You are only allowed to watch if you read at least three posts in this series.
A muppet chaser
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009How to end violence
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009Hint: it doesn’t involve wearing t-shirts like this.
Human beings are actually predisposed to avoid violence with other humans. The trouble only starts when humans stop thinking of other human beings as humans. “Out-groups”, “othering”, “tribalism”– they’re all words for essentially the same thing.
Pseudospeciationists can suck my balls.
Previous research seemed to suggest white people are just naturally, uncontrollably racist on an unconscious level, since by showing them pictures of black people, the little amygdala in their brain immediately responds with: be vigilant! But, social psychologist Susan Fiske discovered an intriguing way to counteract this:
A message to violent smegwads everywhere
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009Hey douchebags, listen up, it’s strategy time.
If you’d all just be a little bit smurfier to the ladyfolk, maybe we’d all get Some O Dat a whole lot more often.
Seven or eight years ago I read The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. It had a profound effect on my thinking about the human race. He made the ultimate point that humans may pride themselves as being something other than animals, but at the end of the day, we are animals too. The instinctual urges that we think of as just part of an animal’s unavoidable nature affect us just as strongly. Different animals may have slightly different sets of instincts, but the fact is we have them too (and how!), despite our penchant for dressing them up with highly intelligent, baroque justifications.
Now, one tidbit from the book actually seemed to argue against Morris’s thesis in a small way (if I recall correctly), which was when he asserted that humans are the only species that engages in intra-species killing, also known as “murder”. And indeed, this was the conventional scientific wisdom until years after The Naked Ape was published, when Jane Goodall reported that the peace-loving chimpanzees she was famous for observing also seem to enjoy a spot of the old intra-species ultra-violence every now and then, as well. Thus providing more support for Morris’s thesis after all.
But there is some hope for us yet, according to neurologist and professional baboon observer Robert Sapolsky. In the early 80s, a baboon group he was observing in Kenya lucked into a garbage dump from a tourist lodge that had expanded its operations. Every morning, the combative, anti-social alpha baboons would raid the meat in the dump, and eat it all up before the more mellow baboons could get to it. And then… an amazing plot twist.
Tainted meat killed the majority of the baboon group… but also, every single one of the aggressive asshole Alphas.
Got any good ones..? Post ‘em!
Monday, March 16th, 2009Oh, those workplace departure e-mails. (Thank you, Slate, for finally giving me something to actually call the things.) They’re so fun to write! and sometimes, they are really fun to read.
I’ve quit three jobs in which a “workplace departure e-mail” seemed called for. I didn’t feel the need to generate one for any of my babysitting jobs growing up, nor did I whip one up for McDonald’s (dudes, not only did I not have an e-mail address, I didn’t even have a computer, and hardly anybody else who worked there at the time did either), and a field-based Army unit in Europe doesn’t really require an electronic notification when you’re outprocessing. However, once I graduated college, engineering degree clutched in my hot little hand, my subsequent corporate adventures did, indeed, sort of require some kind of generalized e-notification of various coworkers and bosses, both mine and other people’s, upon my leaving those jobs for greener pastures. So I had to start cobbling them together.
I’ve never really had too much trouble knowing what to say. Platitudes apparently come as naturally to me as breathing. It’s been a great experience working with all of you! I can chirp cheerily on command. I wish you all well in your future endeavors! I generally consider myself a very honest person, but apparently, there are some circumstances under which I can lie like a rug with no qualms whatsoever. Quitting a job that I may or may not have come to hate to the point where each new day brings a new outbreak of hives is one of them.
The part of the workplace departure e-mail ritual that always threw me for a loop was who, exactly, to send the missive to. Every place I’ve worked has strongly discouraged e-mailing the entire freakin’ company, a policy with which I heartily agree, sometimes to the point where the ability to put in the companywide e-mail address is locked out from most of the employees. (Now, if only they will start removing the ability of said employees to “reply ALL” to those emails sent out to the entire company by the original, authorized personnel. No, Cathy in the London office, I don’t care that you’ve lost your password to the document management server nor, Bob from Sacramento, do I care that you and your family will be unable to attend the local company community service awards ceremony.)
But who do I send it to..? Can I get away with not sending it to the people I can’t stand…? No, not really, because even if those people can’t stand me in return, they’re usually just the type to make a big stink about being excluded from my workplace departure e-mail. Well, in that case, can I not include my new e-mail address..? No, because I do want some people to have it, both in terms of personal warmth and business referrals, and if I send some people an edited version that does not include my new e-mail address, again, they’ll probably get offended even if they can’t stand me. And how about people I worked with but who are either several levels above me or in only distantly-related departments..? Is it presumptuous of me to e-mail the first and peculiar of me to e-mail the second? But if I don’t, again again, will somebody Get Offended..?
