
"How I Explained REST to My Wife" taken down because of gender-oriented nature - bmaeser
http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife?down
======
oellegaard
I'm sorry to hear this. This so-called gender issue is becoming a big loss for
the community.

I think people need to realize that there are differences between facts and
being gender discriminating. Transcribing a conversation with your _wife_ ,
wherein the wife in this case is the non-technical part is not discriminating
- it is a fact. No-one would have said anything if a woman posted "How I
explained REST to My Husband".

Please, stop this overreaction to the so-called gender issues.

~~~
arethuza
I'm tempted to ask my wife to write a blog post on "How I explained different
kinds of Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms in the construction
industry to my husband".

I'm lucky enough to be married to an expert in her field so I get to learn
lots of cool stuff just by asking!

~~~
oellegaard
Sounds pretty interesting, if you do, please post it on HN :)

~~~
arethuza
Every time she mentions that stuff I have to be careful not to say "Arbiter,
cool - just like Halo!" [although I always think it].

------
richo
Sigh, so an interesting and thought provoking article is taken down because it
could have been percieved as sexist? Why not just s/wife/partner/g and call it
a day?

I don't think that it was inflammatory. Maybe it's due to wildly unchecked
privilege, but I read it as "A way to convey the REST metaphor to a
nontechnical person". I didn't see it as "women are stupid and need
handholding to understand technology".

~~~
cerales
The language in the original article had two properties that stood out to me:

* The dialog was entirely unrealistic- to the point that a 'dialogue' was clearly simply the wrong form for what Tomayko wanted to do

* the 'wife' was portrayed alternatively as infantile, naive and purely reactive.

I follow Ryan Tomayko vaguely and I'd be surprised if this was a reflection of
his behaviour. From what little I know he seems to have some awareness of and
sympathy with struggles that come under "left politics".

But my knowing that doesn't erase the issues with his original post.

My comment on the original posting was thus:

> So Ryan Tomayko's conversions with his wife are akin in tone and style to a
> language textbook aimed at tweens?

You can't have that coupled with "wife" and simply wave away the problematic
implications, not in our culture as of stands today. It's admirable that
Tomayko is mature enough to consider challenges like this - instead of just
going on the ultra defensive MRA spiel like some Redditor.

~~~
richo
My recollection could have been wrong, I seemed to recall the dialog seeming a
little contrived but not to the degree you describe.

I might try to pull it out of cache and then reconsider.

~~~
hackmiester
Here it is: <http://ompldr.org/vaHp4NQ>

------
johnward
I understand where feminist come from on the issue, but I do think that
sometimes they take it to far. His wife is obvoisly non-technical. It's not
about "omg these womenz don't get tech". It's more about this is how a
conversation went between a technical and non-technical person, who happen to
be husband and wife.

I know that people feel that using "wife" enforces stereotypes, but I really
don't see it in this post. Sometimes picking on these very tiny issues makes
it very hard to identify with your cause.

~~~
fennecfoxen
"Sometimes picking on these very tiny issues makes it very hard to identify
with your cause."

This. Because you're taking an informative, factual statement describing a
particular relationship (husband working with technology, wife with limited
relationship to technology), and saying that it's not any good to describe
this fact, because other people who want to have a different sort of
relationship might feel outnumbered or something.

People who are interested in actually doing something about gender-related
issues in technology should consider that at a certain point, it's less
productive to whine about something and more productive to ignore it and cope
so you can fight bigger battles. I think we passed that point on the way to
this article, and then went on to enter the zone where people stop even
respecting that you're fighting...

------
neya
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to explain the same thing to my mom
and my grandma and every other non-technical female out there and publish a
post with a similar title and will never take it down. Because, this kind of
feminism movement is dangerous and someone should put an end to this "blind"
feminism. A technical person explaining something technical to a non-technical
person isn't sexism.

I'm sure this wouldn't have been an issue if a woman had written 'How I
explained cooking to my husband'.

One word - EGO. It's amazing how much it can screw up constructive processes
within a community.

~~~
brazzy
And your "what I'm going to do" plan doesn't have anything to do with ego AT
ALL, right?

~~~
neya
YES, it exhibits my ego, but I'm certainly not stupid - There is a difference
between being a sexist and being labelled as a sexist for no apparent reason
by some feminist on rage.

Well, so you expect me to sit silently in a corner and watch this happen? What
happened to the author today is also what will happen to me tomorrow, so I'm
no way going to give way for random feminist/extremist to screw me like that.

~~~
brazzy
That the reason is not apparent to you doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't
exist or is invalid. You don't solve issues by assuming the other side is
acting in bad faith, fabricating strawmen and indulging in revenge fantasies.

