Blog to Eleven

I've Moved!

2005-05-25T19:13:00.001-05:00

My blog is now located at jon.smajda.com. See you there!

Slowly but Surely...

2005-05-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

...I'm making the move away from blogger. I've got what will hopefully be good, cheap web hosting, I've got my own domain (blog2eleven.com), and I'm gradually building my own WordPress blog that will have all of my posts, past and present, in one place.

This will be the third blog I've been through in just under two years - the first year or so with iBlog, and the last year with blogger. On some message board once I saw somebody describe blogger as "blogging with training wheels." Well, if we stick with the metaphor, iBlog is a big wheel. It's just fine if you want a) a Mac-centric blogging app and b) you never want to upgrade to a grown-up blog, but it just sucks otherwise. It doesn't deal in HTML is the main problem. It saves everything as rich-text files and then converts to HTML when publishing, which results in really messy code.

After reading over some of the old blog posts though, I realized I put way more work into it to just throw them away, so I spent all day today slowly cleaning up the code so that it would work with Wordpress. And I finished! So now all I've got to do is import the blogger postings (which should be much easier), do some last minute template tweaking and wait for my new domain's DNS to "propagate" the web. Then the training wheels are off for good!

Natural Science, pt. 2

2005-05-21T15:36:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I lashed out at the "anti-science" folks within the social sciences. I decided to elaborate on that a little bit.

My comments need to be put in the context of how "science" has been used as a label within the social sciences. I have many, many problems with much of what's gone on under the banner of "scientific" social science. There's a big advantage to being a "science" in our culture - the label brings a lot of prestige and credibility to what you're doing. You need go no further than the countless advertisements that boast of "scientifically proven results" for everything from toothpaste to hair loss treatments for evidence of this. Much of "scientific sociology" has had all the trappings of a science (technical jargon, fancy statistics, big research grants) but has failed to go much beyond that. Besides resulting in obscenely boring journal articles, I don't think they've even really been all that "scientific." The picture of science that postmodernish critics of science paint makes more sense if you use the practice of social science as your model of science.

The history of sociology as a science is the history of a discipline obsessed with riding a fine line on the whole "science" issue. On the one hand, disciplinary entrepreneurs like Emile Durkheim insisted sociology was a science, as "rigorous" as any other and early sociologists borrowed the language of sciences like biology to talk about "the social organism." On the other hand, Durkheim had to insist that there was something about "the social" that made sociology distinct from all other sciences and, hence, requiring it's own discipline, methods, journals and, of course, professional departments and associations. These two goals had a paradoxical effect on the social sciences: they became isolated from the "natural" sciences at the same time that they were insisting they were "scientific." "Science," as it developed in sociology, became associated with statistical methods, abstract jargon and a belief that through the technical, "neutral" language of science, we could discover (or, at least, approximate) absolute truths and laws about the social world. Because "the social" was an entity in itself ("sui generis"), we didn't need to know anything about biology, physics or even psychology to do sociology. The field was founded on a particular strain of empiricism that believed that through observation and inductive reasoning, the truths of the world would become visible to us. So we go out and do a quantitative survey (or, for that matter, an ethnography) and gather all this "data" and then we look at it and uncover social reality and it's "laws" as they really are, "out there" in the world.

Critics of this approach correctly point out how naive it is. When you're doing a survey, the very categories that you choose to ask people about and the way you ask the question affects the way they respond. When you observe people, your presence impacts the way they act and, moreover, you always filter what you observe through your own preconceptions, biases, etc. Categories like race, class and gender aren't "out there" as absolute truths, but we "construct" them. Since we're always biased in these ways, "objective" science isn't possible in the social sciences (perhaps in the natural sciences, too), so we should give up the whole project in favor of an interpretive project of how people "socially construct reality."

The problem is that this view of science is ridiculous when looked at from the perspective of natural sciences. The subjectivist view is just incomprehensible, like I argued in the last posting, unless you believe in miracles. Obviously there's something real out there, or else how would any of the technology we take for granted ever work? But it's also true that categories like "race" are social constructed. Perhaps the social sciences really are just qualitatively different than the "natural sciences."

But this doesn't work either. Physics doesn't study "absolute truths" either. There also are no physicists who argue that we simply "socially construct," out of thin air, the content of physics. For example, electrons are theoretical entities. Do they really exist? We can't see them. But we know that if we act as if they're real entities, we can interact with them in consistent, predictable ways. So is the category of electron something we impose on the earth that, somehow, works or does it really correspond to some actual unit of stuff? Interesting question, but hardly a debate about whether or not electrons are absolute truths or just made up stuff. (Ian Hacking's the philosopher most associated with the electron example; he calls his position "experimental realism.")

So the natural sciences, in practice, reject both absolute truths as well as arbitrary "constructions." Of course, there's an inductive element, where you observe the world, but there's also a deductive element, where you devise theoretical entities with the purpose in mind of tested them and revising according to the extent that they do, or do not, correspond with your experience. No belief in "absolute truths" necessary. No defeatism about inescapable bias necessary either. Science is about experimentation and interaction - both processes which are not "neutral" (in the sense of an disembodied, transcendental view of "Truth") in either their aim, method or results. A science is "objective" to the extent that it is honest and transparent to others about it's experimentation. This method is not synonymous with a particular type of data, a particular institutional arrangement or a particular type of language. In fact, technical jargon can just as easily corrupt science, by rendering it less open to critical challenge. Similarly, institutional arrangements, such as the way academia is professionalized today, can corrupt science by giving people professional incentives to be dogmatic, parochial and nontransparent for fear of competition that may challenge their legitimacy and prestige. In these respects, "scientific sociology" has been profoundly anti-scientific in it's practice. The task, however, is to challenge it's claims to science and it's application of the scientific method, not to accept it's claims to science and reject science altogether.

So when I say that social science should be a natural science, I'm not saying that we should all become biologists. Nor am I standing with sociologists, past and present, who have used "science" as a cloak to cover up bad research. I'm saying that to be a science, whatever your subject matter, requires a naturalistic stance; a commitment to using the scientific method in the pursuit of natural, not supernatural, explanations of the world and practical, not absolute, beliefs about the world. Natural explanations require viewing human beings as part of the natural world. Rejecting absolute beliefs about the world means accepting that you might be wrong. This is the crux of the whole science/evolution debate because the fundamentalist Christians refuse to take these steps. They cannot accept, as necessary price of admission for anyone entering the world of science, that they might be wrong because, as believers in absolute truth, they cannot be wrong as this would then mean that God is wrong, which is incomprehensible to them. Science, far from being "just another discourse on absolute truth," is a method that requires, by definition, that we challenge notions of absolute truth.

Natural Science

2005-05-17T12:53:00.000-05:00

The "evolution debates" in Kansas are about much more than evolution:

The Kansas school board's hearings on evolution weren't limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of 'intelligent design' are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what's observed in the world.

Instead, they want to define it as 'a systematic method of continuing investigation,' without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state's science standards.

The proposed definition has outraged many scientists, who are frustrated that students could be discussing supernatural explanations for natural phenomena in their science classes.

...Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design, said changing the schools' definition of science would avoid freezing out questions about how life arose and developed on Earth.

The current definition is 'not innocuous,' Meyer said. 'It's not neutral. It's actually taking sides.'

Of course, he's right. It's not "neutral." You know why? Because the world isn't neutral. You see, there's this thing called "the world," and we're a part of it. The world isn't whatever we pray for it to be - it exists and has certain characteristics that are very much not neutral in their effects on us. If Meyer wants to test this, perhaps he should jump off a tall building somewhere. But, wait, this sort of "test" is the very thing these people are against in the first place. If Meyer jumps off a building and goes "splat," is there a natural explanation for this such as "gravity" or is there a supernatural explanation such as "God was punishing him"? See, I'm thinking the first is the scientific, or "natural," explanation and the second is the unscientific, or "supernatural" explanation. Meyer, of course, can believe whatever he wants and he can tell his kids whatever he wants, but when his kids go to school to learn about "science," they should not be taught supernatural explanations for things.

Let me clarify, while I'm at it, what I mean by "natural" explanation and why this is far more important than being just about the "hard sciences" like biology, physics and chemistry as the word "natural" may make people think. For example, sociology is a social science. This does not mean that we look to biology, physics and chemistry to explain the social world. Of course, sometimes they matter a great deal, but many, many explanations of things in the social world require no knowledge of these things. They do, however, require non-supernatural explanations. If we want to understand why there's so much violence in the world, or why certain groups hate one another or why organizations work the way they do or anything resembling these questions, we cannot, as social scientists, appeal to some supernatural force or purpose. Poor people aren't poor because "God is mad at them," but because of certain "natural," i.e. not supernatural, processes that real people are a part of. The United States government doesn't do what it does because God speaks to our President or because we're "chosen" people who can do no wrong. If we want to understand how the United States government works, we treat it as a natural phenomenon like gravity: we observe it, analyze it, pose questions about it, experiment with hypotheses about it, and when we have some evidence, we try to form theories about it. Then we keep asking questions, keep observing and analyzing and try to come up with better theories about it because, with science, truths are always falsifiable, contingent on evidence we gather from the world.

This is in direct contrast with, say, religion, where the answers are given ahead of time and then the world must conform with The Word. Without this "naturalistic bias" that binds our explanations to nonsupernatural causes, the "systematic method of continuing investigation" part of the "new definition of science" rings hollow. Theologians may use a "systematic method of continuing investigation" when reading religious texts, but what are they doing? They're trying to better understand truths that are understood to already be there; they just have to interpret the text in the correct way - who cares what our experience with the actual world says.

Interestingly enough, this is very similar to the approach to studying the social world that many Left academics have been advocating, most notoriously under the banner of postmodernism but it's more pervasive than that. The idea is that sociology, you see, really isn't a "science," and for that matter, "science" doesn't really exist because it's not "objective truth," really. It's just another "discourse" or "culture" and the knowledge it produces is no different than any other "discourse." (I'm not kidding - I was in a graduate seminar where we had to take a stand on this issue, phrased in almost the exact same language I just used, and I was in the small, minority group.) The attack on science because it's not "neutral" and does not produce "absolute truth" should sound familiar - it's very similar to what the theocrats are saying. It also misses the boat on what science is all about in the same way. It's not about neutrality and it's not about absolute truth. Anybody who paid attention during their fourth grade science projects would know this. It's about the fact that we should strive for non-supernatural explanations of the world through, yes, a "systematic method of continuing investigation" that produces truths that are always, always, always contingent on how well they work for us in our interaction with the world. If you don't believe this is possible, then you must believe it's a total miracle that your car works, that your house hasn't fallen over and that, somehow, you wake up breathing each morning.

Of course, many have used "science" as a shield through which they sneak their claims about absolute, objective truths about the way the world both is and ought to be, but this is unscientific pseudoscience, whether it's used to justify racism, sexism, genocide or, simply, theocracy masquerading as "intelligent design." And many of those who reject "science" in the way I described are repulsed by all of these things. But they've thrown the baby out with the bath water. Now that the theocrats are borrowing their logic about science, texts and cultures, they've got nothing to stand on. The chickens are coming home to roost and the folks who deny everything but "socially constructed multiple realities" have no answer to the assault on science because they don't consider themselves part of science. In fact many consider themselves opponents of science, what with it's "Western imperialist discourse of totalistic rationality."

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit hostile about all of this. I expect idiocy from people like Stephen Meyer. What bothers me is that people don't immediately get what's so ridiculous about his new definition of science. For this we can blame many things, and the invisibility (even ignorance) of social scientists in this discussion is probably not even at the top of the list, but it's the part of the list that I'm most involved with so it bothers me the most.

A "Devout Christian"

2005-05-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

Quiz time: how little income do you think someone should make before they qualify for Medicaid? In Missouri, it's now less than $86 a week:

In Missouri, plans to pare 90,000 people from the Medicaid rolls in 2005 have sparked a fierce debate over the morality of the cuts.

The proposals have opened a moral schism, with some preachers expressing outrage, but the governor, a devout Christian, defends the cuts as morally correct. Gov. Matt Blunt says not cutting Medicaid would force him to raise taxes -- and in his eyes, raising taxes is wrong.

...Among those affected by the changes is Angel Bridgewater, whose $6.70-per-hour McDonald's job makes her ineligible for state medical aid. Despite supporting three children, she now has to make less than $86 each week to qualify for Medicaid. Before the cuts, she qualified while earning about $300 a week. Bridgewater calls the new eligibility standard, the lowest allowed by federal law, 'sickening.'

Yes, it's about time the over-$86-a-week crowd got what was coming to them. Not everyone can be rich like them, you know. By the way, if you add it up, the fact that the woman in the story is making $6.70 an hour but making $300 a week means she's working at least 45 hours a week (assuming the $300 per week is before all taxes).

Oh, what a "devout Christian" that Matt Blunt is.

Going from Suck to Blow

2005-05-16T16:24:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm done with classes, I'm looking forward to a summer of reading and writing in preparation for my prelim this fall, designing various work-related websites and perhaps getting a part-time job for a few extra hours a week. I just found out this weekend that our neighbors across the street own the coffee shop two blocks away and I applied for a part-time job there, so it'd be cool if that works out. If not, I also applied at the Apple Store at the mall, but I'm not sure I'd actually want that - too much temptation.

I haven't been blogging much lately, but I'm sure that'll change as the summer boredom sets in. I've been reading a bunch lately and I've discovered that I work sort of like the leaf blower we just sold at our garage sale Saturday: I have two modes, suck (read) and blow (write), and I have a hard time doing both at the same time. (I know, I cannot believe I just made that analogy either.) But anyway, I'll blow a few random chunks here and see if I can get anything more constructive going in the next few days:

- If you've got to buy gasoline (or diesel), and unfortunately, virtually all of us do, better to buy it from the Chavez's than the Cheney's. Find your local Citgo here.

- Joe Satriani's got a full live concert webcast here. It's fantastic. So is Aimee Mann's new cd.

