SINGLE FATHER ADVICE: A reader emails:

I have noticed your attention paid to the trials and tribulations of the single father. I am currently in the process of divorce and have been separated for more than a year. I have four daughters – ages 6 through 15. I have a great relationship with all of them. My wife is currently prohibited from having possession of them by court order – so I have them full time. Here are some tips for your single father readership:

1) be pro-active in setting up play dates and activities. Yes- this means making calls to other parents.
2) when dropping off kids at parties or play dates, go to the door and meet the other parents. When parents are dropping off their kids to you, go out to the car and say hello. Invite them inside.
3) take every opportunity to show people you are an involved father who pays attention and cares. This doesn’t mean one should become a phony and a “daddy bragger”, but it does mean you have to make sure people are aware you are a good person and a good dad. The single father image to some is not positive. Additionally, the ex-wife (and her friends and family) has possibly (definitely) been trashing you at every turn.
4) as part of your own positive image campaign, you need to bring up “domestic” type stuff when speaking to other parents. For example, I like to cook – so when a daughter has a friend over, I will tell the other parents not only what I made, but how I made it – and why I chose that meal. Also, conversations about new carpets or flooring etc can show you are not the single father Neanderthal walking around the house in a “beater T” and boxers.
5) don’t hesitate to tell other parents about your activities with your own children. I have enrolled all my daughters in kick boxing classes – and I encourage them to bring their friends for the free-trial classes. Part of this process involves explaining to the other parent what the class entails. I show videos of my kids riding unicycles.
6) when meeting other parents, get their cell numbers and emphasize that parents need to be in communication, as kids are prone to “mislead” parents on what the “real” plans are

Bottom line is that the image of absentee single father with empty pizza boxes strewn about and bimbos coming and going needs to be reversed. No one needs to be a phony, but image is everything – and the average single father is usually starting at a deficit. If you are doing good things as a father, people need to know about it. I am mostly introverted, but realized if I wanted my daughters to have a good home life with friends being allowed to come over – and stay over – that I had to get the underlying reality out there. I had to become a part-time extrovert.

Lastly, if other parents don’t allow the sleepover at your house (especially with daughters), don’t take it personally. While this can be annoying and upsetting, I don’t consider it a terrible outlook by the other parent. Having four daughters, I have the same concerns other parents would. That said, the further I get my story out there, the less I run into this issue…to the point that I have not come across this issue in months.

Anyway, I didn’t want to take up all your time on an isolated topic, but felt my experience was worth mentioning.

Thanks.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Megan McArdle: Can’t Get Tenure? Then Get A Real Job. “Academia is now one of the most exploitative labor markets in the world. . . . As I’ve remarked before, it’s not surprising that so many academics believe that the American workplace is a desperately oppressive and exploitative environment in which employers can endlessly abuse workers without fear of reprisal, or of losing the workers. That’s a pretty accurate description of the job market for academic labor … until you have tenure.”

I recommend reading my new book.

#WARONMEN: ‘There’s no room for anything manly now’: Feminist writer Camille Paglia speaks out AGAINST the loss of masculine virtues and its negative impact on society.

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JAMES TARANTO: The Perverse Exemption: Political palliatives won’t cure ObamaCare’s ills.

Remember Edie Sundby? She is the stage 4 gallbladder-cancer survivor who wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed two months ago in which she revealed that “my affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.” While we were vacationing in chilly Southern California, we went to see her in San Diego to get an update on her insurance situation.

That the Sundbys’ broker, a seasoned insurance professional, was unaware of all this more than a month after the ObamaCare exchanges opened for business (and more than 3½ years after the law was enacted) suggests yet another serious systemic problem with ObamaCare: The government appears to have done a woefully inadequate job of educating even professionals in the field, much less ordinary consumers, about the law’s complicated and often destructive provisions. And this is in California, the state ObamaCare apologists have touted as the great success story.

“The health exchanges are so confusing, and the policy provider network details are not available,” Mrs. Sundby wrote us in an email the day after we met. “None of us who lost our insurance plans really know what we have bought on the exchange until after Jan. 1, 2014, when we start finding new doctors or making appointments with our established doctors.”

Mrs. Sundby knows better than most. An intelligent woman with a longstanding and complicated medical condition, she is about as savvy, motivated and well-informed as a health-insurance customer can get. Most Americans who get sick in the future will be far less well-prepared than she for ObamaCare’s cruel surprises. Political palliatives like the mandate exemption, even if it ends up being universal, aren’t going to help. Happy New Year.

Read the whole thing.

THE CLINTON/DEBLASIO THING: Irony and Oafishness on Inauguration Day: The de Blasio era kicks off with bitter denunciations and fantastical ramblings.

New Yorkers got a glimpse of how leaders of the de Blasio coalition really think. By and large, they are new to the big tent; before de Blasio’s ascension, nobody cared what they thought about anything, and so it never occurred to them to hold their tongues. Certainly they didn’t Wednesday, and the new mayor’s implicit acceptance of the ugliness was sad and ominous. The speakers represent a large part of the de Blasio base, and his refusal to admonish them sent an unhappy message of its own: stand by for more.

Not to be caught up in the amateur-hour antics, however, was former president Bill Clinton. He cheerfully administered the oath of office to de Blasio—and that’s where the irony comes in. For wasn’t Clinton the architect of welfare reform as we know it, a largely successful effort to crack the cycle of dependence that owned the souls of so many Americans? And isn’t de Blasio more or less dedicated to dragging New York back to the days of no-questions-asked, no-stigmas-attached, multi-generational addiction to government dollars?