The only one here who is "on rage" is you.

------
savrajsingh
A dark matter physicist friend of mine created a blog called "physics for my
mom." He faced similar issues, but simply said "No, I'm honestly writing this
for my mom--she's not a physicist. It's my personal blog."

------
throwaway125
Thanks to the internet archive we can still enjoy this article:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-
to-my-wife)

~~~
tehwebguy
I read this, the whole time thinking "please don't make a cooking or cleaning
analogy", no such luck.

The conversation wasn't nearly what I expected, it goes into more detail than
I expected but there are a few points, like the sweeper thing, that were
probably big triggers.

~~~
precisioncoder
That and the fact that the headings of the two members of the conversation
are: Ryan and Wife. Giving her a name probably would have helped...

~~~
mpyne
Maybe she didn't feel like having _her_ identity plastered all over the
Internet just because she happened to be married to Ryan?

I would never release personally identifable information about my wife on the
Internet without getting her permission first.

~~~
vidarh
It took years before I referred to my wife as anything but "my wife" even at
work, because most people didn't know her, and so didn't know here name and it
was simply easier to refer to her that way.

~~~
mpyne
At this duty station I'm the same. No one here knows my wife so I don't refer
to her (or even my children) by name.

At my first duty station it was much more tight-knit; we knew each other by
first name, met off-hours as a group (including spouse and children), etc. So
there it wasn't unusual to refer to someone's wife by first name.

Now I can see why people would be offended about referring to "the wife" (and
it's less savory alternates), as if you were resigned to torturing yourself
once you got home and not actually in a committed relationship with a human
being. But that's not what is happening when talking about your actual wife,
just as it's considered perfectly acceptable to refer to one's mother,
brother, father, or sister by role instead of name.

------
temphn
Might men and women actually be neurologically different? Louann Brizendine
and Doreen Kimura (neuroscientists both) sure think so, and present copious
evidence to that effect:

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920104>
<http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=10>

Men and women have systematically different muscle masses, lifespans, even
organs. Yet it is taboo to imagine that their brains might be different too,
on average. Indeed Ryan is persecuted for the indirect implication that women,
on average, might be less technically inclined! If this generalization was
actually untrue it would not be necessary to scream at people like Larry
Summers to "disprove" it. The zeal of people invested in the denial of biology
is astonishing; they seek to personally destroy anyone who even indirectly
endorses anything related to gender difference.

~~~
coldtea
Men are more aggressive (and stupid), live 5 years less on average, are taller
and more muscular, are more hairy, cannot have babies, and can tolerate less
pain (random facts verified by science) -- but GOD FORBID if men and women
also have any differences in how they approach professions or cultural issues.

Despite the fact that fashion is a trillion dollar industry for women but most
men could not care less if their sock are of a slightly different color.

If you want to fight "sexism", go fight Cosmopolitan. Or not -- ever stopped
to consider it might be OK for women to like this stuff, like it's OK for men
to like "Cars and Gadgets" magazines?

~~~
marknutter
I looked into the pain tolerance point you made a while back and it's not
really confirmed one way or the other which gender deals with pain better.

~~~
coldtea
Yes, could be, it was only a research I've read, so nothing 100% conclusive.

(OT, In general I think you cannot take research results published on journals
for granted until they are at least 10 years old and have been included in
undergraduate syllabus.

Else you get all the mixed "coffee causes heart attacks", "coffee is good for
your heart" papers alternating every other week).

------
Millennium
It's a conversation that actually happened, between two people who happened to
be of opposite gender. There is no reasonable way to read gender messages into
something like that.

------
twerquie
Does anyone else feel like the pendulum is swinging too far in the opposite
direction? We're over-compensating here.

~~~
johnward
Yes, but then I will be considered sexist.

I understand there are issues of gender discrimination, but taking down a post
from 2004 because it mentioned a "wife" is crazy.

------
coldtea
> _After receiving a number of reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented
> nature of this article from people I respect very much, I've decided to take
> it down for good._

Possible translation: after a lot of people with nothing better to do took
offense at a tech article, I took it down because: 1) I don't want to be
hated, 2) I don't want to lose my job, 3) I can't be bothered to even argue
against the flock.

It might not be what Ryan means (I can't speak for him), but it sure is what
many people mean when having to take down something because of PC complaints.

This thing is getting out of hand. It's the first world idea of a "cause" by
people whose idea of "revolution" and "making society better" is blog posts
and twitter snark.

The very first programmer was a woman. For a lot of time, computer operators
were mostly women. There are not many things stopping women at entering IT,
and sexism sure is not one of them. Women thrive at other places with much
more deep and inherent sexism (or, to put it better, with actual sexism,
instead of mere tit jokes, which is what is mostly mistaken as sexism in the
tech community).

I attended uni 15 years ago for Comp Sci. On my year we were like 70% men and
30% women. Not because they feared for sexism (actually there was nothing of
the kind -- students were either good or bad at lessons, regardless of sex).
We all had fun together, in large mixed groups. Sexism never was an issue, and
I've never heard any woman complain about it in the university. Other fields
were like 70% women 30% men (Applied Math, Medicine, Biology, etc). Men mostly
wanted to get into comp sci because they liked games, programming and this
internet thing already. Women avoided the Comp Sci not because of some fear of
sexism and such, but because it was considered to have bad work prospects
(times/salary/etc), whereas biology was considered to be "blooming" at the
time.