- It's true: Kansas really is flatter than a pancake.

- Speaking of Kansas, with the so-called "evolution debates" in the news: if you want to read more about evolution, check out Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dan Dennett. I just finished it and it's really interesting. I've been reading quite a bit about stuff that's at the intersection of evolutionary biology, cognitive science and psychology lately and if these topics interest you, I've found there's a great many authors out there who are writing about them very well. In addition to Dennett, check out books by Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Antonio Damasio and Judith Harris. Sociologists have typically been pretty hostile towards this line of research, but I'm becoming more and more interested in what they might offer sociology. I know at least one thing so far: they've got much better writers than sociology.

- I wish I got mail from Kurt Vonnegut.

- Did you or someone you know give money to the tsunami relief efforts? Read all about the global "reconstruction industry." It's not very pleasant.

Done!

2005-05-11T21:51:00.000-05:00

I am done with classes...forever!

The Colbert Report

2005-05-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

Awesome:

Comedy Central said yesterday that it was giving Mr. Colbert his own show: a half-hour that is expected to follow 'The Daily Show' on weeknights and will lampoon those cable-news shows that are dominated by the personality and sensibility of a single host. Think, he said, of Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity.

Where 'The Daily Show' and its host, Jon Stewart, generally spoof the headlines of the day (and the anchors and reporters who deliver them), Mr. Colbert's program will send up those hosts who have become household names doing interviews and offering analyses each night on the 24-hour cable news channels. The program, which is expected to begin appearing on Comedy Central as soon as early fall, is being produced by Mr. Stewart's production company, Busboy Productions.

It will be called 'The Colbert Report' - though, if Mr. Colbert has his way, the announcer will pronounce it with a faux-French accent: The co-BEAR ra-PORE.'

In the way 'The Daily Show' is kind of a goof on the structure of news, this is more of a goof on the cult of personality-type shows,' Mr. Stewart said in an interview.

'It's about a man and his forum,' Mr. Stewart said of such shows, including Mr. Colbert's. 'And by the way, he's not doing it for himself. He's doing it for the people. As a public service.'

Support the Troops?

2005-05-04T08:44:00.000-05:00

An account of what's going on in Iraq from a US soldier in Monday's NY Times:

"Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They'd keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people's heads."

He said he had confronted guys who were his friends about this practice. "I said to them: 'What the hell are you doing? Like, what does this accomplish?' And they responded just completely openly. They said: 'Look, I hate being in Iraq. I hate being stuck here. And I hate being surrounded by hajis.' "

"Haji" is the troops' term of choice for an Iraqi. It's used the way "gook" or "Charlie" was used in Vietnam.

Mr. Delgado said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong.

If that's not depressing enough, read this article from Harper's Magazine a few months back. The author interviews people who have gone AWOL from the army about why they did so and what they experienced. Here's an account of basic training from a soldier named Jeremiah:

"It's hard for me to be myself here. There's no room for dissent among the guys. Everywhere you listen you hear an abundant amount of B.S., a few beds over an obnoxious redneck has a crowd around him as he details a 3 some that he recently had. The vocabulary is much different here. The bathroom is called the latrine, food is called chow, women are hitches, sex is ass. . . . These people want to go to war and kill. It is that simple."

...The next day, a sergeant addressed the recruits with a speech that Jeremiah says he'll never forget. "You know, when I joined the Army nine years ago people would always ask me why I joined. Did I do it for college money? Did I do it for women? People never understood. I wanted to join the Army because I wanted to go shoot motherfuckers." The room erupted in hoots and hollers. A drill sergeant said something about an Iraqi coming up to them screaming, "Ah-la-la-la-la!" in a high-pitched voice, and how he would have to be killed. After that, all Arabs were referred to by this battle cry—the ah-la-la-la-las. In the barracks, they played war. One recruit would come out of the shower wearing a towel on his head, screaming, "Ah-la-la-la-la!" and the other recruits would pretend to shoot him dead. Jeremiah thought, "Oh my God, what am I doing here?"

That evening he wrote his first letter home, beginning with the word "Wow."

"I'm horrified by some of the things that they talk about. If you were in the civilian world and openly talked about killing people you would be an outcast, but here people openly talk about it, like it's going to be fun." In his second letter, written while he was doing guard duty, he tells his parents how sad the barracks are at night. "You can hear people trying to make sure no one hears them cry under their covers."

The Right's Sister Souljah?

2005-05-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

In past postings, I've ranted about the strange desire those on the left feel to distance themselves from the "far left," while those on the right face no such constraints. Clinton, famously, was responsible for the coining of the phrase, "Sister Souljah moment," when he showed how "moderate" he was by bashing rapper Sister Souljah. Ever since, Democratic pols have been on a mission for their own "Sister Souljash moment," where they can show that they, too, can bash gays, blacks, feminists, the anti-war movement or whatever else is deemed to be the "left-wing fringe" by the right-wingers. The most recent example of this is the movement by DLC and "Blue Dog" Democrats to show how anti-choice and pro-war the Democratic party really is at heart, no matter what that pesky group of People Who Actually Vote Democratic think or say.

The right, mysteriously, seems immune from alll of this. People like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage regularly say ridiculous things and you never hear Republican leadership exclaiming that they have nothing to do with these people. Case in point:

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday. "Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."

Where's the outrage? Where's George Bush and all the Republicans with Presidential aspirations for '08 (Tim Pawlenty, can you hear me?) stepping up for their "Pat Robertson moment" where they show how reasonable and moderate they are by distancing themselves from such a radical, fringe view? Where are they pointing out that it's absurd to make such a claim while terrorism incidents tripled last year! Oh, wait...I guess I can see why they wouldn't want to point this out.

Ahmad Rashad

2005-05-01T19:58:00.000-05:00

So awhile back I set up this little searching service on my blog. It was way back before I switched to blogger, so it's not even on this page anymore. Anyway, I still get a monthly email telling me what people are searching for (I keep forgetting to disable it). Anyway, so on Friday somebody went to my blog and searched for "Ahmad Rashad." Were they on the wrong blog? Are they just a huge Ahmad Rashad fan who checks every website they find for the scoop on their favorite athlete-turned-sportscaster? Who knows. But now, if they find this version of my blog, they'll have a hit. This one's for you, buddy:

Freakonomics, Race and Groups

2005-04-29T10:07:00.000-05:00

Steven Levitt, University of Chicago economist and co-author of Freakonomics, a new book co-written with journalist Stephen Dubner on Levitt's research, was a guest on the Daily Show last night. I was a bit intrigued by some of the findings he described (and also amused to hear someone trying to explain regression analysis on Comedy Central), so I looked into it a bit. One of the topics the book discusses, for example, is why there's such a gap in how blacks and whites perform on standardized testing. I found the article by Levitt on which the chapter is based (unfortunately, that link only works for UMN people as it's not available publicly). Here's the abstract:

This paper describes basic facts regarding the black-white test score gap over the first four years of school. Black children enter school substantially behind their white counterparts in reading and math, but including a small number of covariates erases the gap. Over the first four years of school, however, blacks lose substantial ground relative to other races; averaging .10 standard deviations per school year. By the end of third grade there is a large Black-White test score gap that cannot be explained by observable characteristics. Blacks are falling behind in virtually all categories of skills tested, except the most basic. None of the explanations we examine, including systematic differences in school quality across races, convincingly explain the divergent academic trajectory of Black students.

Levitt explains that there is good news in these findings, such as the fact that black students are disproportionately likely to come from poorer, less educated families/neighborhoods doesn't seem to have an effect on their abilities as they enter kindergarten. The bad news, though, is that something happens once they enter school: there's a steady increase in the gap each year after kindergarten. He also points out some other complications. For example,

In contrast to Blacks, Hispanics gain substantial ground relative to whites, despite the fact that they are plagued with many of the social problems that exist among blacks – low socioeconomic status, inferior schools, and so on.

So what's going on? They test a nice list of "leading hypotheses" on the issue, including:

the importance of parental and environmental contributions grow over time, black students suffer worse summer setbacks, standardized tests are poor measures, interactions between black students and schools interferes with learning, systematically lower quality schools, that differences may only manifest themselves in more involved, higher order problems.

They find none of these are good explanations and leave us scratching our heads. I, however, have a hypothesis that they didn't test and I think I'm right.

Ok, it's not really my hypothesis, I'm actually using Judith Harris' "group socialization theory" drawn from her book The Nurture Assumption (although the book is based on this journal article (free download) from the Psychological Review). Harris' controversial claim is that children aren't socialized by their parents, but by their peer groups. This flies in the face of our modern obsession with blaming all of our problems on bad child-parent experiences, but it makes a great deal of sense when you think about it. The way children act around their parents doesn't say much about how they act around their peers, and kids and adults view themselves as two completely different groups. As Harris puts it, children don't strive to be competent adults, they strive to be competent children. We can blame our parents for many things (our genes, whatever control they do have over which peer groups we end up associating with, etc.), but it's within peer groups that people are socialized.

Harris argues that people operate in completely different ways with personal relationships than they do with groups. This explains why saying "Some of my best friends are black" as a qualifier to a racist comment doesn't work. We think of personal relationships one way. Group relationships another. Parent-child relationships are personal relationships. Child-child relationships are group relationships.

Despite her use of research in behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology to make her argument (two fields considered taboo by most sociologists - though not this one, I might add), her argument about group socialization is very sociological. In fact, much of what I wrote about groups in the previous post was partially inspired by the fact that I just completed her book. But her arguments about groups aren't totally new either, she just contextualizes them in a very unique way - by downplaying the effects of parents, emphasizing that genes effect personality and drawing on evolutionary psychology to help build her model of how people work. But sociologists/psychologists have long used the expression "stereotype threat" or "labeling theory" to explain how people internalize characteristics of the groups they are sorted (and sort themselves) into. Harris' contribution is by arguing for actual biological, psychological mechanisms to explain why these group processes happens as they do

So back to Levitt, et al. They look at lots of individual-level indicators, but, unless they don't mention it in their article, they don't look at "groupness" at all (hmmm, what a surprise for economists). One of their most interesting findings is that black students in white schools do as poorly as those in all black schools, and that the financial status of the school doesn't actually matter that much. They can't explain this, but they ignore one very basic, well-known stereotype in our culture: blacks aren't "supposed to be" the smart group. Whites think they're more dumb. Many blacks believe them (or reject white definitions of "smart"), and the charge that black students who do well in school are "acting white" is something everybody's heard about. According to "labeling theory," when black students are put into the category of "black," they will take on the stereotypical characteristics of that group. A self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts. This doesn't just happen with race. It happens with jocks, class clowns, boys and girls, geeks, nerds, preppies, hippies, goths, skaters, stoners, frat boys, sorority girls, jesus freaks and whatever other social clique you can imagine (and, of course, larger factors like the neighborhood culture, the media, etc. effect how the norms of these groups are defined).

Harris discusses this very topic and points out some interesting research. For example, black students who are children of black immigrants, not "African Americans," tend to not be accepted by the African American groups in their school and they tend to do much better in school. Additionally, in situations where the school is overwhelmingly white and there's only a few isolated black student, they are more likely to become parts of white peer groups and do well in school (or at least as well as the peer group they associate with). Harris also discusses research on black colleges and how, running contrary to the logic of desegregation, when everyone is black, then that no longer becomes the salient category around which groups are organized and the norms about what it means to "be black" in the classroom become relaxed. (The same is found in sex-segregated schools, by the way.)

Interestingly, much of the evidence about Hispanics they cite ties in perfectly with Harris' theory. For example, they point out that

Hispanics do not test particularly poorly on reading, even upon school entry. Controlling for whether or not English is spoken in the home does little to affect the initial gap or the trajectory of Hispanics.

They sound surprised, but this is exactly what many, many studies on such families in linguistics has found. Guess when the exceptions to this are? When kids live in "ethnic enclaves" where their peer groups are entirely speaking their native language. Move the parents, and their language and culture in the home, to a more "American" neighborhood, the kid will speak and act just like his peers, not the parents.

Additionally, and probably most importantly, this would explain why the effect seems to be caused by school: because that's when racial identity becomes salient as a component of group identity.

In other words, the group that you identify with matters for how you think of yourself and how you behave. This is not, I repeat not, a characteristic of black kids only. It's the way humans work. For example, I'm in graduate school with lots of "smart kids." If there's a talk or lecture that some of us should probably go to based on our own research interests, the odds of us going increase exponentially if we know our friends are going. If it's an activity that's okay with the rest of the group, count us in. If it's not, our odds of going on our own accord drop dramatically, regardless of whether or not we really should go based on our interests.

So how could Levitt test these additional hypotheses? Test to see if the group dynamics in a school/neighborhood matter. When looking at "mixed race" schools, does it matter how large the number of black students are? Are there ways to measure how salient the black/white divide is at schools? Perhaps at some schools, there are crosscutting groups (perhaps based on athletics, gender or any other non-racial social group imaginable) that minimize the salience of race as a group identity. At schools where there are too few to form a salient group of "black students," do those students perform differently?

Dissent, Consensus and Strong Groups

2005-04-24T13:02:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I read this article by David Brooks. Brooks is a conservative and he's saying Democrats have it all wrong in trying to imitate the conservatives' success. Democrats are trying to build a disciplined message machine, a cohesive party structured like a strong pyramid, to use use Bill Bradley's recent description of where the Democratic Party should go. Brooks says they've got conservatives wrong because conservatives "agree on almost nothing." He argues that the constant in-fighting is what made conservatives strong, because they "argued about the order of the universe, and how the social order should reflect the moral order," and as a result,

"Conservatives fell into the habit of being acutely conscious of their intellectual forebears and had big debates about public philosophy. That turned out to be important: nobody joins a movement because of admiration for its entitlement reform plan. People join up because they think that movement's views about human nature and society are true."

