(Parts One and Two are here and here.)
Being something of a scientist, and living in a society that revels in its hierarchy and is constantly looking for ways that at least appear objective to justify it, I’ve struggled with this issue before. It was interesting to see it come up at Sex 2.0, and hear an actual professional researcher tackle it.
It’s not news to anyone that PETA is completely crazy, but in case you didn’t know, there’s a hilarious little Flash game on their eyesore of a website. And it, like so much of their “shock” advertising, is entirely sexist. Hey PETA: Why can’t you put a princess dress and a biker jacket on the fish at the same time?
By PETA’s logic, all we need to do to end the attacks on Gaza is to rename the Palestinians “desert-kittens.” Couldn’t hurt, right?
Anyway, here’s mine:
Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!
(The entire site is hilarious. Check out the awesome bedtime stories. If they hadn’t been around for so long, I’d be convinced that PETA is some sort of viral marketing campaign for the meat industry.)
Be forewarned: this is somewhat meandering. If “brain diarrhea” really irritates you; kindly don’t read (and subsequently don’t comment that you hate meandering posts). I’m looking for a dialogue.
As I mentioned in one of my posts, I think sometimes activists worry about making a real difference in the world. There’s writing letters, and calling our friends and families on some of their behavior, and if we can spare it, maybe a few dollars to worthy organizations. But sometimes I wonder; does this behavior actually DO anything?
I thought of a friend-of-a-friend I know, that collects donations, and with that money she makes school sets that she sends to a church in Armenia. It’s not terribly expensive stuff; notebooks, pencils, erasers, tissues; but it has a real impact in the quality of education of the students. Every week, she takes her donations collected, buys the materials, and makes little “school boxes” to send away.
But the thing is; these donations don’t last long. The stuff gets used, broken, and stolen. There’s always more that needs to be sent. So what good does it do?
Then I thought after that; what good did the tissues in my school do? Those we went through too, and needed to be replaced all the time as well. What good they did was kept people who went to school with the sniffles from distracting other students and kept other kids from being sick. It’s not that the donations are good because they are permanent; it’s just the donations are more useful if they’re consistent.*
So, for this post, I was thinking it would be a nice idea of Punkassers could make a resolution this year to donate at least once a month to whatever organization floated your boat. This donation could be time, money, or the extra set of pens in the buy-one-get-one sale. The point of this resolution is not to break the bank; but rather make the world that slightly better place in a real, tangible way. Ideas of how to tackle any particular problem would be welcome in the comments, and stories of volunteering are also welcome.
As for myself, I was thinking about small, cheap donations that would cause immediate, real-world help. And I found myself thinking about textile industries across the world, and how many don’t have even basic safety standards, and people have a lot of respiratory problems because of it. I keep thinking the best way to fix that would be to boycott countries that don’t have US-health standards, and to apply pressure for the US to not trade with these countries, but the problem with those solutions are 1) they’re incredibly long term 2) probably not going to actually help anything and 3) come with the problem of putting poverty-level workers out of a job. But if we donated safety equipment, then it helps alleviate some of the problems right now. What does everyone think of trying to set up Dust Mask donations for workers? These are cheap masks, but their ability to reduce respiratory problems is quite high. A few problems I can think of off the bat are a) finding a company that would take them, or someone to distribute them to b) finding a company that would allow it and c) I have no idea how to start a non-profit. Ideas?
*eHow.com has some good advice on how to donate to schools in your area, if that is what you’re inspired to do.
Those of you who peruse Pharyngula are doubtless already familiar with this episode; for those of you who are not, from PZ a few weeks ago:
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and the Creation Museum have made a joint marketing agreement and are selling “combo tickets” to get into both attractions for one price.
The Cincinnati Zoo is promoting an anti-science, anti-education con job run by ignorant creationists.
Unbelievable.
I believe the Cincinnati Zoo has betrayed its mission and its trust in a disgraceful way, by aligning themselves with a creationist institution that is a laughing stock to the rest of the world, and a mark of shame to the United States. I urge everyone to contact the zoo; write to their education and marketing and public relations departments in particular and point out the conflict between what they are doing and what their goal as an educational and research institution ought to be.