And so on and so forth. But to the best of my knowledge, nothing bad has ever come of any of my workplace departure e-mails, so I must have muddled through the whole situation well enough each time…however, I can’t say that’s been the case for every workplace departure e-mail I’ve ever seen. Heh. Actually, some of ‘em have been a scream–for me, the sadistic observer; probably less of a scream for the author and some of the recipients, but given the e-mails themselves, clearly there was a Situation there that long preceeded the email. A few of my favorites from over the years–each sent to either the entire company, or a large subsection thereof:
“I just want you all to remember, what comes around goes around, and you know who I’m talking to.”
“I’ve had it with this situation. If I don’t get a response to this e-mail in ten minutes, I’m sending it out to everybody in the company so they can all see what idiots you are.” (I don’t know if this was supposed to be a workplace departure e-mail, but it sure turned into one; the author was fired the next day.)
“I haven’t always enjoyed working here, but it has been a learning experience.”
“Please don’t ask me why I’m leaving, I can’t talk about it, but you’re welcome to e-mail me privately to get the whole story.”
As the title of this post says–if you know or have any good ones of your own, share! 
Ruffles are “in” this year
Saturday, March 14th, 2009Which means it took me like six fucking hours to shop for a proper* “going to a conference, gonna be on stage” outfit. Even the military-inspired shit had ruffles all over the damn chest. Come on, department stores, just because something is trendy doesn’t mean it has to be all you stock!
*And by proper, I mean just slightly inappropriate. Gotta be me.
Help Me Out Here
Thursday, March 12th, 2009In 2008, the Marginal Tax Rates were as follows:
# 10% on income between $0 and $8,025
# 15% on the income between $8,025 and $32,550; plus $802.50
# 25% on the income between $32,550 and $78,850; plus $4,481.25
# 28% on the income between $78,850 and $164,550; plus $16,056.25
# 33% on the income between $164,550 and $357,700; plus $40,052.25
# 35% on the income over $357,700; plus $103,791.75
Now, if in 2008, I decided to pull a “Galt” and only work to make $357,700 so as to miss the top 2% tax hike beyond that, (and please, someone who knows more about this step-in if I’m getting something wrong) I would pay: $103,791.75, leaving me with the paltry, just above poverty level of: $253,908.25. (Assume, for the sake of clarity, no tax write-offs, which everyone Now, say I could have made $400,000 dollars, but instead choose not to so I wouldn’t have to pay as much taxes. The marginal value of those additional dollars were not worth it for me. Had I worked, the government would have gotten $14,805 more dollars, and I would have made $281,403.25 ($27,495 more).
Now, if I don’t work, someone else will pick up that work (assuming it isn’t just make work). So, that $42,300 pre-tax difference is going somewhere; some other worker, a bunch of other workers, somewhere. Let’s assume it goes to a bunch of other people, and that those people only make $8,025 a year. That means that the government’s going to tax that money at 10%, so they get 4,200.30 dollars of it. That’s less money for the US government in sheer dollars, but it’s also less money that they will need for poverty relief (because if you’re only making $8,025, you’re getting poverty-relief).
So what we have here is a person who works less hours (and who knows? maybe this person goes home and spend times with his family, or spends time with the community, or buys some more stuff so someone else gets a job,) and another person gets more money that might be desperately needed, and the government gets to tax the same money at a higher rate. I’m missing the downside of this equation, anybody want to point it out to me?
I Watch C-Span
Thursday, March 12th, 2009People should watch C-Span more often, because it is amazing what people babble about to pad their campaign commertials. Today I was watching because Ms. Eleanor Norton Holmes was trying to talk about why D.C. citizens should have the right to vote in the elections.
But, Mr. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, after very graciously giving 5 minutes to someone else to finish up, and 3 minutes to say that Republicans think D.C.ers should just vote in the Maryland elections, has spent the rest of his allotted 60 minutes to talk about how evil Communists were. Now, it was funny enough when he said that Stalin and Pol Pot believed in communism (if they believed in anything but themselves, I’d die of shock), and called Communism a religion that people just ignore the atrocities said in it’s name (like Christianity is blood free). But then he started talking about how communists could be democracy by force, and how great that Ronald Reagan was to support those freedom fighters in places like Nicaragua to support democracy, and that Reagan’s great legacy was the “stability of South American countries”. He gave a quick eulogy to the “heroes” of the Cold War: Dr. Fred Schwarz, and Constantine Menges.