Liberals, he argues, have not had such a debate. He says liberals ought to strive not for message discipline, but for a "big debate about the things Thomas Paine, Herbert Croly, Isaiah Berlin, R. H. Tawney and John Dewey were writing about. I'd argue about human nature and the American character."

If you're a lefty, are you thinking, "huh?" Conservatives not agreeing on anything? The left ought to have more bickering and infighting? To most people on the left, this sounds like their entire political worldview inverted. Conservatives are the ones who are organized, on-message and share so many core, unquestioned assumptions about the way things ought to be. Liberals are the ones divided amongst themselves into different factions, movements and issue publics. Can he possibly be right?

What we're seeing here is a classic case of how group dynamics work. Think of any strong group you've ever been apart of. Other groups always seem monolithic and united, often united in how "bad" they are compared to your "good" group. When looking within your group, however, there's always dissension. There's jockeying for the dominant positions. There are people who don't quite fit in. There's debate over whether or not the group is heading in the right direction. But as soon as the debate shifts from within-group differences to group-to-group comparisons, the entire logic shifts. All of the sudden it's "us vs. them" and those internal differences fade into the background.

So which view is more genuine? Are there really such things as "groups" anyway? Of course. Within any group there have to be some core sources of cohesiveness. And as you expand outward to larger levels of subgroup and group conflicts, the same is true: never-ending levels of group-group antagonisms nested within larger group identities, themselves in opposition to some other group, etc. So Republicans bicker amongst themselves, but there are some shared things that cannot be questioned. Democrats bicker amongst themselves, but there are some shared things that cannot be questioned. Likewise, Democrats and Republicans bicker about some things, but there are other things that are shared by both parties and cannot safely be questioned by either party. The legitimacy of the two party system, corporate capitalism and American military dominance, to name just a few.

I think you'll find this rings true with almost any group experiences you've had, be it family, friends, sports teams, school cliques, fraternities/sororities, workplaces, religions or nation-states. Whenever group identities become the salient marker of "us vs. them" in a particular situation, within-group differences disappear. If they don't, then eventually either the dissenters will splinter off or the group as a whole will likely fall apart.

So David Brooks, looking within his own group, sees all the bickering and dissent. He doesn't see this in the other group though, attributing this to his belief that "modern liberalism was formed in government, not away from it." The left, on the other hand, sees oodles of disagreements amongs themselves, but sees a right that never asks the tough questions, gets along just fine and wins because they're so united. On the third hand, a radical, whether left or right, sees the areas of consensus between both dominant parties and rejects them. For the radical left, this can mean rejecting the legitimacy of corporate capitalism. To the radical right, this can mean rejecting all forms of ethnic and religious pluralism, for example. For radicals, neither the group identity of Republican or Democrat, nor the group identity of Loyal American Voter is a salient category. So for them, the "Republicans and the Democrats are two wings of the same party," and both parties become "the other."

None of this means that conservatives and liberals are equally divided, equally united and, therefore, equally organized and empowered to impact our country. Contrary to David Brooks, and respectful of the differences with the conservative movement, conservatives have done a much better job both of taking command of the shared assumptions that unite Republicans and also changing those that define the very terrain of American politics as a whole. But in order to understand how they've done so, it helps to understand how they've been able to take advantage of these group dynamics better than the left.

For example, the James Dobson's and Jerry Fallwell's of the world have a much different relationship with the Republican party than the leaders of the left. Dobson plays on the ambiguity of his connections to the Republican party and on the power of the voting bloc he leads brilliantly. For example, he's often very critical of Bush when Bush doesn't go far enough to please the Christian right, threatening that he'll advise Christians to stay home on election day if Bush doesn't do as he pleases. To the left, these conflicts are mostly invisible or perhaps viewed as just ploys by Dobson to enhance his own power or to establish a reputation as an "outsider" in Washington - and both are probably true, but that misses the mark about why it works so well. And as Thomas Franks points out so well, the most successful conservatives are those who can channel class-warfare rhetoric and ourtrage in cultural, not economic, terms and then moments later, at the flip of a switch, glide into Congress and vote for anti-worker, anti-environment, pro-rich policies without batting an eye. They're brilliantly pitting groups against one another. Convince every group whose support you need that "we" are the outsiders, the downtrodden, the oppressed and that those people over there are your oppressors and are the root of all your suffering. Once you whip people up into an irrational rage by tapping into our deepest group instincts, you can sneak in underneath the cover of the cultural warfare and enact all those policies that your group, the business elite, really want to see. "Oh, is Dobson upset at Bush again? Who cares! Keep the fundies mobilized in their frenzied state of percieved persecution and keep their eyes off of me while I vote for a law making it impossible for them to declare bankruptcy when they come down with cancer next year." As long as the salient group is "Good Christians" vs. "Atheists/Feminists/Liberals/Evildoers," then "Rich" vs. "Poor" is bound to fade into the background.

This also explains a puzzling fact about the public political discourse in our society: how our public discourse has become so divisive, inflammatory and dishonest at the exact same time that the fundamental questions about how our society is run and how power is distributed have virtually disappeared from the public landscape. The "Washington Consensus" is actually the term used around the world to describe the consensus over global economic policy over the last several decades. How can a nation said to be divided so harshly into "Red" and "Blue" poles simultaneously be the ring leader for the consensus over how the fundamental questions of power relations in politics and economics should be answered? I argue much of it is due to the clever balance of tension between group unities and group divisions.

A Socialist in the Senate?

2005-04-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Bernie Sanders is running for Senate in Vermont. Sweet.

Luntz on the Daily Show

2005-04-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

In this segment on the Daily Show last night they interviewed Frank Luntz (of the secret playbook fame). It's priceless.

Quote of the Week

2005-04-20T20:59:00.000-05:00

"If you want to empower women in America, give 'em a gun."

- Tom DeLay, addressing the NRA.

Case Study in Media Uselessness

2005-04-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

Check out this story at the Washington Post - via the AP, of course. Now, I know virtually nothing about Ecuador. I still knew virtually nothing after reading the AP story on the Post.

In contrast, go look up this article posted at ZNet (originally from "Green Left Weekly").

If you followed the link to the Green Left Weekly (which I have never heard of prior to tonight), you may think, "Jeez, this looks amateurish. And overtly political. How can I trust anything from this site? Maybe I should go to the credible news sources like the Washington Post..."

But it doesn't work that way, does it? The AP story sucks. It tells you nothing. You will learn nothing from it other than that in other parts of the world, some President's getting removed from power. Who are the groups involved? What are the major sources of conflict? What's the history of the conflict? You won't get a freakin' clue. But you head over to the "Green Left Weekly" of all places and read a really detailed, seemingly balanced, account of what's happening. Is it perfect? I don't know - I already said I don't know anything about Ecuador. But even if it's got some flaws, at least I have a clue about what I may end up being wrong about. I don't even get that from the AP article.

This is the state of our media today. Pathetic.

U.S. News Rankings and KU

2005-04-18T16:41:00.000-05:00

KU law school fell 37 spots in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings. The rankings are pure crap, by the way. I don't think they really indicate much at all about how good a school is. However, people seem to care about them a lot for some reason. (Which makes me wonder what happened with my program this year...anyone know? I'm too cheap to go buy the damn issue just to check.)

Anyway, for some reason I found this article on KU law school and there are quotes from the law school's dean, Stephen McAllister. I knew who he was. Why? Because he made national news in 2004 for a conflict-of-interest scandal involving Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. McAllister arranged a hunting trip with Scalia and then argued, and won, a case in front of the Supreme Court, including Scalia. My point? With the exception of two friends of mine going to KU's law school, this is all I knew about KU's law school. It's probably all a lot of people know about it - particular the law profs and deans who fill out the surveys on school reputation that the rankings are based on. Might it have tarnished, even a little, the reputation of the school?

Nugent's vigilante justice

2005-04-18T16:30:00.000-05:00

Ted Nugent, in case you haven't heard, is crazy:

With an assault weapon in each hand, rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent urged National Rifle Association members to be "hardcore, radical extremists demanding the right to self defense."

Speaking at the NRA's annual convention Saturday, Nugent said each NRA member should try to enroll 10 new members over the next year and associate only with other members.

'Let's next year sit here and say, 'Holy smokes, the NRA has 40 million members now,'' he said. 'No one is allowed at our barbecues unless they are an NRA member. Do that in your life.'

Nugent sang and played a guitar painted with red and white stripes for the crowd at Houston's downtown convention center.

He drew the most cheers when he told gun owners they should never give up their right to bear arms and should use their guns to protect themselves if needed.

'Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em!' he screamed to applause. 'To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em.'

Perhaps "crazy" is actually too soft of a word. Urging gun owners to only associate with other gun owners and to bypass those pesky things such as court cases and just kill the "bad guys" themselves is...well, scary and dangerous. Further proof that sanity is not a prerequisite to being a wicked guitar player.

Nine Inch Nails and GarageBand

2005-04-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

Not really a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails, but this is cool:

Interested in remixing a Nine Inch Nails song yourself? You can, legally. All you need is an Apple Mac running GarageBand 2 and a file you can download courtesy of Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor -- he's released a version of the song "The Hand That Feeds" in GarageBand 2 format.

..."I did this on a PowerBook 1.67 w/ 2G RAM but it has been running on far less powerful systems. Drag the file over to your hard disk and double click it. Hit the space bar. Listen. Change the tempo. Add new loops. Chop up the vocals. Turn me into a woman. Replay the guitar. Anything you'd like," said Reznor.

"Giving this away is an experiment. I'm interested to see what comes of it, what issues are raised and what the results are," he said.

Google Satellite Maps

2005-04-14T08:05:00.000-05:00

Have you seen Google Maps? Now they have "Satellite" mode as well - click on the link in the top right corner and you can get an actual image of your house. Well, sorta. The resolutions not quite at that high of a level and I noticed that for our house and my parents house at least the little pointer is off by a block or so for some reason. Still, crazy stuff.

Citywide Wi-Fi in Mpls?

2005-04-12T09:23:00.000-05:00

Cool:

Minneapolis is about to become an unwired city, creating a universal wireless Internet access network available to every citizen, visitor, business and municipal facility within city limits.

On Wednesday, the city will unveil a request for a proposal for a privately owned, $15 million to $20 million citywide wireless and fiber-optic network. It is likely to use the Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) technology that has created several hundred Internet access 'hot spots' for laptop computer users in metro coffee shops, bookstores, airports and hotels.

...Consumers would be able to buy broadband access of 1 million to 3 million bits per second for $18 to $24 a month -- a bit slower than wired cable modem service but about half the price. The network also is expected to create an economic incentive for businesses to locate in Minneapolis.

...No tax money would be used for the Minneapolis wireless network, which would be paid for, built, owned and operated by the winning bidder on the city's proposal. That is a markedly different approach than in Philadelphia, where the city will own and operate a new Wi-Fi network.

Minneapolis officials decided not to build their own wireless network because of high construction and administrative costs, Beck said. In addition, city officials were concerned that cities offering high-speed Internet service have been accused by large telephone companies of competing with the private sector, he said.

It's annoying as hell that a city can't decide to offer a public service to it's citizens because Time Warner and Comcast won't like it. How about we vote on it? We can either have a publicly owned, available-to-all WiFi'd city or we can have private corporations. How do you think the vote would turn out? Of course, we'll never have that vote, will we? For all the talk about "choice in the marketplace," these are the choices we're not allowed to make. The interests of Time Warner and Comcast to make millions by privately controlling access to a publicly developed resource (the internet) must be protected, even if we as a city would prefer to provide access through other means.

But still, if the service is good enough, this would chop our high speed internet bill in half, and I'd be able to be online anywhere. I may be being too cynical too: no doubt having a low-cost service like this would cut into the business of Time Warner and Comcast - although, who knows, they may end up being the private contractor running the thing anyway...

Squatting Bachmann

2005-04-11T08:01:00.000-05:00

Minnesota State Senator Michelle Bachmann, from Stillwater, MN, is the current leader of the Minnesota chapter of the American Taliban. Last week she tried to force a floor vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but the Senate Democrats shot it down. (An entertaining way to learn more about Bachmann's efforts is by listening to the "Michelle Bachmann Morality Minute" series over at wendywilde.com.)

This is the best Michelle Bachmann story yet though: pictures of Bachmann squatting behind the bushes outside the capital, apparently spying on the rally organized by OutFront Minnesota. Are these pics legit? I don't know - but they sure are funny.

Speaking of loony right-wing Minnesotans, "Hindrocket" and "Big Trunk" over at Power line have droppped their strangely homoerotic names after all. Apparently the kidding got to be too much. They kept the icons though, at least.

Smell your money

2005-04-07T09:26:00.000-05:00

If you're going to be handing over a stack of cash to the police and you're a pot smoker, please Febreze the money first:

"A man who went to the sheriff's department to bond out his brother-in-law also ended up in jail when police realized the money he handed them reeked of marijuana.

...Indiana State Trooper Chip Ayers was nearby and asked for the money, she said. He smelled it and then asked Richards for consent to search him and his car, Meyers said.

Ayers found a pipe and a small amount of marijuana and charged Richards with possession. If convicted, he could face six months to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine."

This Febreze strategy is especially wise if you live in a place where "a small amount of marijuana" can get you six months to three years in prison.

Ah, so proud of my Kansas roots...

2005-04-06T15:09:00.000-05:00

Surprise, surprise: the same-sex marriage ban in Kansas passed(registration info):

With 209 of 210 precincts reporting statewide, the measure was leading with 70 percent of the vote. In Johnson County, with all precincts counted, the measure passed with 60 percent of the vote.

But, as Bobby O. mentioned in the comments the other day, Douglas County, where KU is located, was alone in rejecting the ban and is now officially the only county in the state that believes in the U.S. Constitution. A few comments on the article in the KC Star I linked to above:

Only a handful of states have adopted an amendment as broad as the one in Kansas. Besides limiting marriage to one man and one woman, the Kansas amendment states: “No relationship, other than a marriage, shall be recognized by the state as entitling the parties to the rights or incidents of marriage.”

