By Matt Zeitlin

In tomorrow’s Times Book Review, Emily Bazelon has a review of Deborah Rhode’s “The Beauty Bias,” which talks about discrimination based on personal appearance. I, of course, haven’t read the book, but from the review, you can get a hint of both the scale of the problem and the limited ground for possible remediation. Here’s an explanation of how society has largely accepted the view that spending lots of time and money on ones appearance is necessary for advancement:

Cosmetic surgery has quadrupled over the last decade. Women still wear stiletto heels that ruin their feet and backs and buy any wrinkle-smoothing cream for any price. Being fat, Rhode says, continues to carry “as much stigma as AIDS, drug addiction and criminal behavior.” (Meanwhile, men walk around largely unplagued by their imperfections. Unless they’re short, in which case they suffer, too.)

It does no good to urge women to sally forth in sensible flat shoes while their hair grays and their faces prune. Feminists learned long ago that taking this line only makes enemies. Rhode has internalized the lesson. When she points out that there is no visible gray hair on the heads of any of the 16 female United States senators, ages 46 to 74, she chalks it up to “professional necessity.” Rhode herself is a blonde (I’ve met her and once edited her work for Slate). But that hasn’t saved her from “emergency remedial shopping” at the hands of her Stanford colleagues and a stylist who disastrously teased her hair before a fancy event that she was supervising for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. (Yes, Rhode sees the irony in forced primping for an event to promote women’s equality.)

But then — once again according to Bazelon — Rhode makes the movie of offering the idea of allowing discrimination suits as “a solution in a limited number of rankly unfair cases” like when “a nursing school student who was expelled because officials thought her obesity made her a bad role model for patients.” But while such suits may allow for just outcomes in such cases, it doesn’t really do much about the more general problem of people thinking they have to look a certain way to be successful and thus exacting great personal, financial and emotional costs on themselves or about the fact that people who are naturally better looking just get more money throughout their lifetimes.

For example, we know from our good friend Greg Mankiw, that tall people can expect a substantial earnings premium over shorter people on account of their height. We also know that, in general, the stuff that people get rewarded for — having wealthy, well educated parents; genes that make them tall; well proportioned facial features and so on — have, in themselves, no real moral content and thus people’s claims to the goods gained due to these features are weaker than they think they are. But the disparities exist anyway, and are probably too deeply entrenched to be redressed through discrimination suits. So this just leaves us with, to evoke Yglesias, “higher taxes to finance more and better public services.”

By Matt Zeitlin

Hey guys, I’m Matt Zeitlin, and I will be another guest-blogger during Matt’s China junket. I’m really just here because I too have the first name Matt and so any gripes (or praise!) that usually get expressed as “Matt is ____” or “Matt says  ____” can be redirected towards me.

Slightly more seriously, I’m a sophomore at Northwestern who blogs here. I’ve written for Wunderkammer and CampusProgress and for a Northwestern online publication called North by Northwestern. Some of you long time readers probably know me from when I was 17 and Matt linked to my blog in the first week or so that I had it, which lead to a traffic peak that hasn’t been matched since then.

Just like how any one of us can’t match Yglesias’s production in sheer output, we probably can’t match his range of interests. So, along with the usual political noodling, I’ll  try to give you guys the requisite philosophy and basketball posts you have come to expect.

One more thing: I’m from the Bay Area, so expect the occasional Bay Area hip hop post. Like this one.

By Jamelle Bouie

Hello everyone!  Before I begin, I want to give quick thanks to Matt for letting us guest blog; I’m pretty excited about being here.

I don’t have much to share introductions wise, so this should be short and sweet.  I am a political blogger and occasional freelance writer (I have a day job, but it’s not nearly interesting enough to share).  You can usually find me at  my blog, the United States of Jamerica, or PostBourgie where I occasionally contribute.  As far as guestblogging is concerned, I have — along with Dara — recently blogged for Spencer Ackerman and Alyssa Rosenberg.  Generally, I focus on progressive politics, public policy and assorted nerdy things.  Additionally, you can expect plenty of references to hip-hop (see above), science fiction, or some combination of the two.

In any case, I’m looking forward to sharing my perspective with y’all, and with any luck, this will be fun and enjoyable for everyone!

