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One thing that I’ve learned from trying to keep in touch with my parents via Skype and FaceTime is that multi-purpose devices, such as smartphones and computers, don’t work well for octogenarians.

I’m intrigued by the Facebook Portal+ and Amazon’s echo show.

Readers: Have you tried these? Can they legitimately serve to as a convenient portal between non-tech grandparents and grandchildren? Which device is better?

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It is time for the family winter trip to Florida. Due to the fact that it is too cold to swim in the ocean even in Miami, we’re going to Jacksonville Beach and St. Augustine (kids can enjoy playgrounds, at least, without a down jacket). We should be there from Christmas through January 5. The plan is to ferry the Cirrus SR20 down from Hanscom Field to KCRG so that we can use it for day trips around northern Florida, e.g., to Crystal River to see the manatees.

Email philg@mit.edu if you’d like to get together in northern Florida at some point between Dec 25 and Jan 5.

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One thing that I have learned from being an expert witness in the U.S. court system is that there are seldom any surprises at trial. Everyone who will testify has already been deposed for 7 hours (Federal rules).

I have recently done some work on a U.S. case in which a bunch of folks in Brazil were involved. I asked the lawyers “Are you going down to Brazil to take depositions?” They responded with “We would be arrested. It is illegal to take a deposition in Brazil.” The legal system down there runs on documents, apparently. If human witnesses are going to add anything, they testify at trial and lawyers have to think on their feet for cross-examination.

It turns out that Germany is organized along similar lines (1985 article that explains the system there), though I don’t think they go so far as to imprison folks who agree to hang out and depose one another, e.g., for a U.S. case.

If we want to see Perry Mason-style drama, maybe we need to visit a courtroom in Brazil!

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One interaction from Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland (fortunately my mom has escaped):

Brenda the nurse: “I’m from Kenya.”

Mom: “I was there in 1988.”

Brenda: “It was a lot nicer then.”

Me: “How come?”

Brenda: “Because of population growth.”

Separately, my mother went through a period of delirium and the nurses would go through their standard list of questions: What’s your name? When were you born? What year is it? Who is the President?

Having lived through the golden years of U.S. economic expansion, my mom can’t see any limits to tax revenue or government capability and thus is a 100 percent loyal Democrat. Even when only 2 percent of her brain was functioning and got her birthyear wrong, for example, she would answer that last question with “Donald Trump and I don’t like him.”

(Except at FBOs (fueling points for small planes), the trips to D.C. were mostly about encounters with immigrants. The Burger King/Mobil that is walking distance from Business Aircraft Center at Danbury (KDXR) was 100-percent staffed with Spanish speakers. Every Uber driver in the Maryland/DC area was an immigrant. The physicians who cared for my mother were immigrants, one from India and one from Colombia (second residency in the U.S., though). Roughly 85 percent of the nurses and techs were immigrants. The only health care job that seems to be dominated by native-born Americans is social worker.)

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“Mom Dresses Six-Year-Old Son As Girl, Threatens Dad With Losing His Son For Disagreeing: A Texas custody case splits a 6-year-old child’s gender identity in two.” (Federalist):

In their divorce proceedings, the mother has charged the father with child abuse for not affirming James as transgender, has sought restraining orders against him, and is seeking to terminate his parental rights. She is also seeking to require him to pay for the child’s visits to a transgender-affirming therapist and transgender medical alterations, which may include hormonal sterilization starting at age eight.

(Sidenote: In a jurisdiction that offers no-fault or “unilateral” divorce (see this chapter on Texas family law), there is nothing mutual about a divorce lawsuit. One parent sues the other. So “their divorce proceedings” is misleading.)

In addition to the lawyers, the psychology industry is getting revenue:

When his mother, a pediatrician, took James for counseling, she chose a gender transition therapist who diagnosed him with gender dysphoria, a mental conflict between physical sex and perceived gender. James’ precious young life hinges purely on the diagnosis of gender dysphoria by a therapist who wraps herself in rainbow colors,

In the world’s most litigious and expensive venue for custody litigation (compare to Germany, for example), transgenderism adds a new twist. In addition to arguing over where children spend their time and how much cash children will yield for a plaintiff parent, now everyone in the industry can get paid to argue about whether an 8-year-old gets gender reassignment hormones and surgery.

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“My 15-Year-Old Daughter Told Me She’s Pansexual and Dating a Transgender Boy. I’m Struggling.” (nytimes):

She came out to us as pansexual when she was 11. I was concerned about her labeling herself at such a young age and being bullied. She met a transgender child in summer camp, then a few others, and helped them through some tough times. I was proud of her for her compassion and did not restrict her friendships, though she wasn’t allowed to sleep over at anyone’s house.

This reminds me of The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook:

Today I made a Black Forest cake out of five pounds of cherries and a live beaver, challenging the very definition of the word “cake.” I was very pleased. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but could not stay for dessert.