Opponents contend the additional language could complicate rights and benefits for homosexual and unmarried heterosexual couples in arrangements such as civil unions and domestic partnerships. Among the areas that could be affected, they say, are health benefits, medical decisions and inheritance issues. Proponents contend the ban will have no impact on heterosexuals.

No impact on heterosexuals? Why bother with the damn ban then? Isn't that the point of "protecting" marriage? At least this makes it plain that the sole purpose is to discriminate against those sinful gays.

The two sides raised thousands of dollars in a short time. According to the latest campaign-finance reports, supporters raised nearly $153,000 — $125,000 of which came from donors outside Kansas. The biggest donor — the national Knights of Columbus — donated $100,000. Focus on the Family, a conservative group based in Colorado Springs, Colo., donated $23,000.

Opponents raised about $36,000, much of it in small donations. The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign donated $5,000.

"The two sides raised thousands of dollars..." No. That's not exactly what it sounds like to me: the bigots raised over four times as much money as the opponents of the ban! This means they had to spend more per vote than the opponents! Over half of which came from the Knights of Columbus! I feel sooo betrayed for all those little Tootsie Rolls I bought as a kid. Of course, as I complained in my last post, the "he said, she said" school of "neutral" journalism can't even make clear the most obvious points.

The Star also doesn't point out a side of the story that gets prominent coverage in the Lawrence Journal-World article:

Opponents said they were confident they could reverse the amendment in court.

"It's only temporary. This amendment is truly unconstitutional, and it won't withstand the light of judicial review," said Bruce Ney, of Lawrence, and chairman of Kansans for Fairness, which worked against the amendment.

[Insert the upcoming charges about "activist judges" here.] Of course, "activist judges" would also strike down a proposal to reinstate slavery, even if 90% of Kansans voted for it. Remember all that crap about "inalienable rights" and "being created equal" and protecting these things from the "tyranny of the majority"? Oh, wait, what am I thinking: none of this applies in the new law of the land: the Bible.

Strib priorities

2005-04-06T11:06:00.000-05:00

Priorities?:

Seven weeks after declaring he could and would buy the Minnesota Vikings for $625 million, Reggie Fowler hasn't shown his money to the NFL, nor has he shown sufficient paperwork for approval by the league's owners.

The NFL confirmed this week for the first time that the Vikings' deal hinges on the Arizona businessman's sale of one of his companies, a flight simulator and training firm called SATCO.

...During four days of pursuit by a Star Tribune reporter in and around their suburban Atlanta offices, no UBG leader would discuss his company's track record or holdings.

The Strib can afford to put send someone to Atlanta and devote four entire days to researching this story. Do they give people four days and that much support to do investigative reporting into how Pawlenty is screwing over our schools? Or into how the U administration is using cheap, dishonest union busting tactics as the U's grad students organize a union? Or into corporate abuses by local companies like Best Buy? Or, nationally, did they give someone four days and a travel budget to dig into George Bush's pre-war claims about WMDs? Or his lies about Social Security? I doubt it. If they did, they sure haven't given their findings much ink.

Most national stories in the Strib are AP stories and coverage of local politics and business tend to follow the timid "he said, she said" formula that simply regurgitates the official statements of the elite players on any given issue without exploring what the actual facts are or giving voice to those who don't have lawyers and press releases. It's too expensive, we hear from media analysts, to fund investigative journalism in today's media climate and it's far too risky to publish stories that expose the powers that be. Unless we're talking about sports, of course. All the resources in the world for that.

New music...

2005-04-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

Sweet. I just checked out the listings of new CDs coming out soon. New CDs from Audioslave, System of a Down, Weezer, Population 1 and Aimee Mann on the way in the next month or so. Paul Gilbert has a new cd out now too...in Japan only for now. Why is it that Japan gets all super cool ex-80's guitar heroes? Why do us Americans not appreciate them enough! Seriously, what's not to love?

Friedman's Bladder

2005-04-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

I'm listening to Tom Friedman as a guest on Al Franken's show and he's joking about having a weak bladder as he gets old. Eww. I really don't want to know about Tom Friedman's bladder. Honestly, I really don't want to hear anything Tom Friedman has to say, but in particular, I want to hear nothing about his bladder.

Congrats, Roy!

2005-04-05T11:21:00.000-05:00

I went to K-State and we were supposed to hate KU. I never really hated KU's basketball team as much as I hated their fans; at least a good chunk of the Johnson County variety. KU fans, spoiled for so long by a strong basketball team, just had a sense of entitlement and superiority, particularly towards K-State, that it was disgusting. Every anti-KSU joke coming out of the mouth of a KU fan was likely to have condescending class connotations: joking about the ignorance, uncleanliness and ruralness of K-State. At my high school, with quite a few exceptions (if you're reading this, you, of course, are one of those exceptions), you could go right down the line and the people who went to KU were the stuck-up snobs and cocky jocks and the people who went to K-State were much more tolerable. So I hated elitist KU fans so much I just couldn't bear to root for KU basketball even though I always liked the way they played and liked Roy Williams.

Oh, but times have changed! As soon as Roy left for UNC, he became the devil in the mind's of KU fans. So today I get the joy of both being happy to see Roy William's succeed finally and seeing KU fans be miserable because of it. So nice.

End of Rebates?

2005-04-02T13:57:00.000-06:00

Good News:

"Retailers' love affair with mail-in rebates may be coming to an end.

In response to customer complaints, Best Buy Co. Inc., the world's largest electronics retailer, promised Friday to eliminate mail-in rebates within two years. Best Buy's rivals, including Circuit City Stores and CompUSA, are expected to follow suit."

I despise rebates. I still am waiting on several for things we bought way back in December. They're a total scam.

Not an April Fool's Joke

2005-04-02T13:53:00.000-06:00

I first heard this on the radio yesterday and thought it was an April Fool's Joke. But no! It's true:

KETTERING, Ohio (AP) -- A woman rushing to a hospital to give birth hit a few stops along the way -- first at a gas station where she delivered the baby herself, then when confused police ordered her out of the car at gunpoint.

Read the rest. Insane.

I Need a Lion Tamer

2005-03-29T10:38:00.000-06:00

As an undergrad, we had Mr. Everything in our fraternity. He was student body president and he went to bed after and got up before anyone else in the house he was so busy. He sketched out his schedule each week on a legal size piece of paper (he outgrew 8.5 x 11) and mapped out everything he had to do each week, assigning points to each task and requiring that he reach a certain amount of points each day. Sounds crazy, but he got a lot done.

I was teasing him about the excessive attention to detail once and he told me a little story. You know how lion tamers at the circus always carry a stool with them? And when the lion gets aggressive they put the stool in the face of the lion? Ever wondered how a silly stool could intimidate a big lion? Well, the reason it works, according to this guy at least, is that the lion sees all three legs coming at him at once and doesn't know what to focus on, so it gives up.

The moral of the story is that we're like this. If we see a bunch of things coming at us at once, we don't know where to start and want to just give up and go take a nap. This is what I've been like the last few days. Too many things coming at me at once and I just keep stalling about getting going on any of it.

Garage Shower

2005-03-27T08:47:00.000-06:00

Ok, so a cousin of ours getting married in a few months and apparently they are having a "Garage Shower" for the groom. Yes, that's right: a shower. For the groom. The invitation is red with black trim, in a big manly font at the top it "GARAGE SHOWER" and informs you that the groom is registered at Home Depot. I can just picture a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer and opening carefully wrapped power tools grumbling to each other, "Dude, this ain't no shower. Grrr." Hilarious.

Free Culture

2005-03-25T23:25:00.000-06:00

I just spent all day in the car, so I took this as a chance to listen to the free audiobook of Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture.

It's well worth reading/listening to. You can download the book for free here. Chapter 10 is particularly important. On the one hand, it's probably the most dry, technical chapter in the book, but it's fascinating because it basically explains why there has been such a revolutionary change in copyright as a result of the development of the internet.

But at the same time, the rest of the book shows that all is not changing: copyright has always been a battleground between content owners, producers and distributors attempting to protect their creations and profits derived from them and advocates of the public good and the necessity of open information to creativity and progress. The history of every creative industry is one of piracy and transformation of other works to new uses, and with the invention of each new technology, those who benefit from the status quo fight against the new technology's threat to their property rights. So, in this sense, the fights over new technology we're seeing now are nothing new at all. What makes things so different now, however, is that the nature of the technology allows for a degree of control and regulation by the copyright holders unimaginable to previous generations of copyright holders.

Anyway, it's worth a read, or maybe next time you're going on a road trip, download the mp3s.

Schiavo Media Madness

2005-03-25T23:18:00.000-06:00

Believe it or not, I haven't actually been following the Schiavo thing too closely. I don't watch TV news at all, so this really spares me a lot of pain when it comes to stuff like this. So all of this may be old news, to you but this posting over at dailykos.com goes through some of the things the media has been doing in it's coverage of this story. How pathetic. Follow the links.

Move Over iPod...

2005-03-25T09:42:00.000-06:00

Introducing the "AK-MP3":

"A British-based company is selling MP3 players which can be attached to an assault rifle.

The 'AK-MP3' player is built into the ammunition clip of a Kalashnikov. It can be swapped with the real magazine carrying bullets and inserted into the weapon.

...Former Russian rock star Andrey Koltakov, a partner in the dotcom company offering the AK-MP3 for sale, said: 'This is our bit for world peace - hopefully, from now on many militants and terrorists will use their AK-47s to listen to music and audio books.'"

Order yours here!

A Note to the Gasoline Folks

2005-03-25T07:59:00.000-06:00

If you're like 99% of the drivers out there and have gasoline vehicles, take note: when you pull into an empty gas station lot at 7 a.m., don't take the only pump that has diesel in the lot. And, if you do, don't leave your car parked at the pump for 15 minutes while you're inside the station buying food, drinks, magazines, going to the restroom or whatever the hell else you do inside a gas station at 7 a.m. If you do end up doing all of these things on accident, don't be surprised to see someone in either a little VW or a big-ass truck parked right behind you glaring at you when you finally come out to move your car.

I hope this guy never googles my name

2005-03-24T16:16:00.000-06:00

Several of my friends don't use their real names on their blogs. Sometimes I wish I'd done this. By attaching my real name to this blog, I've made it tough to talk about my actual experiences. For example, I'm in this class this semester that is literally driving me crazy. Here's why:

The prof is a generally like-able guy. He doesn't really lecture, so the classes follow a very conversational, informal format. He claims to adhere to John Dewey's ideas about education and learning by doing and so on. All good things.

The problem is that it's a total scam. If you put aside what he says he does, and look at what he actually does, he's a total authoritarian. I've realized now why I can't stand the class and why nothing ever seems to get accomplished in our frequent discussions/arguments: the guy doesn't make arguments. Not in the rational, logical sense of laying out a progression of assumptions, claims and mechanisms by which these claims link together to form a coherent position that can be challenged and defended through rational debate.

The guy simply makes claims. When asked to defend those claims, you don't get an argument, but you get either a) an appeal to authority of some sort or b) a quasi-theological, slippery slope appeal to the inherent purity or impurity of some idea. The authority is typically him and his experience, or one of his forbearers in his field of study (who can do no wrong) or someone important he had a conversation with once. Of course, I don't reject right away that these people may, in fact, be authorities, but the way I would verify this is by looking at the logic of their arguments and the strength or weakness of their evidence. These are not provided. If you ask for them, he reverts to the second tactic: the quasi-theological appeal to purity. Now, I'm not actually saying that he appeals to God - he doesn't. In fact, he spends much time talking about his concern over the religious right and their attacks on public education. What I'm trying to say is that the logic of labeling something "pure" or "impure" is the same. So, for example, he really, really dislikes arguments about an "innate" human nature. So any claims about human instincts, no matter what the argument or evidence supporting it, get the same response: that even entertaining the idea that there are "innate" things leads you straight down the road to Eugenics, the Holocaust and slavery. Of course, forget the miles and miles of slippery slope between "certain traits are innate to human beings" to "people deserve to be rewarded/punished for their innate traits" and then to "particular groups of people are inferior/superior and inequality among them is justified." All we need to know is that, in the past, people have used the idea of innateness to do really bad things...now listen to the wise professor, damn-it.

Today, however, I got the example that really pushes him into Flat Earth Society territory. He gave the example of Multiple Sclerosis and suggested that it may be "a contextual pathology" that is the product of "orienting stories" we tell ourselves that prevent us from "turning off" the symptoms (I'm quoting directly his writing - no, it's not published...). His example is loss of memory. Ok, now my family happens to have some experience with MS, and multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease where your immune system gets overactive and starts attacking the myelin that coats your nerves. This, as you can imagine, causes problems. Many problems - the list of symptoms for MS is huge and no one person experiences it the same way. However, there are things all people with MS have in common. They can do MRI scans of your brain and spine and you can see the lesions from the MS. I know lots of people with terrible memory, but if they don't have MS, they do not have these lesions that cause it. Moreover, they have medicine now that is effective at slowing the rate of the occurrence of flare-ups (for most people, the disease is "relapsing-remitting," meaning that you go through phases where you're more or less fine and then stages where you get flare-ups and, often, the onset of new symptoms). Now this medicine works because it treats MS as a biological phenomenon, not as "a contextual pathology" resulting from "orienting stories." This is absurd. Of course, context matters - when women are pregnant their symptoms tend to go away and people in certain climates tend to develop symptoms less than people in others. But to suggest it's simply a "pathology" that people could talk themselves through if they had different "stories" is just absurd, not to mention a total insult to the people who have MS. But, in his view, to approach the problem as a biological problem is to start the long walk down the slippery slope to forced sterilization and slaves. Any discussion about things being heritable, innate or not a result of our social interaction with one another is dismissed out-of-hand. It's impure and can't even be considered. If you have evidence that suggests innateness, then it must be wrong because people are too stupid to make the distinction between empirical facts about the way our bodies work and what the moral implications of those facts should be.