By Satyam Khanna

Hello Yglesias readers! First, a special thanks to Matt for this opportunity to fill in for him while he is on his China junket. When he asked me to blog for him, the first thing I thought was, “Jesus, how am I going to keep up with Matt’s pace?” So, we’ll at least make an attempt.

In my previous life, before heading off to law school, I spent two years as a blogger for ThinkProgress, where I had a great time needling the angry right with Matt, Ryan, and Ali…so much so that I became one of the stars of an anonymous right-wing hate video (we still don’t know who took the time to make it, but suffice it to say that he or she has a lot of time to waste) accusing me of being part of a conspiracy with fellow non-caucasian bloggers to destroy America:

It’s all very plausible, right? Apparently, I was “working in the shadows” by posting on a well-read political blog.

Looking forward to returning to the blogosphere for a few days. And feel free to contact me.

By Dara Lind

Hey there, everyone. I am more than psyched to be here; many thanks to Matt for bringing us on, and to y’all in advance for putting up with us.

I’m Dara. By day I work in immigration advocacy; by night I’m an editor at Wunderkammer. I lack Ryan and Ali’s distinguished Think Progress pedigrees, but I’ve recently become something of an itinerant blogger. Most recently, you might have seen me guestblogging for Spencer Ackerman about immigration policy, social criticism and baseball, or for Alyssa Rosenberg about reading, gender norms and, erm, baseball. That’s a pretty good summary of my interests, though I’ve also taken it as my mandate to up the panda content of this blog. I have it on good authority that Matt will not be visiting any pandas over the course of his trip (not even Butterstick!), and gosh darn it, somebody’s got to hold down the fort:

If pandas aren’t your thing, sorry. Hopefully our combined guestblogging forces can provide something for everyone.

By Ali Frick

Hello fellow Yglesias readers. I’m excited to join you this week! I know Matt from working with him at CAP, where I blogged for ThinkProgress for two years before before leaving to start law school at Yale. I’ve just finished my first year and hope that it hasn’t wiped all interesting thoughts from my brain. I guess we’ll find out shortly.

My interests include criminal justice reform, novels, exposing the madness of the right wing agenda, the Civil War, and Friday Night Lights (the TV show). Let’s hope that’s enough to get us through Matt’s absence!

To start off, dear readers, let’s engage in an exchange: I’m offering a few good summer reading suggestions, and you should offer your own ideas in the comments section. Since novels are so often neglected on this blog, let’s try to up the fiction quotient!

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton: Somehow in 16 years of education I never had to read this for school. I just read it on the beach and was so tickled to find a Victorian novel of manners and rituals set right in our own New York. Screw London and the heaths of England!

Empire Falls, Richard Russo: A beautiful story full of rich, real characters that you won’t want to put down — especially when the action picks up toward the end.

A Voyage Long and Strange, Tony Horowitz: Though non-fiction, this is a truly fun story about an entirely neglected period of American history that seeks to answer the question: What happened between Columbus’ landing in 1492 and Plymouth Rock nearly two centuries later?

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski: There’s a reason it’s a best-seller. And don’t be put off by the fact it was an Oprah book, nor that it’s about dogs. As neither an animal nor Oprah lover, I could not put down this book, and wept at its ending.

Worse Than Slavery, David Oshinksy: So it’s not the most uplifting read, but for a disturbing look at the racist foundations of our criminal justice system, there’s no comparison. As we spend the summer debating the future of the highest court in the land, it’s a great reminder of the power — for good and evil — that the law wields over us, and its real origins.

War and Peace, Tolstoy (trans. by Pevear and Volokhonsky): There is no better summer read than this, nothing that comes close to the drama, heartbreak, and beauty. It’s a giant love-story: The size makes it seem difficult when really it is nothing but a soap opera — the kind you never, ever want to end.

Anything and everything by Margaret Atwood: Like suspenseful plots? Enjoy expertly-crafted female characters? Love falling into a book and never wanting to emerge? Then there’s no one better than Atwood. Seriously. Especially The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Year of the Flood, and Alias Grace.

Next on my list: Battle Cry of Freedom and Olive Kitteridge. What are you reading?