*pause to wipe the tears away*
After talking about how great democracy was in then countries, he’s talking about how terrible it is that people are voting in “socialists” in places like El Salvador, and how there’s going to be a “negative” relationship with the United States when the elect people who hate America. Now, he’s talking about economic sanctions…. but this kind of language is chilling to me. “Vote who we want you to vote, or we won’t be so nice to you”. This kind of language seems to be seeding the soil of our new “enemies”. Especially when he keeps saying things like “these people were celebrating when 9-11″ happened.
He keeps sounding like he’s a mob boss. “Nice country you have, developing and such, hope something doesn’t happen to it”.
He summed up with this:
“We wish the people of El Salvador well, we wish them a successful election, we hope they will remain friends of the United States…. some in Congress want us to pass a resolution to not adjust our economic assistance…but they’re misguided. If the people of El Salvador don’t vote to be our friends…. we won’t be. Latin America does not need a Marxist/Lennist government, even without any guns, but a free democracy.”
The Definition of “Needs a Life”
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
Remember when all there was to do was watch the neighbors..?
When her baby girl takes an afternoon nap, or on those nights when she just can’t sleep, Sarah Andrews, 32, tosses off her identity as a suburban stay-at-home mom and becomes something more exotic: a “virtual deputy” patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border.
From her house in a suburb of Rochester, New York, Andrews spends at least four hours a day watching a site called BlueServo.net.
There, because of a $2 million grant from the state of Texas, anyone in the world can watch grainy live video scenes of cactuses, desert mountains and the Rio Grande along Texas’ portion of the international border.
When Andrews spots something she deems suspicious — perhaps a fuzzy character moving from right to left across the screen or people wading through the river with what appear to be trash bags atop their heads — she and the site’s 43,000 registered users can send e-mail messages straight to local law enforcement, who then decide whether to act.
“Today, there’s a couple vehicles that are parked side by side next to each other,” she said by phone, her 7-month-old cooing in the background, “but I can’t tell what’s going on, you know?”
You know, I don’t generally pontificate much on the waste of taxpayer dollars. But this particular scheme struck me as, er, a pretty pathetic example of that…and that was before I even got to this part:
Since the site was launched in late November, only four arrests can be attributed to the cameras, said Don Reay, executive director of the sheriffs’ coalition, which runs the project with money from Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s office.
All of those arrests were related to marijuana trafficking, he said, with about 2,000 pounds of the drug seized.
Those aren’t the kind of results planners were looking for when they started the program, but Reay says the program’s unseen value is in the fact that it prevents drug-related violence and trafficking.
Yeah, marijuana, the drug scourge of the United States! (eye. roll.)
He said sheriffs along the border have seen decreased crime in recent months, partly because of the camera program, although he said he could not cite statistics to back up that claim.
Further descent into ludicrousness:
Abernethy and Andrews, the two “virtual deputies,” said they would like to see greater transparency in the project. Both said they have e-mailed notes of suspicious activity to law enforcement, but neither has heard whether their alerts were of any help.
“It’s interesting. You see different things on there, but I just — I don’t know that it’s doing any good,” said Andrews, the stay-at-home mom. “I wonder if it’s a waste of time.”
Answer: YES!! …hello?!
She also said the site draws her interest because she’s nosy
Gah!
Abernethy said he will continue to watch the cameras because he feels like he’s part of an altruistic group of volunteers. Friends tease him about watching the site, he said. But he sees it as no worse than any other form of quick entertainment — and maybe he can be of some help in the process.
“It’s no different than watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ reruns,” he said. “It’s just something to do.
DUDE…TV shows at least pretend to have a plot. With people. Speaking dialogue. To each other. Security cameras are not entertainment…the fact that you are able to think so is not something I would admit in public if I were you. Ever thought of taking a correspondence course? or going bowling? buying a kitten..? something?
Sad.
Well, I called that one, didn’t I?
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009From my prescient self, just a few weeks ago:
It’s also quite the mystery why [Bristol Palin] hasn’t married good old Levi yet. Her lack of enthusiasm for that eventuality pretty much oozes out of the screen, and the only time she ever brings him up is when the interviewer directly asks her about him.
And hot off the People magazine presses today:
Bristol Palin and her fiancé Levi Johnston have broken up, two sources tell PEOPLE.
