Bad Hair Days
Writing this while on my first work trip in nearly two months. Which means I’m that guy, grinning like a fool, looking at photos of Baby Girl on his phone.
Let’s start this week with a deeply angering trip to Alabama, where almost two-thirds of counties have little to no local maternity care, the maternal death rate is the third-highest in the nation and the state is home to the sixth-highest infant death rate. Research, as I have been quite cranky about, points to the fact Black mothers and infants make up a disproportionate share of bad health outcomes.
Over the course of their reporting in Alabama, the New York Times’ Emily Baumgaertner and Erin Schaff found that birth centers were chipping away at this crisis:
Research is limited, but free-standing birth centers, which take only low-risk patients, are associated with lower rates of preterm delivery, higher birth weights, lower rates of cesarean sections, increased breastfeeding rates and about $2,000 in Medicaid savings per patient, compared with traditional care, according to a multiyear study conducted by the federal government.
Turns out that Alabama state regulators are weeks away from instituting new birth center licensing rules that would make it nearly impossible for similar facilities to open and operate. Because, you know, that makes total sense.
In Alabama, birth center deliveries cost around $6,000, compared to the $20,000 for a hospital delivery. Turns out that, “Several members of Alabama Department of Public Health’s Licensure Advisory Board, which approved the text of the new regulations, are directly appointed by the state’s medical association, which represents doctors, or its hospital association.”
And, “Six members of the legislative council, the group of Alabama lawmakers that holds the power to stop the regulations from taking effect, received financial contributions from the state’s medical political action committee during the 2022 election cycle.”
Three birth centers in Alabama are, with the help of the ACLU, suing the state. Baumgaertner and Schaff report that a judge issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the state from refusing to license birth centers that meet national standards while the court case plays out.
Read the story and start your own Cranky [insert name] substack.
Lying for Laughs
A couple weeks ago, the New Yorker's Clare Malone dropped a bit of a bombshell outing Hasan Minhaj for fabricating many of the personal stories he shared during his standup act.
My take? The dude lied for laughs. Not the first person to do it. Certainly not the last. Life is a gray area until things get black and white. I figure that how you handle the gray informs the way you handle the clarity. Or, in the case of Minhaj, how the clarity handles you.
In any case, of all the hot takes out there, Toya, had the hottest. She wrote:
We live in an incredibly competitive culture where we often base our self-worth on how we measure up next to someone else.
We must believe we are smarter, fitter, savvier, wittier, fashionable, successful, and more beautiful than most people to hold ourselves in high esteem. So much so that we call the average person living an average life a "basic bitch” as an insult.
But here's the truth. We're all basic bitches.
It is impossible for everyone to be above average at the same time. We can't all be prettier than most, smarter than the next guy, and a better driver than everyone else on the road. Even if we excel in some areas, there will always be someone smarter, faster, prettier, or more successful.
As humans, we all are exceptional at a few things, average at most things, and below average at a few things, too. That's what it means to be human, aka a basic bitch.
Yet, we are never taught to deal with this reality. Instead, we base our worth on how much better we think we are compared to someone else, and we have to continuously feed our need for positive self-evaluation to feel good enough.
Read the whole thing and subscribe. I may be biased (she is my wife, after all), but Toya’s pen is wicked sharp and, well, she was kind enough to marry a very basic bitch, so I understand how lucky I am.
Flaming Flamers
When Anisa is old enough, there are three reasons I hope FX’s “Reservation Dogs” is a show we watch together.
First of all, any show whose moral bookends are “Flaming Flamers” - a fictional version of “Hot Cheetos” - is based on the reality we all live. Because, who among us doesn’t love a Hot Cheeto? And, after too many Hot Cheetos, let’s just say we all learn important lessons.
More seriously, “Reservation Dogs” gives us a view into the past, present and future of Native American life. Too few of us are aware of the atrocities inflicted upon Native Americans whisked away to boarding schools. Most of us have no idea about present day life in Native American communities, or the critical role of institutions such as the the Indian Health Service. And, we have no idea how Native American culture is passed on through generations.