~~~
brazzy
> Possible translation: after a lot of people with nothing better to do took
> offense at a tech article, I took it down because: 1) I don't want to be
> hated, 2) I don't want to lose my job, 3) I can't be bothered to even argue
> against the flock.

Which part of "reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented nature of this
article [..] from people I respect very much" implies that to you?

> This thing is getting out of hand.

This isn't helping.

~~~
coldtea
> _Which part of "reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented nature of
> this article [..] from people I respect very much" implies that to you?_

All of it. It's a public apology for something he did in good faith and was
never problematic for him until the complaints forced him to take it down.

So I read the "reasonable complaints [...] from people I respect very much"
as:

"some people I don't wish to annoy and otherwise respect have been bothering
me with this shit, so, fine, I give up".

I was clear that it's my interpretation, it doesn't have to be what he feels.
But, then again, it _could_ be.

I don't always take what people say at face value.

The same way when you read a politicians statement you sometimes just know he
means the opposite or something different.

~~~
neya
Dude, my humble advice - don't feed him/her. It's a troll, just check out the
previous comments.

~~~
brazzy
Ah, yes. Expressing the same opinion multiple times within a discussion is
trolling. At least when you disagree.

Really classy.

~~~
neya
Nope, you are manipulating others' statements here to suit your position
accordingly which is unfair to say the least and attacking them is trollish at
best.

~~~
brazzy
Manipulating other's statements is what I am criticizing.

------
darkxanthos
Here's a good test: Would the article have been just as compelling and
informative if he had written it to his husband? Everything the same except
replace the word "wife" with "husband".

Yes it would have. Just because his partner is a woman this article can't be
written this way. That upsets me.

------
quesera
Sometimes, reality reinforces stereotypes.

I don't blame Ryan at all for not wanting to be part of that conversation.
It's a huge toxic distraction.

Still, it was a valuable article. I hope he will neuter it and re-post.

~~~
johnward
Honestly it seems like he could just change "wife" to any random name or even
person #2 and it would be ok.

~~~
sdoering
No, actually that would not be ok. The way he dealt with it was his way. And
it shows how wrong the whole gender-discussion has become.

Some overreacting (or say very sensitive), but very loudly "screaming" (aka
blogging/tweeting/et al) voices (female and male) have hijacked a very legit
discussion for womens rights, womens equality, womens chances in this world
and made a mockery out of it.

what these voices did imho, was a disservice to the just cause for equality
between all genders (perceived or biological).

~~~
johnward
Yeah I agree. I'm saying if you read the article and replace wife with
anything else it still makes sense. So it's not sexist in anyway.

~~~
sdoering
OK, in this regard, I am totally with you.

------
JimmaDaRustla
What? My take on the article was the knowledge transfer of a REST developer to
a non-developer. His wife was only a figure relative to his position; the
genders could have been swapped and it wouldn't change the context of the
article...?

I would have kept the article up purposely as my belief that it isn't
offensive and that people are ignorant and arrogant.

~~~
sdoering
Having studied literature, I really feel, that wife in this context was a
fictional character, solely for the purpose of giving an audience that is not
that technically experienced something/-one to relate to.

That on the other hand just makes this case a case of misinterpreting fiction
for reality.

Reminds me of a story the acclaimed author Umberto Eco once told about his
book "Foucault's Pendulum":

His main character walks through a named street in Paris and sees a burning
hotel ... and so on. Eco receives a letter, in which a reader accuses him of
not getting the facts right, as there never was a hotel in this street.

So is Eco discriminating hotels in Paris with this book?

------
cupcake-unicorn
I'm not sure why people are so outraged about this.

