In another case, a man whose habits included sports betting, dice and animal fights had missed a scheduled counseling session.
Or are there certain socioeconomic groups whose dietary habits include high rates of fast-food consumption?
Arguably of course, this is the whole problem with modern child-rearing — this focus on yield, on a kind of application of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" mentality to people whose habits still include crying during the vaguely ominous bits of "Shrek".
The protagonist, again, is a government functionary, though as played with comic hauteur by Ugo Tognazzi, the grandly named Emerenziano Paronzini is a far more prepossessing figure, at least in his own mind: a provincial bureaucrat whose maddeningly precise habits include gargling with wine at the end of every meal and cleaning his ears with a toothpick.
For example, researchers must set aside the habit of speaking quickly and without regard for those whose habits of conversing may include lengthy pauses before answering questions.
But those habits include goals.
The four habits include: Invest in the beginning (Habit 1), Elicit the patient's perspective (Habit 2), Demonstrate empathy (Habit 3), and Invest in the end (Habit 4).
Good habits include: Following a good health regimen.
Combine that with the lure of the taboo created by a society that tells parents not to let their children see them drink, and you end up with a country of bloated drunkards (myself included) whose habits are impossible to legislate away.
"I spent a year among them, documenting their habits, including their food," said Mr. Sifton, whose book, "A Field Guide to the Yettie: America's Young, Entrepreneurial Technocrats," will be published this month by Talk-Miramax Books. Talk-Miramax Books