The virtuous Steve Almond, a name that seems to be associated with images of a white-appearing cisgender male, and whom Wikipedia says “lives in Arlington, Massachusetts with his wife and three children”:

it sounds like your underlying anxiety is that your daughter has a sexual identity and desires that aren’t heteronormative. It’s hard enough to move through a world fraught with bigotry as a young Latino woman. It becomes that much harder when you identify as pansexual and have a transgender partner.

Unless he himself is bigoted, how does the white cisgender man know what is difficult or easy for a “young Latino woman”?

Mr. Almond says the important questions to ask are not about sexuality, but rather “Is she happy? Is she doing well in school? Is she kind to those around her?” But why is doing well in school plainly more important than what kind of sex the daughter is having and with whom? Suppose that a high school Student A gets 1600 on the SATs and straight As and has (safe) sex with a different partner every night, in a full assortment of genders and sexual preferences. Student B gets 1000 on the SATs and has a B average and has no sex partners. The parents of Student B should be envious that the parents of Student A have a superior offspring?

The other writer responding to the mom is Cheryl Strayed, who is a “feminist” and has been married to two different men (“Brian” and “Marco”). Ms. Strayed does not seem to have any experience changing her gender, having sex with other women, etc., yet speak confidently about transgender and pansexual issues:

I encourage you to examine the ways that negative assumptions you’ve made about L.G.B.T.Q. people have needlessly stoked your fears. … Why do you put her current romantic interest in a special category because he’s trans? Because our transphobic society has told most of us that trans people are in a special category, that’s why. But they aren’t. They’re just people.

If trans people are “just people”, why hasn’t Ms. Strayed even once chosen one as a partner for long enough to write about?

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A friend’s daughter said that people have to pay in order to have a good experience in today’s virtual (game) worlds. “It’s just like the real world in that respect,” she added. As this half-Chinese gal is currently polishing up her resume for college applications and refused my suggestion to “pull an Elizabeth Warren,” I worked her observation into a backup suggestion: start a non-profit organization devoted to reducing inequality in the virtual world(s). There are already a lot of non-profits attacking the challenge of inequality in the physical world (by paying their own executives above-market and above-median salaries?). She could carve out a niche by taking care of those who are disadvantaged in the virtual/online world.

Readers: What do you think? If people are spending more and more time online, shouldn’t we be just as concerned about inequality there as in the physical world? Or it isn’t worth worrying about because once we make everyone equal financially in the real world that will automatically take care of inequality in the virtual world?

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Buried in “Do Americans marry for love or money? Finally, an answer” (MarketWatch):

those who have older models of either smartphone are 56% less likely to get a date, according to a recent survey of more than 5,500 singletons aged 18 and over by dating site Match.com.

It seems unlikely that the researchers adjusted for age, income, height, weight, etc., but it would be fascinating if the effect were robust after these adjustments!

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A friend’s daughter attends a suburban Boston high school in which political thinking is strictly orthodox. She threw a wrench into the works the other day, however, by wondering out loud to teachers who were using the term “LGBTQ” for the 500th time this semester: “If you call someone bisexual, doesn’t that imply that there are only two genders?”

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From “Philip’s Guide to Grad School”:

Congratulations. You’re a grad student now at a prestigious research university. One of our colleagues was just like you once, an eager beaver starting his first semester in MIT EECS. Unlike you (I hope), Mr. John Beaver (not his real name) had pled guilty to a federal drug possession charge. During IAP he went home to appear before a judge and was sentenced to 1 year in prison (joining 2 million other Americans; we have the highest incarceration rate of any industrialized nation). He served his time and came back to MIT. In his final year of graduate school he was complaining about how much he hated his life, hated being poor, hated his thesis, hated his advisor, and hated MIT. His officemate, trying to cheer him up, noted “Well, John, at least it is better than being in prison, eh?”

John Beaver the grad student leaned back and reflected for a moment. Slowly he responded “… actually when I was in prison I had a lot more optimism and zest for life than I do now.“

That was an anecdote. What about some data?

“Graduate School Can Have Terrible Effects on People’s Mental Health:
Ph.D. candidates suffer from anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation at astonishingly high rates.” (Atlantic) delivers.

A new study by a team of Harvard-affiliated researchers highlights one of the consequences of these realities: Graduate students are disproportionately likely to struggle with mental-health issues. The researchers surveyed roughly 500 economics Ph.D. candidates at eight elite universities, and found that 18 percent of them experienced moderate or severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. That’s more than three times the national average, according to the study. Roughly one in 10 students in the Harvard survey also reported having suicidal thoughts on at least several days within the prior two weeks.

… the payoff for all that stress may be wanting: A 2014 report found that nearly 40 percent of the doctoral students surveyed hadn’t secured a job at the time of graduation. What’s more, roughly 13 percent of Ph.D. recipients graduate with more than $70,000 in education-related debt, though in the humanities the percentage is about twice that. And for those who do secure an academic post, census data suggest that close to a third of part-time university faculty—many of whom are graduate students—live near or below the poverty line.

Drag this article out the next time someone brags about having been smart enough to get into a Ph.D. program!

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