The split happened “a few weeks ago,” according to a source close to the couple, but it’s unclear what precipitated it. “It was a mutual thing,” adds the source.
Bristol, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, spoke with FOX News in February and told Greta Van Susteren that she and Levi – who are parents to 2-month-old son, Tripp – expected to get married after they completed high school.
“It kind of just happened,” says the source, referring to the split. “I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp.”
“I’m not sure what caused [them to break up] – it’s common knowledge,” says another source who knows the family.
So let me get this entirely straight…Bristol Palin is choosing to be an unwed teen mother when she could have been a wed teen mother instead.
This does remind me of that small news item from last year:
Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms
ST. PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.
After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.
According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”
I mean, why reward those little sluts for their out-of-wedlock shenanigans with da gubment cheeze? If they’d just marry the father, then they’d already have a place to live! …er, right, Bristol..? and Sarah..?
Of course, Bristol Palin doesn’t need the services of Passage House. She’s being supported by the woman who did her best to gut their funding–wonder how well that sits with her..? Then again, I didn’t get the impression from Bristol’s Faux News interview that she’s in possession of a stellar or incisive intellect, so perhaps such thoughts have not troubled her brain. Or perhaps she’s just keeping as silent as possible on the subject to stretch out her parents’ support of her unwed teen motherhood as long as humanly possible–God knows I would, in her position.
Help From the Peanut Gallery
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009Awhile back, I posted that my law class had a thread on discrimination and affirmative actions. The thread has suddenly become active, and people seem to be having trouble with the idea of “white privilege”.
The validity of the article is in the question it asks. Is there a double standard of what our society sees as racism? The reason I critiqued Ms. Jerde’s response is because she quickly noted the article as being racist (in my opinion), used past history as justification, and then she countered the article with the “daily effects of white privilege,” which I am still trying to figure out how that is valid and not a stereotype. Mr. Mandalla’s response to Ms. Jerde mentioned the authors should take into account historical context and the fact that whites are not the minority race in the northern hemisphere. To me, I see this as justification and the authors were merely pointing out that perhaps past sentiment may dictate our perception on this topic. The point I raise is how we view racism across racial lines is a valid question. The reason I critiqued the responses is because I feel there is no justification for racism. I certainly do not agree with parts of America’s troubled past, but I do not think what happened years ago or the fact that whites are not a minority is legitimate in our perception of what is racist. Perhaps historical context and minority versus majority is worth noting in discrimination, but we shall have that debate in a discrimination post. Racism and discrimination may overlap, but I perceive them to be different. While what some perceive as “reverse discrimination” may be justifiable, I feel under no circumstances should racism be tolerated and it should be scrutinized by the same standard across all races, regardless of possible justifications (which I feel we all agree on). The article simply asks, “do we look at it the same.” I will admit that the substance of the article can be a bit suspect, but the question I feel it poses is valid.
The “valid points” the article brings up is the different situations the article poses to support the main point. I feel racial slurs towards whites such as “cracker” are tolerated, WET and White Pride Day would be perceived differently, and I feel there would be a negative stigma towards all white schools or all white scholarships.
am going to jump in here (despite my better judgment). In our Con Law reading, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, the concurring opinion by Thomas states the following, which I think is very true:
“So-called ‘benign’ discrimination teaches many that because of chronic and apparently immutable handicaps, minorities cannot compete with them without their patronizing indulgence. Inevitably, such programs engender attitudes of superiority or, alternatively, provoke resentment among those who believe that they have been wronged by the government’s use of race. These programs stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop dependencies or to adopt an attitude that they are ‘entitled’ to preferences.”
I think that many of us, if we were honest with ourselves, would admit to harboring feelings of resentment when thinking about scholarships that are only available to minorities, student groups that are for the benefit of minorities, etc. I also agree with Thomas that these types of things can give whites a sense of superiority knowing that minorities may get extra benefits in some ways that are denied to whites.
I don’t mean to say that affirmative action is a bad thing, or that scholarships strictly for minority students are a bad thing, or that minority groups are a bad thing. Certainly these things were put in place to counteract the discrimination that took place in our history. Rather, I think that a day needs to come where race is no longer a consideration in any aspect of our lives. Until that day comes, feelings of resentment and superiority will probably continue.
I don’t think that these people are trying to be racist (no one was the initial poster that I responded to), but there does some to be a little wavering about affirmative action, and the nature of racism. So does anyone know of any really strong, easy-to-understand articles or blogposts about affirmative actions, the modern day effects of racism and the lingering effects of historical racism? I think I’ve tapped out my ability to successfully talk.