While you’re at it, it might be even more effective to contact the newsroom at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati weekly, City Beat. Let’s raise a stink and give these guys the bad PR they deserve.
The zoo did end up withdrawing their “combo ticket” offer, much to the anger and dismay of a certain subsection of upstanding American citizens, who have promptly written to inform PZ of their massive displeasure. It’s great readin’. 
Check out the priceless gems below!
You ought to be ashamed of yourself forcing your religion on others this is a free country and it should not happen. If your religion is so faultless and absolutely correct then debate with a professional from a creationalist Mr. Morris. Scientist thought the universe revolved around the earth about 1000 years ago,they thought the earth was flat 500 years ago and 200 years ago man couldn’t fly so as we progress we find science is very fallible. So as long as people like you think you are an infallible god and socialism is the way you chose to deal with unproven fact there are always people that won’t and can’t believe another false religion.
Let’s see. PZ is an atheist, socialism isn’t a religion, and what exactly is an “unproven fact?”
This nation is going crazy with left wing attacks on traditional America and the Christian principles on which it was founded (not the revisionist historian separation of church/state myth).
Always good to know that the separation of church and state as one of America’s founding principles is just a nasty, left wing myth!
Evolution is used now as a tool to promote the vulgar and disgusting homosexual movement that has recently become violent.
Vulgar AND disgusting! And how come I missed out on the news reports about the recent upsurge in heterosexual beatings at the hands of gangs of roving homosexuals? Maybe the writer’s getting confused by stories like this one–homosexuals, homophobes; they ARE very similar-looking words, I have to admit.
I just found out that you were one of the main reasons that the Cincinnati Zoo cancelled its partnership with the nearby Creation Museum. How dare you!!! And you should be ashamed of yourself, but since you are obviously an intolerant, left wing liberal, I can probably count on the fact you have no conscience, at least not one that would make you ashamed of something like this…You spout your speech about how people should be tolerant of others. Of course what you mean by this is that Christians should be tolerant. Well, sir (and I use that term extremely loosely), Christians are probably the most tolerant people on the planet. If we weren’t, and if we spoke up more, then asinine liberals like yourself wouldn’t be trashing this once great country…And I hope you have the courage to answer this e-mail, but then again I’m sure you don’t. You, just like so many other pea-brained, pinheaded liberals I know, just want to make your stupid little comments then go into hiding and not take any responsibility for what you say or do…Your actions have proven that you are..a pseudo-intellectual snob.
A veritable model of Christian tolerance!
I am tired of the tiptoeing around and kid glove treatment that these assholes automatically get because they associate themselves with Jesus. Spare me this holiday season–please?
No? Well, let me help you, then.
and
There–much more accurate. Don’t they want their message gotten across more clearly? I’m sure they do!
*The pope also says, Stop touching each other before Mass–we can’t tell which of you are Teh Homos when you do that!
This is Slate’s series of articles, structured as back-and-forth letters between a group of conservative “thinkers,” that began the day after Election Day and ran through the following Friday. I found it rather fascinating, in the dust mite sense.
Just in case you haven’t read it, and don’t have time to wade through all fourteen full-length pages of it, I have summarized the meat of each entry below:
Jim Manzi, chairman of an applied artificial-intelligence software company and contributing editor of National Review: It’s finally happened. The middle class has figured out that voting Republican is voting against their own economic interests. The Reagan mantra appears to be losing its hypnotic effect. We must find a new chant to bamboozle them with. Hey, I know–let’s resegregate public schools, start shooting illegal immigrants on sight and concentrate on recruiting the whitest foreign nationals we can find to fill our immigration quotas instead!
Douglas Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University: Barack Obama is Ronald Reagan reborn. Also, could we stop obsessing on abortion?
Ross Douthat, author of Grand New Party and a blogger for the Atlantic: No.
Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and author of It’s My Party, Too: I refuse to believe that the middle class figured that out. Issues, schmissues– to all those people the election was just a popularity contest! and Barack Obama, unfortunately, is much hotter than Bush. All we have to do is make sure they don’t associate Bush with us from now on.
Tucker Carlson, author and commentator for MSNBC and The Daily Beast: I agree that it’s all a popularity contest, Christine–it’s not enough to dissociate ourselves from him, though, we need to find somebody even cooler than Obama to be our frontman. Also, we need to give the middle class a new strawman to hate–that was so effective during the Cold War. Our efforts to replace “Communists” with “Islamofascists” appears to have lost a lot of its oomph.
Ross Douthat: ABORTION, hello?? Abortion!
Douglas Kmiec: Reagan was a god. I really think that Obama is his second coming.
Jim Manzi: You’re probably right, Christine; and Douglas, if you think a single damn one of us is going to do anything other than flatly oppose every last line of Obama’s liberal pinko agenda with our dying breaths, you’re quite mistaken.
Kathleen Parker, author and syndicated columnist who also blogs for the Washington Post: I agree with Christine too and I’ll go even further and say that the deciding popularity factor wasn’t even Bush’s lack of cool or Obama’s abundance of it, but McCain’s horrid, stupid, winking, redneck of a MILF vice-presidential candidate. And no, it’s not fucking elitist of me to say so!
Douglas Kmiec: Ross, Obama is my hero. And I’m pro-choice. Here, let me kiss your ass vigorously to make it up to you in the most passive-aggressive way possible.
Tucker Carlson: Doug, you sound like a woman, and there is no worse insult I could possibly lob at you than that.
Ross Douthat: Well, I loved Sarah Palin because she at least was willing to call out abortion for the baby-murdering slut-enabling conspiracy that it is. But I agree with Tucker that we need to find a man who can compete with Obama for sheer coolness, though I must say that I personally thought Bill Clinton was cooler. McCain? L-O-S-E-R!
Christine Todd Whitman: Maybe if I address this post to everybody, Ross won’t realize I’m speaking directly to him?–look, the abortion bullshit is no longer a winning strategy. The only people who can’t get over it are the Jesus freaks, and clearly, they’re not a majority voting bloc, so screw them. Back to the important topic here–how do we repackage Reaganomics so that the middle class will buy it all over again? Honestly, I’m just praying that the Democrats screw up so badly that every last one of the middle class ends up completely bankrupt. They’ll come running back to us then!
Douglas Kmiec: God, I miss Reagan. Have I said that already?
From Slate.
Of 20 new statewide polls, 15 show a shift in McCain’s direction. The biggest comes from a SurveyUSA poll in Kansas
Again, please–
Kansas
Yeah. This is newsworthy. Other than once in 1964 when they were guilted into it by JFK’s assassination, Kansas hasn’t put a Democrat in the White House since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I grew up in the Armpit Waves of Grain; I know what they’re like.
CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. and Quinnipiac polls in Florida showed shifts toward McCain of one and three points, respectively, though both polls still show Obama ahead. The same CNN/Time poll in Missouri shows a one-point shift—within the margin of error—to McCain
Missouri = right next to Kansas. In the fourth grade we used to play kickball next to the state line and if you could knock that sucker into Missouri (pronounced “mizz-ooo-rah” by the native savages) you got an automatic “home run.”
The largest shift to Obama was in a SurveyUSA poll in Delaware, where he increased his lead from nine points to 30 points. The previous survey was conducted in February
Gad, what a mystery! Wonder what coulda possibly happened in the Obama campaign between now and last February that might have influenced the Delaware vote?
From MyRightWingDad:
Subject: Fwd: Father/Daughter talk
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many
others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and
among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to
support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a
feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had
participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her
father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he
thought should be his.One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on
the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed
objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she
indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in
school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA,
and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was
taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left
her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even
have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends
because she spent all her time studying.Her father listened and then asked, ‘How is your friend Audrey doing?’ She
replied, ‘Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes , she
never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus;
college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties and
lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung
over.’ Her wise father asked his daughter, ‘Why don’t you go to the
Dean’s office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your
friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and
certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.’The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired
back, ‘That’s a crazy idea, and how would that be fair! I’ve worked really
hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work!
Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked
my tail off!The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, ‘Welcome to the Republican
party.’If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between
Republican and Democrat I’m all ears.
It’s the Halloween season again, and I for one am thrilled. Corn mazes, haunted houses, Halloween parties and guys who think they’re funny giving me an easy intro back into blogging. That’s right, it’s the return of perennial Slut-O-Ween opinion pieces.
Over the past week or so, I’ve done a lot of Halloween shopping. Bob, you gigantic nerd, you’re thinking. What are you doing shopping for Halloween stuff in September? You truly are a titan of thunderous stupidity.
Yes, “titan of thunderous stupidity.” That’s where we start. Get ready for a heartbreaking work of staggeringly hilarious slut-shaming genius. Oh, and subtlety. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but Bob’s impressive vocabulary and concern for his precocious step-daughter don’t do a great job of masking his real All-Saint’s-Day-Eve bitch. Can you guess what he’s really saying by the end of this post? Try it!
But we also noticed something else that we found a little annoying. Halloween costumes, it seems, have fallen into two general buckets. First, there are the costumes for men and boys. Second – and this is the far larger of the two buckets, from what I’ve seen – there are the costumes for hookers.
Don’t worry about it too much, Bob. For last year on my campus, boys were stripping down and slutting up for Halloween in record numbers. The end of October in Ohio isn’t great for slutty costumes, so it was a bit nipply in the streets for all genders, if you get my drift.
Shopping for Halloween costumes these days is a lot like hanging out at Dr. John’s, but with less personal lubricant. Everywhere you look, there’s a Naughty Nurse or a Slinky Vampire or a Just Trying To Pay For College Police Officer. It’s crazy.
Can I ask you something? What is the deal with Halloween costumes? /Seinfeld, -10 points for your shitty segues.
Still, though, we were surprised at the fact that this was even an issue we had to deal with at all. Since when did Halloween turn into Dracula-Meets-Caligula? Listen, don’t get me wrong. I’m a guy. As a guy, I’m a huge fan of 22-year-old girls showing up at Halloween parties dressed like they’re going to spend the evening giving lap dances. I’m a little bit upset that this trend arrived on college campuses well after I graduated, but you know, I just need to let that go.
Dracula-meets-Caligula? I’m going to assume that Dracula represents traditional Halloween and Caligula represents slutdom. There are several reasons why this is not a great analogy. First off, it’s well known to any vampire fan that the vampires represent forbidden lust, and that a proper vampire novel should be indistinguishable from erotica. Caligula is not a great example of wanton slutness, despite his sexual perversity, because he was better known for being a tyrant, and his sexual antics were way freakier than just showing too much leg once a year, you know, because he was insane. Also, Cali was a guy and we’re slut shaming women here. But, not all women. Just the fat ones.
The thing about this whole trend toward Hookerween is that, well, this isn’t a college town. There are plenty of women in this town who can pull off a I’m Sorry Did I Drop My Pencil Pirate costume and really rock it. God love ‘em; they make the world go round. But, I’ve been to the mall. I’ve been to Six Flags. I’ve eaten at Old Country Buffet. This town needs somewhat more modest Halloween costumes, and it needs lots of them. Heck, not just this town. Most towns.
Bwaa haa haa! Get it? Fat women in tight clothes make his penis limp! Oh, god, it’s hilarious. This guy is such a great writer, and it’s easy to see why his blurb at the end of the column namechecks both Amazon and Facebook.
The end of the column is only noteable for the shout-out about how attractive his wife is (“Don’t get mad, honey, when I said fat old women can’t hold a candle to hot ass 22 year olds, of course I make an exception for you”), and of course craven groveling to the spouse at the end of a lame column where you use her daughter as an excuse to tell women which ones you think should be skanking it up is the hallmark of a ballsy, excellent humor writer who will certainly be very successful someday.