It was the author's choice, and he came to it after having arguments posed to
him that made him rethink the way it came across and how he uses things like,
"Explain it to my wife" in every day language. I for one, applaud someone him
for being willing and open to criticism which he personally came to the
conclusion he was not comfortable with.

No one hacked his site and defaced it and took it down, no one complained to
his hosting company...It was his choice, because he apparently cares about how
he comes across, and was moved by _valid_ arguments from others.

Things like this that are more subtle are honestly the most important to
address. Since people tend to not call other people out on them, they'll go on
using latently sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. phrases and language and not
understand what impact that makes. Many people, like this author, are really
reasonable and it gives them something to think about - especially if you come
to them about it in a reasonable way, which I'm assuming some people did.

As for the issue of the person in the dialog, perhaps it could be replaced
with something like a kindergartener, generic male buddy, or even make things
fun like Plato/Aristotle or what they did in GEB with Achilles/Tortoise.

I really applaud the author for making this change. The article was a bit
uncomfortable for me as a woman in tech.

And as a side note: If you think this is an "overreaction" (which I don't
think it is), there's way worse stuff out there to be outraged about. I got
banned on a (biological) woman's health board for using the word "female"
because not everyone identifies as female and apparently I offended some
people. It felt like something from the Women's First bookstore sketch in
Portlandia :)

------
maarten-pi
I've sit back and seen so many posts lately about gender-issues. Is it really
necessary?

I understand that woman feel discriminated and I see some pretty aweful
examples where guys are doing all the wrong things. In the case of the woman
who got fired, I felt it was unjust from sendgrid. It shows how badly some
guys copy with the issue. So that doesn't help.

The baseline should be that we're all equal. What are the arguments against
that?

I feel it's kind of sexist to assume that an article might be offensive to
woman, because well, they might just take offense. That implies that woman are
very sensitive to these articles, which reinforces the stereotype... Doesn't
that belittle woman infinitely more? It just reaches the opposite effect.

The original author didn't think: "Let's belittle woman as much as possible
just for the fun of it", that thought (I am pretty sure) never crossed his
mind. The article could also have referred to, my father or my cousin.

------
Zariel
I find it sad that this has happened, sexism in technology is a problem but
this sort of this is people taking offence at the most ridiculous things.

Does it matter that the example he used was explaining REST to his wife? If
the roles had been reversed would be in the position we are now?

Gender roles within technology wasn't the point of the original post, it was
about explaining a piece of complicated technology to someone who had no prior
understanding of it, it was circumspect that the person being explained to was
a woman.

Again I find it sad that if the gender roles were reversed or if the other
people was male that we probably would not be in this position as no one would
object to a man explaining to another man about some technology that he does
not under, is that sexism?

------
bmaeser
archived version from 16.01.2013

[http://web.archive.org/web/20130116034443/http://tomayko.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130116034443/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-
to-my-wife)

------
marknutter
This gives me an idea: a podcast or blog post series in which I explain
technical concepts to my non-technical wife. I know I'm not the only one whose
significant other has a hard time relating to the work I do and the hobbies I
pursue, and it would be nice to provide them with some context. I know I enjoy
learning about the nuances of my wife's work (early childhood education) and
it gives me a better appreciation for her talents when I'm given the nitty-
gritty domain specific details of her job.

Just the other day I was trying to explain the term "meta" to my wife and
having a hard time of it. Trying to put it into terms that didn't involve
programming was an interesting mental exercise.

------
vectorpush
Consider this for a thought experiment: "How I Explained REST to My Teenage
Daughter". Same exact gender, except the response would be positive since in
this case he'd be perceived as encouraging technical literacy in a young
woman.

------
dlsym
Collateral damage of Shitstorm-Net-"feminists"-Hysteria.