Today’s liberals have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

WELL, I’M TRYIN’ HERE: The Exercise Cure: How can we motivate people to take a free, safe, magic pill?

If there were a drug that treated and prevented the chronic diseases that afflict Americans and we didn’t give it to everyone, we’d be withholding a magic pill. If this drug was free, in a country that spends more than $350 billion annually on prescription drugs, where the average 80-year-old takes eight medications, we’d be foolish not to encourage this cheaper and safer alternative as first-line treatment. If every doctor in every country around the world didn’t prescribe this drug for every patient, it might almost be considered medical malpractice.

We have that drug today, and it’s safe, free, and readily available.

Exercise has benefits for every body system; it is effective both as a treatment and for prevention of disease. It can improve memory and concentration, lessen sleep disorders, aid heart disease by lowering cholesterol and reducing blood pressure, help sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, and raise low libido. Exercise does it all. Even with cancer, particularly colon and recurrent breast cancer, the data show clearly that exercise is a deterrent. Newer studies on a glycoprotein called Interleukin 6 suggests that general body inflammation, a factor in almost every chronic disease, is reduced by regular exercise.

The problem is that while when you’re used to exercising, it feels good, when you start exercising it usually feels bad. And it takes longer for that to change than most people are willing to wait.

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF. PERSONALLY, I LOOK GREAT IN SPANDEX. “Workout Wear Friday” Is Not a Thing.

SCIENCE: Study shows concealed-carry laws result in fewer murders. You can’t argue with science.

MY NEW BOOK, The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is now available for pre-order on Kindle.

The hardcover version is already shipping, though the official publication date is January 7. Please order a copy or twelve.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Government Fuels Higher Education ‘Arms Race’: Economist Vedder explains that federal policies make college problems worse.

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ANTARCTICA: Andrew Bolt: Something’s cracking, and it’s not the ice around the warmists’ ship.

ED DRISCOLL: The Closing Of The Left-Wing Mind.

GONZALO LIRA HAS POSTED AN EXCERPT from his forthcoming future history, A Secret History of The American Crash.

NOBODY TELL PAUL KRUGMAN: IMF Says: By the Way, There’s a Debt Crisis.

HANNA ROSIN CONTINUES TO bully her son.

WHEN SECONDS COUNT, THE POLICE ARE ONLY MINUTES AWAY. 74 MINUTES, TO BE PRECISE. Dallas Store Manager Shoots at 5 Armed Robbers, Police Arrive 74 Minutes Later.

TECHNOLOGY: An Ex-Soldier Designs an Ingenious, Badass Grill for Camping Out.

No one expects to have access to a Viking range or other high-end kitchen amenities when camping, but it doesn’t mean outdoorsy folks should settle for unsteady, unsightly camp grills. These nominally portable appliances take up an oversize amount of space in backpacks that are already filled to the brim and are just an errant s’more swing away from toppling into a nylon tent, turning a vacation into a visit to the burn unit.

Fortunately, Israeli design student Roee Magdassi has developed a new collapsible cooking concept called Stakes that brings a trifecta of improvements to the outdoor cooking industry. Instead of a rigid, spot-welded frame, his on-the-go system threads braided steel cables through the grate that allow it to be rolled up when not cooking burgers. Rickety fold-out legs are replaced with three titanium stakes that hold the grill in tension, increasing stability. Lastly, an unusual triangular shape gives the design an eye-catching look while making setup simple.

Looks pretty cool.

FEATS OF STRENGTH, at the Old-Time Strongman Blog. You can learn a lot from those pre-steroid guys; at least, how they trained is more relevant for non-steroidal types than how steroid users train today.

CHANGE: Ted Cruz celebrates his one-year anniversary as a senator.

CHANGE: Sharpshooters to Renew Deer Cull in Heart of Washington D.C.

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NEW ADMINISTRATION ALREADY BUSTED: Public advocate caught in lie over Times homeless story. “It wasn’t James’ first attempt to portray herself as a champion of the homeless — at the inauguration, she invited young Dasani to stand at her side for the swearing-in. But the Times refuted James’ account, saying she had nothing to do with its articles.”

Related: Did Inequality Make Dasani Homeless?

Chanel, Dasani’s mother and herself the daughter of a welfare-dependent drug addict in Brooklyn, has six children by three different men, a long history of debilitating drug use, an explosive temper, and numerous arrests. Her husband, Supreme, has brought his own drug addiction and two more children by a deceased wife into the mix; Elliott makes vague reference to previous children as well. At some point, Supreme worked as a barber, but as far as we can tell, Chanel has never held a job. In truth, she isn’t much of a mother, either. She is often “listless from methadone”; the family’s room is filled with “piles of unwashed clothes.” Dasani appears to be the primary caretaker of her seven siblings. She wakes up early to change and feed her baby half-sister and get the other children ready for school; understandably, though her school is only two blocks from the shelter, she is chronically late. What role, if any, her parents play in this morning chaos known to every mother and father, rich and poor, is left unsaid.”

In truth the new regime in NYC can be expected to subsidize and encourage the pathologies that create Dasani’s plight, all while trying to exploit future Dasanis for political gain.

#NARRATIVEFAIL: Ship that rescued global-warming scientists from polar ice may be stuck in, um, polar ice; “climate deniers” rejoice.