Damn, That Was Good.
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009Jessica at Feministing has a new book out called The Purity Myth, and she’s posted a link to the intro. I read the intro, and it’s awesome. Count me in for a copy the next time I hit the bookstore.
More complaining about Watchmen!
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009I went and saw Watchmen the night before last. It was OK. I will give them credit for this much up front: it did not feel like a near-three-hour movie. It was not physically painful in the way, say, Titanic was. So, kudos on that, at least.
And I won’t get more into the Antigone/Marcotte topics, other than to give my two cents here rather then have my shining wisdom buried in long threads, which I have not read to their completion so if I ignore something you commented on, you know, forgive me.
And I will spoil the living fuck out of this thing, because my main gripe is with the ending. For your convenience, after my list of non-spoiling complaints, I provide a cut.
1) Dear Zack Snyder: Could you put more schlong in your movies? There’s really no such thing as too gratuitous.
I don’t know how to feel about the films of Snyder’s that I have seen. On the one hand, it’s nice to see male bodies treated like we’re used to seeing female bodies treated. I saw Watchmen with two guys, one who had seen 300 and one who hadn’t, and the one who had said “Well, you kind of feel bad about yourself after watching all those perfect-looking men run around basically naked the whole movie.” “Welcome to the world of women,” I said. Because it’s true. And I generally like his sex scenes, because he directs some of the only sex scenes I’ve seen in a movie theatre that even come close to looking like people actually having sex. Good sex, not romantic comedy sex, but actual sex where both parties get to enjoy themselves. Sure, the people having sex are generally far more attractive than people are in real life, but I’m ok with that because if I ever want to see normal people having sex, well, I have the internet. For movie ticket prices, give me sexy. But not too sexy, because I have to believe it, ya’ know.
On the other hand, sometimes it’s ok for sexy things to hit the cutting room floor. Watching a Zack Snyder movies always leaves me with a creepy feeling that I know too much about Zack Snyder’s fantasy life. And Dr Manhattan’s giant blue god-dick was creepy in its inert ginormousness, like a stuffed blue gym sock taped to his nether regions. I mean, if you’re going to put cock out there where everyone can see it, make it move a little so it doesn’t seem like it’s just kind of floating in the air in front of Dr Manhattan, untroubled and unconnected to the motion of his body.
2) A little updating might not have killed the story line. When the movie first ended, I was quite critical, until my roommate, who had read the comic, explained to me that it was written in 1985, and exactly how closely they had kept to the source material. Knowing that made it a little better. But what seemed gut-wrenchingly scary to people in 1985 (namely, the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction and the fact that there was now enough firepower on the planet to vaporize everyone and everything multiple times) is background noise to people my age and younger, and I am way closer to 30 than I’d like to admit. For us, it’s always been that way, and so the sense of urgency and fright the beginning of the movie was trying to convey seems almost as quaint as those 1950′s videos of children being trained to hide under their desks in the event of nuclear explosion. Oh! For those innocent times when only two superpowers had access to nukes, which were large and obvious and prohibitively expensive! Before the internet, there were no instructions to make your own nuclear bomb on the internet.
I’m old enough to remember the falling of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war, and while I knew it was a big deal, I remember not being quite clear as to why. The fear of the Soviets and the complexities of the cold war did not make it down to elementary school children in a clear and convincing matter, which is probably part of the reason people who would never joke about the Nazis find Soviet kitsch to be hilarious. By the time we were old enough to understand, it was over, and it was recent enough in history to always be cut short by the end of the year – it was never treated with the same depth or repetition as say, the Civil War or WWII.
The result was I found a lot of that movie to be hokey until I really sat and thought about it. And I’m a thinking, reading person who loves Russian novels and has read quite a bit about Soviet history in the last year or two. Hell, I just returned a library book about fucking chess’ role in the Cold War, OK? I’m saying, I’ve done my independent study on this topic. If the point was lost on me until I had some context for when and why the story was written, imagine how little of it is getting to your average 18-35 year old movie goer? Yeah, that’s right. Your point just got lost in well-choreographed gore and gratuitous blue wang.
3) Could you have made Silk Spectre II look less like Xena? The whole time she was kicking ass I kept on thinking of that Simpson’s episode: “I didn’t know Xena could fly!” “I keep telling you, I’m Lucy Lawless!” She can keep the cute little wiggle dresses though. Those were awesome.
And finally, spoiler, and probably the only place Antigone might agree with me.
(more…)
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