The third reason actually takes me back to a dinner I attended many years ago somewhere along the Columbia River in Oregon. I was doing environmental work for a US Forest Service affiliated organization and we were invited to share a meal with Native American elders. Before we ate, an elder stood and shared the story of the tribe in the region. The passion with which she shared her story - that the interpreter calmly translated - stuck with me. So that when I watched how the young urge the old in Reservation Dogs to share their stories, I could only think of how Anisa will push her elders to share their stories.
Bad Hair Days
I have long had an uneasy relationship with my hair. Straight as piano wire for much of my life, industrial strength mousse was the only way to manage my mane until well into college.
At which point I decided I was tired of the bad hair days and cut it all off. For nearly 20 years, I walked around with a do-it-yourself buzz cut where colleagues would laugh at me walking down the hall, pointing at the tufts of hair emerging from the back of my head.
Proud of my handiwork, I would reply, “I spend $50 per year on my hair for a new set of clippers. And, since I can’t see the back of my head, I’m not going to worry about it.” They called me the Super Cuts of Leadership. (No, they didn’t.)
Then, sometime in 2016, I decided, what the heck, let’s give this hair thing another try. (Which may very well be why we have Trump.) People were stunned; they had no idea I could grow hair on my head.
One friend pulled over as we were driving, turned to me, and screamed, “You pretending you are bald is like me pretending I need a wheelchair!”
He has never needed a wheelchair.
My point being that I have very little practical training in the art of hair. Which is bad news for Baby Girl.
You would think that in the booming cottage industry that is baby books, there would be a chapter on baby hair. Nope. I read or skimmed a number of such books. Learned various and sundry things about keeping a baby alive, nurturing a toddler, raising a strong woman. At no time was I taught anything about baby hair. Much less Baby Girl’s hair.
See, a couple weeks ago Toya left Anisa and I to our own devices for a weekend. “No problem,” I figured. Make sure we hit nap time, stick to the evening ritual, see if I can get her clothes to match to some degree.
I had it all under control - fashion choices aside - until I was faced with the hair clip.
I thought it would be pretty simple. Every morning, Toya would sit Anisa down and, after a bit of a struggle, Baby Girl would emerge with a fine head of hair. Parted perfectly. Bouncy curls. Hair clip stylishly placed.
“How hard can this be?,” I thought.
OMFG.
Before I knew it, hair clips were scattered across Anisa’s head. Her beautiful curls constrained by shards of metal. And the ones that I managed to apply were, within minutes, dangling off the side of her head like branches ominously swaying against electrical wires.
It was a weekend of bad hair days for Baby Girl.
I thought that my cries for help would elicit some sort of sympathy. Or, at least some guidance.
Instead of patiently teaching me how to help Baby Girl look as good as possible, Toya now sends me pics of her hair styling handiwork and colleagues give me bags of hair accessories, wishing me the best of luck.
The old-man-girl-dad struggle is real.
Reading and Listening
Robby Jones is out with his new work, “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future.” I have read his past work and cannot wait to dig into this. In their review of the book, the NY Times points out that, “Jones centers both African American and American Indian oppression, avoiding ‘the myopic Black/white binary’ that silos much contemporary scholarship.” The book is, “Full of urgency and insight … a compelling and necessary undertaking.”
I am increasingly interested in how the 1940’s offer a historical template to what we are experiencing now. Well, a friend recommended Rachel Maddow’s “Ultra” podcast as an opportunity to learn more about such similarities. And, yup, it is kind of terrifying to learn about how Hitler found Nazi sympathizers not only in civil society across America, but inside the halls of Congress.
Second, for those who appreciate some top notch golf drama, fellow SHS grad Alan Shipnuck is soon to be out with his new work, “LIV and Let Live: The Inside Story of the War Between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.” Shipnuck is the one who broke the story about Phil Mickelson cozying up to the Saudis and sniffed out Trump’s connection to Saudi golf money.
Good Gin
At the local hipster liquor store, I found me a bottle of Olehna Golden Tumeric Gin. Swirled it with a dash of bitters, some sweet vermouth and a cherry for a fantastic Martinez.