Of course, these standards of argument don't apply to anyone else. When people ask legitimate questions, he regularly shuts them down by saying things like "That doesn't come into play here" or "Nobody's really saying that." Someone today in class was corrected for discussing how an embryo "grows." He corrected them, saying he prefers "change" to "growth" because it doesn't imply imposing notions of progress on the change. Just moments later, however, he made an appeal to his authority by virtue of his long life experience - the "you'll see" tactic, just like when your parents told you that you'd change your mind about whatever disagreements you had with them once you got older and more mature. I pointed this out - asking if this implied that he had some sort of "growth" that had made him more knowledgeable than us. Another student in the class (the other students in the class, by the way, are great) said that of course, he has more experience and this gives him a valuable perspective. I agree experience gives you valuable knowledge, but how can his "change" be "experience" and an embryo's just be "change"?

I'm sure if he read this, he'd say I've got him all wrong. But remember what I said above: look at what he does, not what he says. His claims often contradict each other. For example, today I started quoting him back at him. Saying, nearly verbatim, exactly what he's said throughout the semester (and he's ridiculously repetitive, too, so this isn't hard) and he replies saying "I never said that." Perhaps forgetfulness is his problem. Maybe that's why he's always making claims about the research that "nobody has even done yet." A short list of what "nobody has done": paid attention to Darwin's later work on emotions in humans and animals (false - cited like crazy...by the "innatists" he demonizes), paid attention to the role that mothers play in the "emergence" of their child's self (sure, no one does research on parenting...), paid attention to sociability in animals prior to the 1920s (not true) and I could go on.

His favorite impure Satan is Steven Pinker, whose book "The Blank Slate" is basically an argument for a) why the findings of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology suggest the existence of an innate human nature and then b) that these findings about nature do not imply reactionary, conservative morals and politics. In fact, the most consistent message throughout the whole book is that people shouldn't make the "naturalistic fallacy" - that because something is natural, it is therefore good. Likewise, they shouldn't make the "moralistic fallacy" - that because something is morally desirable, it is fact. Today, another student basically said just this and I agreed and he was like, "That's the first good thing you've said." Of course, the fact that it's the main point of a book he criticizes daily by grossly misrepresenting what the author says (I read the book last week - I also recommend it) suggests that either a) he hasn't actually read it, or b) he exercises about as much intellectual respect for professors at Harvard as he does for his own students: little to none.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I made the quick caveat "I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but..." when questioning him about how his "change" implied "growth," and he replied with "Oh, you don't have to try." So, let's recap: questioning the logic and evidence of the instructor's claims: disrespectful. Instructor being intellectual dishonest about work by other academics and hypocritically applying a standard to his own students he doesn't apply to himself: okay.

Yeah, typical Deweyite...

How to Lie with Graphs

2005-03-24T09:57:00.000-06:00

Check out misleading graph (since corrected) posted by CNN.com on a poll on the Schiavo case. Hilarious.

Cost of War

2005-03-24T09:31:00.000-06:00

Click on the link to compare the cost of the war in Iraq with the cost of ending world hunger, fully funding public education, etc.

Springer on Air America

2005-03-24T09:12:00.000-06:00

They just announced that "Unfiltered" will be replaced with a show hosted by Jerry Springer on Air America. Ew.

Halló, Bobby Fischer

2005-03-24T09:07:00.000-06:00

What the hell is up with this?

"Chess legend Bobby Fischer was freed today after nearly nine months in a Japanese detention center and headed to the airport for a flight to his new home, Iceland, where he has been granted citizenship.

...Freedom came after an agreement was reached Wednesday with Japanese authorities to avoid Fischer's deportation to the United States, where he is wanted for playing a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia that violated U.S. sanctions at the time. Iceland -- a chess-loving nation that hosted Fischer's historic Cold War-era victory over Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky in 1972 -- granted Fischer citizenship this week with a 40-0 vote in parliament.

Fischer was defiant as he arrived at the airport. 'I won't be free until I get out of Japan. This was not an arrest. It was a kidnapping cooked up by Bush and Koizumi,' he said, referring to President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Fischer evaded U.S. authorities for more than a decade with the help of chess fans from Argentina to the Philippines. He was finally arrested in July at an airport outside Tokyo for traveling on a voided U.S. passport."

The guy played chess and this violated sanctions and merited being arrested? Is there more to this story? There has to be, or this is just ridiculous.

Why isn't DeLay Pretty and Articulate?

2005-03-24T00:16:00.000-06:00

So I just saw the video of Tom DeLay saying nasty things about Mr. Schiavo. (Yes, I'm a little behind schedule this week.) Anyway, it's not a surprise the whole Schiavo thing is turning out to be a disaster for the GOP when you've got DeLay and the Christianists out front on the issue. The guy's apparently the most powerful guy in Washington who's not in the White House, but he comes across as a total prick on television. Makes you wonder how the guy can be a politician who has to get elected. But this isn't unusual: both Kerry and Bush are awful speakers and not particular good at being on camera either. Why is this? You would think, in this day and age, that every politician would look like a model and speak like a news anchor. But they don't. In fact, they seem to be getting worse - Clinton being the only exception I can think of since Reagan. I can think of a bunch of silly theories to explain this phenomenon (anyone actually good-looking, articulate and rich can make their living otherwise, politicians are supposed to appear like the "genuine everyman," etc.) but they all suck and can't possibly explain this.

Fortunate Son

2005-03-22T08:03:00.000-06:00

There's an article in the LA Times (via the Strib) about how "the Bushes do culture":

"At this point in the presidency of George W. Bush, you might think you know just about everything worth knowing about him: his love of liberty, his rejection of the Eastern elitism that is his birthright, his occasionally reckless youth, his profound religious conviction, his tendency to see the world in black and white.

But there are certain colorful aspects of the president's life that have not been much explored, understandably overshadowed by war and a hard-fought election. That he listens to Creedence Clearwater Revival on his iPod, for instance."

I think, perhaps, he should put "Fortunate Son" on, turn it up and listen to the lyrics really closely.

Campus is Closed. I'm Bored.

2005-03-18T10:41:00.000-06:00

I picked the wrong day to drop the car off for some work. The dealer has a shuttle that will take you to work while your car's worked on, so I thought I'd just go to campus all day and get some stuff done at the library I've been putting off. Bad move. First, it's starting to snow like crazy and we're supposed to get a lot. Second, all of campus is shut down today - even the library. I thought everything was open during spring break, and that was true of everyday, I've now learned, except Friday. So I can't do any of the things I was planning on doing for several hours while stuck on campus without a car. So I'm hanging out at the lil' coffee shop by campus...for apparently several hours.

Anway, no posting for awhile and I'm stranded for a few hours, so random thoughts ensue:

• An English professor at my old school was convicted of murder. No, I never knew him.

• John Bolton for the UN. Wolfowitz for the World Bank. Karen Hughes for Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy. Next thing we know, Bush will be installing Henry Kissinger as head of Amnesty International and Sam Brownback as head of Planned Parenthood.

• Hmm...baseball players testifying in front of Congress. Why didn't Ah-nold join them?

• You know you're too drunk to drive when you get pulled over for somehow ending up driving on the airport tarmac.

• They're finally separating 35-W and 62 at the Crosstown interchange. Teresa and/or I drive this way almost every day. They're also adding an express bus lane and stops along 35. This will help. Although, the construction will probably make the commute even more miserable for a few years.

Rather Biased?

2005-03-10T17:19:00.000-06:00

Dan Rather's retiring and FAIR has looked into whether or not his career has been what the right-wing likes to think it has. Some of their findings:

"For right-wing media critics, Rather has long served as their 'liberal media' bogeyman, personifying the nightly news' supposed tendency to skewer Republicans and coddle Democrats.

...you can't find much evidence on his newscast to support their argument. A FAIR study of the network newscasts in 2001 found that Rather's CBS Evening News featured substantially more Republicans than Democrats (76 percent vs. 23 percent). The difference between CBS and the other networks was slim, but such analysis belies the notion that Rather's network-- or any of the others-- have a left-wing bias.

And coverage of the Iraq war was similarly skewed-- and not in favor of the left: During the first three weeks of combat, Rather's broadcast had the highest percentage of official U.S. sources (75 percent) and the lowest number (less than one percent) of U.S. anti-war voices. When Rather famously announced after the September 11 attacks that 'wherever [Bush] wants me to line up, just tell me where,' perhaps his most valuable service to Bush was the failure to pose difficult questions or feature dissenting perspectives on the Iraq war."

Frequently Given Responses?

2005-03-10T17:05:00.000-06:00

So I just submitted this letter-to-the-editor to the Minnesota Daily, our campus newspaper. It probably won't get published there, so I figured I'd at least give it some space here:

Title: Frequently Given Responses?

On Thursday afternoon, graduate student employees at the University received an email from Patti Dion, the Director of Employee Relations and Compensation, containing responses to “frequently asked questions” about the upcoming unionization vote [note: you can read them yourself here]. As someone who will be voting in the upcoming election regarding unionization, I agree that these are important questions, so I’d like to take issue with a few of the (frequently given?) responses.

First, in response to the question of why the UE “wants” to represent graduate employees, we are told that “unions have an interest in increasing membership.” This is true, but one could also argue that the University administration has an interest in decreasing pay and slashing benefits for graduate employees. Does this mean the administration “wants” to do so? I don’t know. If I wanted to know what the administration “wants” to do, I would ask them, not try to speak for them. Why not give the UE the same common courtesy?

Another frequently asked question is how graduate students would benefit from union representation. We’re told that “any promises or threats about the future made by union representatives are a violation of fair labor practices.” This is true. Isn’t it also a violation for the administration to make “promises or threats about the future”? Why is this not mentioned?

I assume these are just innocent mistakes, as I would like to believe the administration would not be using their privileged access to our email inboxes to distribute biased, unfair information about such a critical matter.

End Poverty or Fight Wars?

2005-03-10T12:01:00.002-06:00

It appears we have a choice to make: shall we spend all our money on war, or should we end poverty?

"Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent US economist and a special adviser to the UN secretary general, argues in a new book that extreme poverty could be eradicated by 2025.

In The End of Poverty, he says much will depend on the choices made by Americans, who are paying a far smaller share of their income in foreign aid than they promised three years ago, and only a 30th of the 'nearly $500bn [£260bn] the US will spend this year on the military'.

'Currently, more than eight million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. Yet our generation, in the US and abroad, can choose to end extreme poverty by the year 2025,' he writes."

1/30th! Just for the hell of it, let's take the Bush administration's (current) claim that our wars around the world are justified as efforts at spreading democracy. Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb and make the case that ending poverty throughout the world would go a good way towards spreading democracy as well. Even if you really believe in the wars of the Bushies, do you think that those wars are 30 times as likely to "spread democracy"? Don't you think that "the enemy" would have a much harder time gaining support if they were fighting a humanitarian superpower that had just ended poverty throughout the world than fighting a military superpower occupying countries and murdering civilians?

What's that, you say? Profits and power? That's the problem? Oh, yes: ending poverty would not contribute to the profits of the Haliburtons and Exxons of the world would it? It also wouldn't contribute to protecting "American interests" (read: U.S. governmental/corporate control) of resources around the world, would it? In fact, it would probably hurt "our" power and profits: healthy, empowered people generally prefer domestic, democratic control of their natural resources. Ah, see, now we're thinking like George Bush's Jesus! Easy choice - war.

Light Rail 101

2005-03-09T21:31:00.000-06:00

This posting is a public service to everyone in the Twin Cities who tries to ride the light rail without a ticket. They've started ticketing more often lately and, despite the steep $180 fine, people seem to be slow to catch on to how the system works.

See, the cop-looking guy in the bright yellow vest gets on the train at random stops (note: he does not check those getting off the train) and once the train starts moving he checks everyone's ticket. If you are on the train and do not have a ticket you get one free warning where they take down your name, and after that, you pay $180.

If you read that carefully, you might have already figured out a way to ride without getting caught - simply look ahead to the station in front of you and get off the train if you see one of the transit cop guys getting on. Wait for the next train. You lose 7-10 minutes (depending on the time of day) but you save $180.

You'd think people would get this. That you'd see a mad dash of people getting off the train each time a ticket checker gets onboard. But no. Over the last week alone, I've seen at least 4 people getting $180 tickets. Guy in yellow vest gets on. They stay seated. They get caught. Now since they're getting tickets, this means they've already had this happen to them once. Why is this so complicated?

Me? I have a pass from school. But I'm sick of watching people get tickets. So come on, get smart, people.

W Ketchup

2005-03-06T12:37:00.000-06:00

W Ketchup™. Motto? "You Don't Support Democrats. Why Should Your Ketchup?"

Almost as hilarious as Star Spangled Ice Cream and their Ted Nugent endorsed "Gun Nut" ice cream.

Tales from Prison, with Martha Stewart

2005-03-05T09:10:00.000-06:00

From CNN.com, via Kos:

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, she's certainly getting her first taste of freedom after spending five months in prison. Earlier this morning, she came out. She's certainly not shying away from the cameras.

She told reporters that she's feeling fine, that she's feeling great. And she even offered reporters and photographers camped outside of her house some coffee and doughnuts. And she also shared a story about not having cappuccino in prison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA STEWART, MARTHA STEWART LIVING OMNIMEDIA: And this is a funny. All (UNINTELLIGIBLE) asked the guards every day for a cappuccino. You know, just as a joke. And they'd come in with their cups of coffee and stuff.

And so I get here, and I have a spot for a cappuccino machine. And it didn't work. So I don't have any cappuccino.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She doesn't have any cappuccino.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Want me to get you one?

STEWART: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She doesn't have any cappuccino. The cappuccino machine does not work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

The "deplorable daily living conditions" in most of our prisons is a serious problem. Sometimes famous people come out of jail and become spokespersons for this cause, like Susan McDougal. Others, like Martha Stewart, joke about missing cappuccino. Nice...

