not quite as loaded in meaning," she says. Ah, but we do have royalty in this country, and their realm is in bedtime stories and animated flims. We're serfs in their kingdom at young, impressionable ages. Still, part of being a kid is dreaming of fantastical lives; lion tamer, firefighter and yes, princess. Does princess-worship mean that little girls will grow up thinking a prince will rescue them from doing housework? Or is it simply, as Ellis posits, a phase? And raise your hand if you've ever worn a tiara, just for fun. (I have 3.)

In Defense of Princesses [Huffington Post]
Tiara mania: C'mon Princess, You Deserve One [Seattle Times]
Related: Bonfire of the Princesses [Huffington Post]

Eariler: Why Barbie Is Bad
Marriage Is Not A Fairy Tale
Who's To Blame When Your Fairy Tale Doesn't Come True?