Churches Illegally Endorse Candidates
Thirty-three pastors in 22 states are in danger of losing tax-exempt status for their churches after endorsing a candidate from the pulpit. What do you think?
Rebecca Landsman,
Systems Analyst“I’m glad I have no idea who my vehemently pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, anti-stem-cell-research, pro-intelligent-design pastor endorses.”
I get called a lot on my intolerance and stereotyping, believe it or not, for holding certain opinions. Namely that the working class and the employing class are polar opposites in terms of economic interest, or that very few people get genuinely rich through honourable means. I have maybe even suggested on occasion that the rich aren’t just regular folks like you and me. And that they may, in the privacy of their own mansions, cackle and jump up and down in piles of their own gold and/or hundred-dollar bills.
Anyway, read this article and you’ll get a sense where I’m coming from.
It’s not that the rich are evil, you see, any more than a shark is evil for being a predator. But their insulated lives lead to them living in an alternate reality of sorts. The article is illuminating—despite being apparently great with calculating figures on spreadsheets, rich people have no idea how those numbers apply to the real world:
We hoped to gain an insight into their notions of fairness – what might persuade them to share more of their wealth with others. What we encountered was a startling demonstration of ignorance. Here were professionals who deal daily with money, yet know next to nothing about other people’s incomes. When asked to relate themselves to the rest of the population, these high-earners utterly misjudged the magnitude of their privilege.
How much, we asked our group, would it take to put someone in the top 10% of earners? They put the figure at £162,000 [$314,911 USD). In fact, in 2007 it was around £39,825 [$77,416 USD), the point at which the top tax band began. Our group found it hard to believe that nine-tenths of the UK’s 32m taxpayers earned less than that. As for the poverty threshold, our lawyers and bankers fixed it at £22,000 [$42,766 USD). But that sum was just under median earnings, which meant they regarded ordinary wages as poverty pay.
When pressed, of course, the vicious ideology that underlines our economic system emerges. It becomes a matter of ethics to them. They are astronomically richer than us, not because they’re better exploiters or because they’ve been born into it, but because they’re just better people. And that, well, that’s just how life is.
“We work harder and aspire the most,” one said. The longer we talked, the more they turned to moral reasons for success and failure, moving away from the structural globalisation reasons given above. One banker said: “It’s a fact of modern life that there is disparity and ‘Is it fair or unfair?’ is not a valid question. It’s just the way it is, and you have to get on with it. People say it’s unfair when they don’t do anything to change their circumstances.” In other words, they see themselves as makers of their own fortune. Or, as another banker said, “Quite a lot of people have done well who want to achieve, and quite a lot of people haven’t done well because they don’t want to achieve.”
Despite the fact that they have more money than they’ll even know what to do with in their lifetimes, this curious species begrudges the working class a penny:
Whatever, the poor didn’t deserve it. Masters of the universe our groups might be, but their outlook was pure Daily Mail: “Single people . . . get pregnant and get a flat and more money. You just see everybody pushing prams, then they’ll get more income and a little flat that they can stay in for life.” There was much talk of the perverse incentives for single parenthood, with one banker complaining that the 18-year-old mother on benefits “doesn’t get that much less money than another 18-year-old working in a shop”. It didn’t seem to occur to this speaker that the shop worker’s pay might also be too low. They were contemptuous of anything that gave extra money directly to poorer people: “This thing of giving pregnant women £200 for dietary supplements. Like, as if they’ll really spend it on fruit.” Most were adamant, along with this banker: “We don’t think just chucking money at the welfare state is the answer.”
I don’t think we ever really moved that far from feudalism, you know? I’m not too surprised at this look into the lives of the ultra-rich, but I wish that the lower- and middle-class dupes who buy into the idea that capitalism is in any way fair, efficient, or the only viable economic system, would take a good hard look at who their votes and compliance support.
Hat tip: Flintultrasparc.
But you know, “shared misery is decreased” and all that. This week’s most disturbing photo from the internet. Get your eyedrops ready, and then click for more… if you dare.
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