I'm turning Minnesoootan

2005-03-04T09:02:00.000-06:00

So yesterday, on campus, I bumped into an old friend who just so happens to be an undergrad at the U of M but also went to my high school in Kansas. I hadn't talked to her in about three years, but in our quick, two minute conversation, we both sounded soooo Minnesoootan. The "ya's" and "oh's" were all over the place and we couldn't help it. I don't know if she noticed, but I laughed to myself about it for like the next ten minutes.

Honestly, (honestly!), I blame her: I don't do Minnesotan that much when I talk to non-Minnesotans, but I mimic it big time when I talk to others who do it. So when she was like, "Sooo, yea, yea, yea, soooo, ooooh," I pick it right up myself.

I couldn't help but wonder how context-specific it was, too. If I met up with her in Kansas, would we still speak Minnesotan to each other? My guess? You betcha!

Robots!

2005-03-04T07:50:00.000-06:00

Go check out ASIMO. Be sure to watch the videos. (And apparently, some engineer at MIT has designed a robot that walks even better than ASIMO.)

Wiki's and Legitimate Knowledge

2005-03-02T22:48:00.000-06:00

Everybody's heard the hoopla about blogs and how they're such a revolutionary tool. You may not have heard of "Wiki's" which aren't quite as well-known as blogs yet, but have revolutionary potential of their own.

What's a Wiki? Here's the description from "Wikipedia,":

A Wiki or wiki (pronounced wǐkē, wēkē or vēkē) is a website (or other hypertext document collection) that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. "Wiki" also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website.

The aforementioned "Wikipedia" is a free, online encyclopedia and is probably the most famous Wiki. Basically, anyone can create an entry for a term and then others can edit it. This sounds chaotic, but some very interesting things happen when you have hundreds or thousands of people working on a Wiki. If someone writes something clearly inflammatory, biased or false, someone comes right behind them and changes it. So there's a built-in incentive to have facts to back up what you're writing and to phrase things in such a way that others will agree to them.

If you have a few minutes, watch Jon Udell's study of the entry in Wikipedia for "heavy metal umlaut." The link leads to a flash movie where Udell walks you through how the entry for "heavy metal umlaut" was built and evolved over time. It's pretty astonishing just for the fact that so many people are involved in the editing of the entry for something as obscure as "heavy metal umlaut," but Udell also points out how the Wiki participants establish and enforce Wiki norms.

The consequences for this are startling. Writing encyclopedias has always been the realm of experts, where "smart people" write "the truth" about any given subject. Now, however, anyone with access to the internet can participate in writing "the truth." Other Wiki's are springing up all over, including WikiNews.

The norms of discourse in Wiki's are also fascinating. For example, "deliberative democracy" is a big topic for democratic theorists and one of the big ideas in deliberative democracy is that we should establish institutions which encourage everyone to participate in deliberation and encourage each participant to empathize with the position of their adversaries and attempt to frame their arguments and conceive of their goals in ways that would be acceptable to their adversaries. Wiki's do all of these things!

Sound interesting? Check out the Wikipedia entry on Sociology or this attempt at creating a Wiki Introduction to Sociology. Don't agree with what you see? Change it! Think something's missing? Add it!

So, how are the children?

2005-03-02T08:52:00.000-06:00

Nordic, U.S. kids rank opposite in poverty:

Nordic countries have the lowest levels of child poverty in the developed world, in large part because of their generous public spending on social benefits for families, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.N. Children's Fund.

On the other end of the spectrum, the United States and Mexico had the worst rates among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group of the world's richest countries.

At least one-fifth of U.S. and Mexican children live under the national poverty line, according to the study undertaken by UNICEF's Innocenti Research Center in Italy.

...The report based its findings on the number of children growing up in households with an income less than half the national median.

Rated the best were Denmark, at 2.4 percent; Finland, at 2.8 percent; Norway, at 3.4 percent; and Sweden, at 4.2 percent. At the bottom end of the table were Mexico, at 27.7 percent, and the United States, at 21.9 percent. Both countries spend less than 5 percent of their GDP on government support for families.

Child poverty is just one area where the U.S. looks like a Third World country compared to the Scandinavian countries. I studied abroad for a semester in Stockholm (well, a pretty boring suburb of Stockholm, actually...) and we lived near a "bad part of town." I only heard this a few months into the semester and I just didn't believe it when I heard it. I thought it was a joke - it looked like an ordinary part of town. Imagine a "bad part of town" in the United States. That doesn't really exist there - even after a decade-plus decline in the Swedish welfare state. The basic infrastructure of these four countries is way beyond what we have here. Of course, there are problems and it's no utopia by any means, but the idea that we're actually far behind other parts of the world in terms of standard of living seems like non-sense to most Americans. They just assume that we're the best in every respect. This ignorance has consequences - just one of which is the fact that we simply don't realize how pitiful a job our society is doing at providing a healthy environment for our children.

Personal Rapid Transit

2005-03-02T08:35:00.000-06:00

How cool would this be?

What is it? "Personal Rapid Transit":

Suddenly Minnesota has not one but three companies working to bring personal rapid transit, known as PRT, to reality.

As envisioned, PRT would transport riders in three-seat cabs along tracks above the street.

..Taking a step beyond the one-cab prototype demonstrated at the 2003 Minnesota State Fair, Taxi 2000 expects to have a miniature system built to scale by June or July.

..Right now Taxi 2000 is bidding for the right to build a PRT system in Dubai, a fast-developing city in the United Arab Emirates, Morrie Anderson said.

"They are doing huge amounts of urban development. They need transportation systems in a very serious way. They have a desire to be the first in terms of building something, and they have the financial resources to make that happen."

The city of Duluth has welcomed the invention, offering engineering assistance from the University of Minnesota Duluth, manufacturing firms ready to build PRT components and a test track site.

Stolen Playbook

2005-03-01T20:03:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't seen this already, the Frank Luntz Playbook has officially been leaked. You can download it (two PDFs within an 8.8 MB zip file) here. I've only skimmed so far, but it's very interesting. For some reason, like with the Leadership Institute's Roots of the Left document I linked to in the last post, it's extremely fun to read stuff written by the other side for the other side.

Some interesting summaries of and commentaries on the Luntz Playbook at Think Progress, Common Dreams and The Seven Cent Nickel.

Update: You can now read it online. Fully searchable and no big PDF downloads:

It's March

2005-03-01T15:38:00.000-06:00

Ok, it looks like I accidently took the second half of February off. Wasn't intentional, it just kinda happened that way. A few observations I've had building up inside over the last few weeks:

• What have I been busy doing while I haven't been blogging? I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies in a three day stretch - extended editions. Now I feel like I understand geeks, Led Zeppelin and colonialist mythology much better.

• I finally ventured over to the right-wing blog, Powerline. The first blogger there's name is "Hindrocket." The second blogger's name is "The Big Trunk." I know it's kinda cheap to do nothing but make fun of their names, but jeez...could they hide their classic cases of "Sexually Repressed Conservative" syndrome a little better please?

• Why do they hate us so much? I'm talking about the right-wingers of course, and why they hate the left so much. Here's a link to the transcript of their brainwashing, er, "training" program for future right-wingers at the Leadership Institute. The Leadership Institute is run by Morton Blackwell (the guy responsible for the "purple band-aids" at the RNC) and it's proud alumni include Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Mitch McConnel and, whatdyaknow, Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert. (More on the Leadership Institute here.

• There's a new way to fold shirts - go learn!

• The future of internet news?

Listen to the People!

2005-02-09T11:59:00.000-06:00

"Poll: Make wealthy bolster Social Security"::

Wealthier Americans should take the hit to bolster Social Security, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted over the weekend and released Tuesday.

More than two-thirds of 1,010 adults contacted between Feb. 4 and Feb. 6 said it would be a 'good idea' to limit benefits for wealthier retirees and to make higher income workers pay Social Security taxes on all their wages. Currently, all workers pay the tax on the first $90,000 in wages.

...Meanwhile, 55 percent think President Bush's proposal to allow future wage-earners to invest some of their Social Security taxes in private investment accounts is a "bad idea."

...But 64 percent agree with the president that the system will be "bankrupt" by 2042 if major changes aren't made.

So most people are actually believing Bush's lies about social security, but they still don't think his proposal is a good idea and a large majority endorse raising taxes for the wealthiest Americans instead. What sort of Communist country are we living in?

Porn on the Cutting Edge Again

2005-02-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

In the history of the media, porn is always on the cutting edge; whether it's film, television, VCRs, the internet, etc. Now porn is taking on cell phones:

Porn star Jenna Jameson is now hawking "moan tones." For $2.50 mobile phone users can choose from a variety of moans, and sexual noises all recorded by the blond bombshell.

If that's not enough, Jameson will talk dirty to you when your phones rings, in English or Spanish.

Jameson, who recently wrote a best-selling memoir, has launched the venture with Wicked Wireless, a mobile music and entertainment company.

Also available are color pictures of the porn star posing naked that can be displayed on your phone for $2.99.

Hilarious. I wonder if Wicked Wireless donates to Santorum also?

Three jobs? Fantastic!

2005-02-09T09:06:00.000-06:00

Ok, George:

In Omaha on Friday, a divorced single mother named Mary Mornin tells the president, 'I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.'

'Fantastic,' the president exclaims, and he tells her she has 'the hardest job in America, being a single mom.'

Later, the 57-year old Mornin tells Bush that she works three jobs, which the president deems 'uniquely American' and 'fantastic.' He asks her if she gets any sleep.

I heard the soundclip of this last conversation on Air America and it's ridiculous. The women's like "I work three jobs and I contribute.." and Bush cuts in and says "Three jobs? Uniquely American! Fantastic!" The crowd applauds wildly. Bush: "Do you get any sleep?" The women replies, quietly, "not much." Yes, George, it's a wonderful country where you have to work three jobs to make ends meet.

Big Guv'mint

2005-02-09T08:41:00.000-06:00

"Fiscal Responsibility": "

Even as President Bush proposes significant cuts in healthcare, farm subsidies and other domestic programs, his new budget makes one thing clear about the legacy of his first term in the White House: The era of big government is back.

Bush's $2.57-trillion budget for 2006, if approved by Congress, would be more than a third bigger than the 2001 budget he inherited four years ago. It is a monument to how much Republicans' guiding fiscal philosophy has changed over the 10 years since the GOP's Contract With America called for a balanced budget and abolition of entire Cabinet agencies.

...However, Bush's budget projections likely understate future deficits as they do not include the full costs of three priorities at the core of what he seeks as his second-term legacy: ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, making his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent, and overhauling Social Security.

The era of big government never ended, really. The article states that "No longer are Republicans arguing with Democrats about whether government should be big or small. Instead, they are at odds over what kind of big government the U.S. should have." The arguments have always been over rather or not spending to help poor people is a good idea, not over government spending, period. Military spending, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, subsidizing R&D with public money only to turn the results over to private corporations for private profit...these are things Republicans and Democrats have agreed on over the years.

But it is still shocking that this budget is as big as it is without including either the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan. How can they get away with that without having the whole damn country just laugh at them? It's also shocking to hear things like this:

...$45 billion over 10 years that is to be cut from Medicaid, the shared federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled. Food stamp benefits would be eliminated for 200,000 to 300,000 people, and a freeze in child-care funding would cut the number of low-income children receiving help by 300,000 in 2009.

and then turn around and read stuff like this:

But even amid the cutbacks, some presidential priorities would remain flush. Youth programs advocating sexual abstinence would increase by $39 million, to $206 million, while $161 million would be set aside for grants to faith-based organizations to "mentor children of prisoners and provide a safe place for young pregnant and parenting mothers." In another sign of the times, financing for the apprehension of Army deserters would double.

Yes, abstinence programs... Hey, didn't Bush try those in his home state of Texas? How'd that go?

The study [conducted by researchers at Texas A&M University] showed about 23 percent of ninth-grade girls, typically 13 to 14 years old, had sex before receiving abstinence education. After taking the course, 29 percent of the girls in the same group said they had had sex.

Yes, double funding for that then! Haven't they figured out that having school tell kids NOT to do something does nothing other than make kids WANT to do it? This is why sex education is such a good idea: nothing will make kids think sex is less cool than hearing their teachers talk about it all the time.

The Pimps of Profit

2005-02-08T20:43:00.000-06:00

This is quite a racket these guys have going. They make millions by providing adult content and then mobilize the resultant moral outrage to elect politicians who will slash their taxes and deregulate their business. Profits on both ends.

Adelphia Communications Corp., the country's fifth-largest cable television provider, last week became the first to offer hard-core adult films on pay-per-view to its subscribers.

'It's a very lucrative source of funds,' said Dennis McAlpine, a media and entertainment industry analyst.

...While the corporations generate millions in profits from providing adult content, their political contributions are often given to those elected, in no small part, because of their stance on 'moral values.'

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Cable has given millions in political donations since 1998. The national Republican Party committees are its biggest organizational recipient, with donations totaling $851,000. President Bush is its biggest individual recipient with $109,000 in donations.

Adelphia has given $166,000 to Republican committees, $17,000 to conservative Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., and $12,000 to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

"It's kind of muddled"

2005-02-07T17:03:00.000-06:00

I usually try to not just post about the same exact things that every other lefty blog out there is posting about on any given day, but this is just so damn funny that I can't resist adding my own voice to the chorus of laughter:

"THE PRESIDENT: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it."

Yes, George, that's "kind of muddled."

Anti-War Conservatives

2005-02-06T17:43:00.000-06:00

This article, by Scott McConnel in the American Conservative magazine provides an interesting summary of some of the positions taken by the increasing number of conservatives turning against the Bush agenda and "drawing attention to a mood among some conservatives that is at least latently fascist." An interesting read.

Are Universities "Too Liberal"?

2005-02-06T14:35:00.000-06:00

Here's a recent FAIR report on a story ABC did on complaints from conservatives that they're discriminated against in Universities, where they feel that liberals rule with an iron fist.