This is just sad.

~~~
seany
it's also why mens rights type things are sprouting up to balance things out.

------
cpfohl
Could you just change the word 'wife' to 'spouse' and put it back up? It was
an awesome article.

------
drucken
Unless there's a " _How I Explained X to My Wife_ " meme going around, I'm not
sure I understand the point of this. It clearly was never intended in such an
offensive direction (not even lightheartedly) and it's descriptive usefulness
seems to far outweigh such concerns!

Of course, if Tomayko did not actually have this conversation with his
_partner_ , then that could explain much and make the decision to remove the
content more understandable.

------
jeremy6d
This is not only stupid but expressly counter to social justice ends.

The whole argument that society is riddled with privileges is not supposed to
be an indictment of individuals. By it's very nature, privilege means that you
don't have it because of something you did or are as an individual. It's a
systemic feature of society, not some personal moral failing.

So if Ryan's article evinces sexism (and I question that greatly) the proper
response is not to harangue him into self-censorship. This just bullies him
for something he is not personally responsible for while driving the systemic
problem deeper down. What we should be doing is having an open conversation
about it.

But now we can't, because it's so objectionable to reflect the sexism we all
have within us that we must pretend we're beyond it. How is this in the
interests of genuine egalitarianism?

------
ranza
%s/wife/friend/g

Fixed it for you. I really liked the post. I even read it sometimes just to
keep my mind fresh on the REST idea. I dont understand why people would be
offended that you used your wife as the other person. Its perfectly normal to
explane your wife what you do.

------
as_if
I still think learning shouldn't slowed down by stuff like this.

If someone writes about quantum mechanics and is a sexist, but he's the only
one who can write it in a manner that I understand it, I'm SO gonna read it...

------
tomelders
Women are allowed to not understand things, just as much as men.

------
norswap
If I had received complaint, I'd have replied with a big flaming "fuck you"
(well, I'd probably have worded it somewhat diplomatically). Fighting sexism
and discrimination also means fighting zealots on the other side.

People who'd complain about this are typically "feeding the troll", and while
it's not as bad as "trolling" (used here as an euphemism for discrimination)
itself, we have a much better handle on that.

------
Joeboy
This story is about an author deciding to remove an article from his website
in 2004.

Edit: I am wrong, at least partly and possibly wholly.

~~~
phpnode
no. This is a story about an author succumbing to pressure to remove an
article 9 years after it was written.

~~~
Joeboy
Ah, OK, apparently you're right about the 9 years after it was written. Do you
have anything to back up the "succumbing to pressure" bit? It sounds pretty
consensual from the text.

------
davidradcliffe
Sad. It wasn't even about gender!

------
artied
Can't it just be re-titled

"How I explained REST to My Spouse".

Anyone complaining is clear 'projecting'....

------
klrr
I don't get who go around and take these "gender issues" seriously. Is it
femenists, males, females, trolls? (or something else not listed of course)

~~~
coldtea
My take is that it's people that like to get upset for non issues, while
avoiding all the real issues that require personal commitment.

That, and people going with the flock.

~~~
klrr
You mean unconsciously wanting to get upset about it, or do they really just
go around trying to find stuff to hate on?

~~~
coldtea
The second, I think.

They have some personal issues, from not having slept well to more deep rooted
stuff, and they take it out on the internet on whatever attracts their
attention and can justify some "hate".

I doubt if perfectly normal people care if Ryan used "to my wife" or "to my
spouse" etc.

If someone wrote "How I explained Monads to my husband" I could not care less
normally -- but on a bad day, I could take offense for similarly BS stuff,
like "how dare you write that shit about Apple", etc.

------
hackmiester
Here's a mirror I pulled from cache and reformatted a bit:
<http://ompldr.org/vaHp4NQ>

------
dgesang
Ask HN: How can this post end up on page 3 so quickly (just refreshed the
page) and still have increased in value (more points)?

------
Semaphor
I wonder why he didn't just replace "Wife" with "Non-technical acquaintance of
indeterminate gender" for a maximum of PC.

~~~
brazzy
Because being maximally PC is not something he wants to be, not even out of
spite (and that latter option would not have done anything to improve the
situation).

------
Shorel
"How I explained REST to my liberal arts significant other"

Fixed. No need to take it down for trendy political correctness.

------
sluu99
Rename the article to"How to explain REST to non-techies, my wife for
example?"

------
olgeni
"How I explained REST to a beautiful cloud in the sky, while being sheltered
by a tree born out of Mother Gaia's infinite love, yes, a cloud in the sky,
no! actually it was about to rain, so the cloud wasn't exactly white and...
well... never mind, just learn REST by yourself."

------
jerrya
"Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the
dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons,
Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans,
Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in
this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual
painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag,
the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities
with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up
your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca.
Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books
stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted,
spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-
magazines, of course.

 _There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There
was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology,
mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today,
thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read
comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals._ "

"Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag.

"Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What
more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners,
jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead
of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word
`intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always
dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who
was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the
others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright
boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We
must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says,
but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are
happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves
against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the
shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of
the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses
were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in
your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the
old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind,
the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official
censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me."

The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them,
looking at Beatty and then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were
flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to
some music composed almost completely of trap-drums, tom-toms, and cymbals.
Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the sound covered it.

Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as
if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning.

"You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our
minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country,
above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all
your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep
them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For
pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of
these."

"Yes."

------
seany
I'd actually never seen the original article before. Glad it's still on the
wayback machine.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-
to-my-wife)