On February 1, ABC's World News Tonight offered an uncritical platform to conservatives who complain that their free speech is being curtailed on college campuses across the country.

ABC anchor Charles Gibson introduced the segment by saying that conservatives "claim they are victims of a double standard on college campuses," and seemed to boost that notion by saying, "There certainly is evidence to suggest that colleges are bastions of liberal thinking. Seventy-two percent of faculty members in one survey identified themselves as left of center."

ABC correspondent Dan Harris ran down a series of examples to back up this storyline, beginning with a community college that wouldn't allow a screening of the movie "Passion of the Christ" because it had an R rating. Harris went next to a soundbite from David French of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: "You're going to get more political and intellectual diversity at your average suburban mega-church than you are at an elite university." Harris prefaced that statement by calling French's group "non-partisan," seemingly an attempt to make an obviously ideological soundbite seem less so.

...It appeared that an attempt to balance these perspectives would come from former university president Robert O'Neil. Harris reported that O'Neil "says conservative students may be trying to protect themselves from ideas they don't like." But O'Neil's soundbite fed ABC's storyline: "I think there's a sense that, well, liberals have had their way and they've advanced their views for quite some time. There should be balance."

Actually, "balance" is not a major principle in academia, where professors are supposed to be chosen for the excellence of their scholarship, not for their ideological views. But it is a professed value of journalism, which makes this an odd comment by Harris:

"Many academics say conservatives are blowing a few isolated incidents way out of proportion in order to launch a McCarthyesque witch hunt, which is designed to intimidate professors, limit academic freedom and promote a sort of affirmative action for conservative professors."

If "many academics" are saying this, why weren't they included in the report, rather than being paraphrased by the correspondent? If ABC did not want to give the professors attacked a chance to respond, the network was at least obligated to check the accuracy of the stories the students were telling-- and note that the full story was more complicated.

As a graduate student in sociology, I will say that, as with most lies, there is an inkling of truth here. My department is full of people who would, for the most part, identify as politically liberal. Of course, I am in sociology. One wouldn't find the same thing in the building next door where the economics department lives. Nor would one find the same thing if they wandered over to the school of management or, for that matter, if they walked across campus to the "hard sciences," where the real money is at. If there is a "liberal bias" in academia, it's in the poorest disciplines with the least influence on the direction of the University and the larger community. And if even this degree of influence irks conservatives, they should consider the extreme pacifying effect that a career in academia has on these "tenured radicals." Pick up the latest issue of the American Journal of Sociology and I seriously challenge you to find a better way to preoccupy those who otherwise may be "dangerous revolutionaries" with irrelevant, jargon-filled, overly-intellectual squabbles. Trust me, if a left-wing revolution occurs in this country, it won't be tenured PhD's leading the charge.

The Take

2005-02-04T09:46:00.000-06:00

I saw the movie The Take last night. This last year or two has seen a huge number of lefty documentary type films, but not many of them are incredibly uplifting, but this one is.

It's about how workers from shut down factories in Argentina are expropriating the factories from their owners, cleaning them up and then beginning production again, running the factories as democratic cooperatives owned by the workers themselves. The "Recovered Factory" movement in Argentina is now 200 factories strong (at the time of the film anyway) and they're forming trade networks with one another and helping each other fight the owners and politicians trying to shut down the factories.

One of the key themes in the movie is the tension between electoral politics and the movement. Most are ambivalent, if not downright hostile, to both the "left" and "right" candidates in the Presidential campaign documented in the film and view electoral politics as a corrupt, empty spectacle and a distraction. The workers sees themselves as the agents of change and see themselves as building a new type of economy and a new type of world, in opposition to the world built on "the model" imposed by the IMF. Of course, politics do matter: on several occassions, the film shows how the courts and the legislature step in to either halt or advance the efforts of the cooperatives. But the political system in these examples is really just providing a more or less hospitable environment for the workers, who are really the ones pushing change forward.

In one scene, a worker at one of the cooperatives says that he supports Menen, the right-wing candidate, in the election. This really isn't so surprising though, if you think about it. Workplace democracy is not something that is a part of the dominant public discourse in "capitalist democracies," so why should this guy connect his actions at work with the political sphere? When the workers talk about what they're doing, they talk about how they value working together, being productive, having a fair distribution of earnings and sharing in responsible management. These are not radical values. In fact, if you listen carefully, pro-capitalist politicians and pundits invoke these values all the time to justify capitalism. The only difference is that the worker cooperatives, unlike capitalist workplaces, actually embody these values, and that's what makes them radical.

Anyway, I highly recommend the movie. I managed to catch the very last showing of it in the Twin Cities (that's currently scheduled, at least), but I'm sure it'll be available on DVD sometime soon.

Bush's "Town"

2005-02-04T08:28:00.000-06:00

Bush held a "Town Hall" forum in Fargo yesterday to give a speech on Social Security.*

*And by "town," I mean, "only the people who support Bush already." Yes, that wonderfully democratic practice of banning potential opposition at all of W's appearances has continued into his Presidency.

He's continuing some other practices from the campaign as well. Especially that whole "dishonesty" thing. For example,

I recognized that these frivolous lawsuits are running up the cost of medicine, and therefore, they're affecting federal budgets. I believe the medical liability crisis is a national problem that requires a national solution, and Congress needs to get a good bill to my desk this year.

How can this be the case when, according to the CBO, malpractice costs represent less than 2 percent of overall health care spending?

Of course, he also repeated many of the misleading statements he made about social security a few nights ago in the State of the Union address.

Uncle al-Yawer Wants You to Stay in Iraq!

2005-02-01T08:43:00.000-06:00

Iraq's president said Tuesday it would be "complete nonsense'' to ask foreign troops to leave the country now, although some could depart by year's end.

Sorry, I just thought the picture was funny.

Only 29 Dead? Party time!

2005-01-31T14:01:00.000-06:00

What kind of world are we living in where these stories can be reported about the same event?

One:

It's Party Time

Riding high on the successful elections in Iraq, President Bush and his aides now turn their focus homeward, as they look to Wednesday night's State of the Union address...

Two:

BAGHDAD -- An overnight rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad that killed two Americans and injured four others set the tone for the election Sunday.

By the end of the day at least 29 people had been killed in attacks on polling stations and voters.

An hour after polling stations opened at 7am, mortar blasts began echoing across the capital city, at almost an attack a minute at times.

"Unborn Child Pain"

2005-01-31T09:17:00.000-06:00

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, whom I had the pleasure of joining for lunch and a bible study once upon a time (another story, another time), has introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act:

The legislation would not ban any procedures. Instead, it would require doctors to tell women considering abortions who are 20 weeks pregnant or more that “there is substantial evidence” the fetus will feel pain. The doctor would then have to offer the woman anesthesia for the fetus as part of the abortion.

The legislation says the doctor can tell the woman what he or she thinks about the likelihood of the fetus feeling pain or about anesthesia risks. The woman would have to sign a form saying whether she accepted the anesthesia.

“This is the No. 1 issue with the pro-life community,” said Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, the sponsor of the legislation in the Senate. “It's my hope that … once a woman would know her child is going to experience extraordinary pain in this dismemberment that she would say, ‘I don't want do this to this child.'”

On one or two occasions, I've written about how strange it is to me that these people claim to be "pro-life," yet only seem to care about life before birth, not after. This has never made sense to me.

I was having this discussion with someone the other day that pointed out one of the reasons for this: it all has to do with baptism. Apparently, according to Christian theology, a child cannot go to heaven until it's been baptized. Abortion prevents a baby from being baptized. Therefore, you're robbing a soul the chance to return to heaven. Once baptized, who really cares about their life while they're here on earth; earth is just a temporary stop on the way to an eternity in heaven.

Don't know if that's correct or not, but if so, it's an interesting insight into Christianist thought.

Scientific Method 101

2005-01-31T09:06:00.000-06:00

In my home state of Kansas, the evolution debate is heating up again. Mike Hendricks of the KC Star gives a helpful little primer on the scientific method before the debate gets too hot:

"Yes, it's that time of year when a lot of fourth-graders are planning their first science projects.

At our house, we're conducting experiments on ice. Which substance is the most effective in melting ice cubes arranged carefully in identical cereal bowls? Kitty litter, play sand or salt?

I'd tell you, but it doesn't matter. What does is that we're learning the scientific method. My daughter and her classmates know a hypothesis is not a wild notion. It's an educated guess.

And they've learned that the only way to test the validity of a hypothesis is through experimentation and evaluation of evidence, not guesswork or personal belief.

Fourth-graders get it. A few of them even understand that hypotheses are the building blocks of scientific theories. Too bad some adults don't have a clue.

Get a load of this Associated Press story out of Georgia:

ATLANTA — A state lawmaker Thursday introduced legislation designed to prevent the theory of evolution from being taught in Georgia's classrooms.

The bill by Republican Rep. Ben Bridges requires only “scientific fact” be taught in public schools — in his mind ruling out the theory of evolution.

“It's in the book that it's a theory, but these teachers teach it like it's a fact,” he said. “Let's teach them the truth or don't teach them anything.”

My hypothesis: It's been awhile since this Bridges dude helped with a school science project. Otherwise, he'd know that much of science hinges on theories.

Theories based on hard facts, but theories all the same."

It's interesting to note that the "teaching as scientific fact" argument is also invoked by leftish academics, pointing to the use of "scientific fact" to justify slavery, eugenics, imperialism, patriarchy (Harvard President Larry Summers as the recent example of this) and more. The examples aren't always quite as evil: qualitative sociologists will tell you, correctly, that their quantitative counterparts and, worst of all, economists, label their research methods as more scientific and, therefore, more legitimate and valuable.

Of course, criticizing these uses of "science" is justified, but they often miss the point that Hendrick's fourth grader understands: the problem with these claims is not that they are science, but that they are not scientific. Without getting into a lengthy discussion of the philosophy of science, the defining feature of the scientific method is falsifiability - the notion that "truth" is always contingent on evidence. It may be the case at any given time and place that much of "science," as an institution, is in fact "unscientific."

Evolution is accepted as a scientific theory to the extent that it's consistent with evidence. Creationism is rejected as a scientific theory to the extent that it's fundamental propositions reject the very necessity of evidence and falsifiability. If we give up the principles of the scientific method because of the way "science," as an institution, has been misused throughout history, we may end up losing a lot more than we intended.

Norm's Teeth

2005-01-31T08:24:00.000-06:00

Smile!

Do the Tilt

2005-01-30T10:00:00.000-06:00

Want a free iTunes download? Here's how you can tell if your Pepsi bottle's a winner. Too bad we only have vending machines on campus. Too bad you still have to buy a Pepsi. Ok, I really just thought it was funny to imagine a bunch of kids in the soda row at the grocery store tipping all the bottles, straining to see if they could get a 99 cent prize.

Sharon Stone Hijacks WEF

2005-01-29T17:24:00.000-06:00

Just another up-to-no-good, America-hating hollywood liberal:

"DAVOS, Switzerland - Actress Sharon Stone hijacked the staid World Economic Forum on Friday, interrupting a panel on poverty with a spur-of-the-moment fund-raiser that within minutes brought in more than $1 million to fight malaria in Africa.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was moderating a session on anti-poverty efforts when Stone stood to address a panel that included Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the presidents of Brazil and Tanzania.

'Please identify yourself,' said Frist, perhaps one of the few men on the planet who couldn't visually identify the sultry star of such hit movies as 'Basic Instinct' and 'Casino.'

'Sharon Stone,' she said dryly, proceeding to announce that she was giving $10,000 on the spot to help Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mbaka's anti-malaria efforts. As Frist tried to steer the conversation back to poverty, Stone talked over him, urging people to stand up and give to Mbaka.

'People are dying in his country today,' she said."

Way to go, Dr. Frist.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy...

2005-01-29T11:50:00.000-06:00

In case you're wondering what's going on in the Metropolitan Twin Cities area today, here's a quick breakdown, in order, of all the stories at the top of the Metro/Region page of the Star Tribune's site today:

• Illness
• Crime
• Big Lawsuit
• Rising tuition
• Murder
• Crime
• Crime
• Kidnapping
• Fatal Crash
• Murder
• Illness
• Crooked politicians
• Winter Carnival
• Traffic
• Traffic Jam
• Car Crash

Ok, you should now have a pretty good idea of what life is like in the Twin Cities. We kill each other, commit a lot of crimes, catch lots of illnesses, sue each other, get in automobile accidents and have a carnival each winter to celebrate it all.

Funny, if you go to the metro page of other city's papers, it looks like they pretty much do the same stuff - minus the Winter Carnival.

Is this why people don't read/watch the news?

Joementum's Trust and Confidence

2005-01-29T11:33:00.000-06:00

Joementum:

"One of the great strengths that Condoleezza Rice will bring to the office of Secretary of State is that the world knows that she has the President’s trust and confidence..."

Joementum thinks it's comforting to the rest of the world that she has Bush's trust? Since when does having the trust of someone who you don't trust mean that you trust them?

They're Still Underdogs! Really!

2005-01-28T11:04:00.000-06:00

Which world do they live in?:

"The Republican Party is following up record fund raising for President Bush's re-election effort by asking donors to finance its efforts to get Bush's message 'past the liberal media filter' to the public."

I'm amazed - these guys still have themselves convinced that the media is liberal and out to get them. Of course, the media has never been the aggressive watch-dog they like to pretend they are, but no President has gotten an easier ride from the corporate media. He lies his way into Iraq without serious challenge and his re-election campaign somehow turns into a referendum on the character of the challenger, more than the incumbent. Yes, life is hard as a Republican in Washington these days.

Whorehouse Days?

2005-01-27T16:07:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine's family lives in Nevada, MO where they have "Bushwacker Days" every year to celebrate Missouri's pro-slavery past. Some people in Gilbert, MN are apparently jealous of town's that celebrate their seedy past and want to get in on the action:

GILBERT, Minn. -- A group of residents is trying to make the most of this Iron Range town's notorious past, but city officials say Gilbert Whorehouse Days is a bad name for a town festival.

A group of angry citizens showed up at a City Council meeting Tuesday to protest the event, which is being planned by some members of Gilbert After Hours Inc. The festival's name refers to a time when Gilbert was known for its bars, gambling, and ``working girls'' during the Prohibition.

"The damage has been done,'' resident Fran Marolt said. ``This is not a family-oriented activity.''

The event doesn't include any of the activities that gave the festival its name, but City Council members still don't approve.

"It would give us a black eye,'' City Council member Dan Berry said.

Organizers say the festival - and its name - are meant to bring back a part of history. The festival is planned for two days in July and includes a car show, antique fair and bank robbery reenactment.

My favorite part is that they have to say that the "event doesn't include any of the activities that gave the festival its name."

If you missed it, the Daily Show did one of their little skits on the Charlie Brown statues in St. Paul this week (watch it here), which is a shame, because I think they picked the wrong story to come to Minnesota for: I couldn't stop picturing Rob Corddy interviewing the whole town about Whorehouse Days.

"It's like fencing..."

2005-01-27T09:48:00.000-06:00

Quick test: is this from a) the Onion, or b) actual news?

An Oklahoma state senator hopes to revive cockfighting in the state by putting tiny boxing gloves on the roosters instead of razors.

The Oklahoma Legislature outlawed the blood sport in 2002 because of its cruelty to the roosters, which are slashed and pecked to death while human spectators bet on the outcome.

But Sen. Frank Shurden, D-Henryetta, a long-time defender of cockfighting, said the ban had wiped out a $100 million business.

To revive it, he has proposed that roosters wear little boxing gloves attached to their spurs, as well as lightweight, chicken-size vests configured with electronic sensors to record hits and help keep score.

“It’s like the fencing that you see on the Olympics, you know, where they have little balls on the ends of the swords and the fencers wear vests,” Shurden said. “That’s the same application that would be applied to the roosters.”

Yep, that's actual news

The "L" Word

2005-01-26T15:14:00.000-06:00

Sen. Dayton's using the "L" word:

"'I don't like impugning anyone's integrity,' Dayton said. 'But I really don't like being lied to--repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally.'

'My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration's lies must stop now,' the Minnesotan explained."

Alright! 'Bout time.

This Week in Suicide

2005-01-26T14:59:00.000-06:00

Suicide is in the news:

1. Bill Haas, a St. Louis School Board member who is currently running for mayor, announced on his blog he might kill himself:

Haas writes that his online diary, called a blog, is "a little bit of a cry for help, and a lot just coming to peace with my passing, and sort of a last note." The blog entry - which covers two and half printed pages - provides extensive details about Haas' life, his bouts with depression and his money troubles. It says his "last day" may come sometime this spring or early summer after he euthanizes his three-legged cat and other pets.

"So what's this about?" he writes. "In a nutshell, I'm 60 years old, still all alone. ... Unless something breaks professionally in the next couple of months, I'm going to be out of money and then I'm going to put the animals to sleep and take my life."

2. In LA, a guy parked his car on the commuter train rails in a suicide attempt, but apparently changed his mind, left his car, and then watched as two trains derailed and collided into each other and a parked car after hitting the guy's car, still parked on the rails, killing at least 10 people.

As if the actual news wasn't disturbing enough: you know how they have "Ads by Google" now on news sites that correspond with the content of the article? The first ad on the Bill Haas story says, "Suicide Thoughts? Take this quick test to find answers: www.GodTest.com." The first ad on the train crash story? "DefensiveDriving.com: Accepted by all courts in Texas. www.DefensiveDriving.com." Apparently, this will allow you to drive defensively well enough to dodge derailed commuter rail trains...even in Texas.

George W. Bush's "Culture of Life"

2005-01-25T18:20:00.000-06:00

George W. Bush, yesterday:

"We are working to promote a culture of life"

A quick look at George W. Bush's "culture of life":

• 17,703 dead Iraqis

• 1,372 dead American soldiers

• Ranking 35th in the world in infant mortality rate.

• 35.9 million Americans living in poverty with nearly one in five Americans under 18 living in poverty.

• 3.8 million Americans losing health care since Bush took office.

• Ordering Torture.

• Presiding over 152 executions, often with inadequate information (and then nominating the guy who gave you that information for Attorney General).

• Killing the environment

• Repealing Roe v. Wade

Ah....Life!

If you're not disturbed enough already, look at this analysis of the religious language in Bush's inaugural address.

Sexy, Sexy Sauerkraut

2005-01-25T17:21:00.000-06:00

Hilarious

"Suddenly, sauerkraut is SEXY."

So says a press release from an Ohio-based company that's trying to re-brand the less-than-glamorous cabbage product.

...Part of the sex-appeal shortfall is the appearance. Sauerkraut is "a damn fine food product," says Jim Grell, co-owner of the Modern Cafe in Minneapolis, and "incredibly nutritious," says Brenda Langton of Cafe Brenda in Minneapolis.

But that doesn't make it alluring. It's a stringy, viscous substance that can stick to your face like grout on a bathroom wall. Not romantic.

...Oh, and turning cabbage into sauerkraut -- definitely not sexy. It takes about three weeks, and it's far from pretty. "Sauerkraut is, in fact, rotting cabbage," says Goodman, who has experience with the fermenting process. "That's how it's made."

Before one of my classes today, there was this girl eating a huge pickle as a snack - nothing but a huge pickle. That sounds disgusting to me, but you can imagine how they could make pickles sexy (especially if you have a very dirty mind). Sauerkraut though?

"God's Politics"?

2005-01-24T10:46:00.000-06:00

Lately, Jim Wallis and his book "God's Politics" have been getting a lot of attention. He was on John Stewart last week, he's been making the rounds on all the Air America shows, he's been on lots of TV shows, etc. Basically, he's an evangelical Christian arguing that Christianity demands progressive, not conservative, politics. A nice idea, and one that's certainly more in line with my understanding of the Bible from back when I used to read it, and it certainly provides a needed counter-weight to the hegemony of the Christian Right in this country, but I'm still uneasy about a "Christian Left." Surely, throughout history, Christianity has served as a source of organization and inspiration for Left and Right alike, but, while I admit I haven't actually read Wallis' book, Katha Pollitt identifies several of the reasons I'm uneasy about this stuff in the book. For example:

...throughout God's Politics: "religion" and "faith" are usually synonyms for Christianity, and Christianity mostly means evangelical Protestantism. Evangelicals get most of the credit for everything good in US history, from women's suffrage to the civil rights movement. This would surprise skeptics like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who spent her life battling scriptural arguments for male supremacy, and the secular Jews and leftists who made up so much of the civil rights movement's white base. And what about the opponents of women's rights and racial integration? Weren't a lot of them evangelicals too? At times Wallis seems to be in a kind of denial: If it's wrong, it isn't truly evangelical, therefore evangelicalism is purely good. Today's robust evangelical right is the fault of--wait for it--"secular fundamentalists"! Blame it on the ACLU.

Wallis's God calls on Christians to fight racism, poverty, war and violence--what's wrong with mustering support for these worthy goals by presenting them in the language spoken by so many Americans? The trouble is, the other side does that too. You can find anything you want in the Bible--well, almost anything. Thus, the more insistently people bring Christianity into politics, the more political argument becomes a matter of Christian hermeneutics.

Is this really Minnesota?

2005-01-22T13:40:00.000-06:00

Aren't we supposed to be able to handle snow here in Minnesota? Not anymore, apparently. Now, six inches of snow = a "snow emergency." The problem is that there simply isn't enough money in the budget to plow the streets properly. The sidewalks on my street are more clear than the street because people have at least shovelled their own sidewalks (I shovelled mine at 1:00 a.m. last night so I wouldn't have to get up early this morning). But, thanks to budget cuts, the city can't afford as many snow plows as in the past, so we get unplowed streets - even many of the major streets are still a mess this morning.

So thanks to Gov. Pawlenty's "no tax" pledge, to name just one culprit, we're going to have more car wrecks and corresponding injuries/deaths than if we had an adequate budget for a Minnesota winter. Perhaps the Republicans are just hoping that global warming will eventually take care of the problem.

As if I needed more reasons to be salty over this, I overheard a suburbanite friend discussing how their streets and driveways (I don't think they need sidewalks in suburbia) get plowed by their neighborhood association, paid for out of their $16 monthly fees. Now this person is a friend, and most of my family and myself have spent most of our lives living in suburbs, so I'm not trying to lash out at individual surburbanites, but this is just another example of what's wrong with the suburbs. Why do we not have sufficient public funds for winter snow removal? In no small part because of the conservative, "no new taxes" voting bloc that is suburbia. Do they care? No. They'll take care of themselves through neighborhood associations and things like that, leaving the rest of the public on their own to deal with the problem.

As I've written before, this is what suburbia is all about: building a nice white, middle class bubble to isolate suburbanites from the problems and responsibilities of larger society and to take care of Number One first, screw everyone else. Like I said, I'm a product of suburbia - lived there all of my life until very recently. This isn't necessarily a conscious thing at all - but it is the functional effect of suburbia.

It's also really freakin' windy out, so now I've got to go shovel again.

Fox News Meltdown

2005-01-20T20:10:00.000-06:00

For those of you who don't have cable and, hence, the pleasure of getting Fox News, watch this clip. Judy Bachrach of Vanity Fair is a guest in this clip and she decides to criticize Bush for having such an elaborate, expensive inauguration. Fox's Brigitte Quinn doesn't like this! Her reaction to this small bit of Bush criticism might give you an idea of the type of obedient behavior they're used to from their guests.

No Apologies!

2005-01-20T20:04:00.000-06:00

Harvard President Larry Summers apologized for making remarks suggesting that women do worse in math and science because of inherent biological differences.

I hate public apologies. Public figures say truly revolting things all the time and whenever it happens, a quick apology functions to end discussion on the topic, even when further discussion may actually be healthy. Famous people are, after all, real people, too. Real people say revolting things all the time. The truth is that revolting beliefs about gender, race, class, ethnicity and nationalism are actually quite pervasive and are a very real part of who we are as a society and a world. Instead of using it as a springboard to talk about the underlying social problems and conflicts that their statement might highlight, we get a quick apologize, a recognition that they've violated the norms of public discourse, and we move on as if nothing happened.

So why would a wealthy, educated, successful white man like Larry Summers say that women are biologically inferior to men when it comes to math and science? Is there such a disparity? What else might cause this disparity? Do other people agree with Summers? We don't need to have this discussion though - he apologized!

Funny how their tune changes...

2005-01-20T19:33:00.000-06:00

Along with all the faculty and staff at the University today, I got an email from Carol Carrier, the Vice President of Human Relations. This email announces the exciting results of a survey they've taken to show just how much they care about us. A few weeks back, I got an exciting email announcing a slight pay increase for graduate students.

I first got to know Carol Carrier's name when the clerical worker's went on strike. Then the emails I got from her were describing the risks of striking (lost wages) and explaining that non-striking staff (such as graduate students) may be called upon to make up for the missing labor.

Did I mention that grad students are currently in the process of forming a union? Funny how the administration's tune changes when they're trying to prevent a union drive (employee satisfaction surveys! small raises!) as opposed to when established unions are threatening a strike to prevent pay & benefit cuts (you'll lose pay! co-workers will resent you!).

First Day of School

2005-01-18T21:33:00.000-06:00

Today was the first day of classes...for my last semester of classes! So nice. I won't even complain about how I'm not feeling so great about the only class I've actually attended. Who cares! It's my last semester of classes! I'm hoping that frequently reminding myself of this fact will prevent my normal early semester slump. I don't know why, but I always go through this, "What in the hell am I doing here?!" phase during the first few weeks of every semester. Then I sort of get comfortable with the fact that I don't really know the answer to that question and manage to coast through the rest of the semester, only to get hit with it again the following semester. It's occuring to me now that blogging about this is probably dooming me to the worst slump ever...

BioWillie

2005-01-16T11:51:00.000-06:00

Awhile back, I wrote a posting about biodiesel fuel. At the time, I was hopeful that, in the distant future, biodiesel would be available for our diesel-burning TDI Jetta. Now, however, I know it's on the way:

"On the Road Again" means something new for Willie Nelson these days - a chance for truckers to fill their tanks with clean-burning biodiesel fuel.

Nelson and three business partners recently formed a company called Willie Nelson's Biodiesel that is marketing the fuel to truck stops. The product - called BioWillie - is made from vegetable oils, mainly soybeans, and can be burned without modification to diesel engines.

It may be difficult to picture the 71-year-old hair-braided Texas rebel as an energy company executive, but the singer's new gig is in many ways about social responsibility - and that is classic Nelson.

"There is really no need going around starting wars over oil. We have it here at home. We have the necessary product, the farmers can grow it," said Nelson, who organized Farm Aid two decades ago to draw attention to the plight of American agriculture.

Because, once Willie gets behind something, it happens. That's why Dennis Kucinich is now our President. And can you believe they're calling it "BioWillie"?

Brrrr....

2005-01-14T13:26:00.000-06:00

See, I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, by Sunday it's supposed to get up to -1. But, on the other hand, Sunday will have the lowest low of all three days, -20. Why do I live here, again?

Using Computers is Manual Labor

2005-01-13T23:32:00.000-06:00

So I haven't been blogging much lately because I've been spending much of my time in front of a computer working on a website for our department, so I've been avoiding the computer when I'm not working. Staring at the computer screen all day is really taking it's toll on me. Let me explain. Tonight, I decided I was going to have a relaxing night at home, but I wasn't going to be on the computer at all. My eyes have been bugging me the last couple of days and I know it's due to too much time in front of the computer, so...what to do. Well, if using the computer is out because of eye strain, so is TV and reading. So I play my guitar for awhile. This works for a little while, but thanks to too much time typing (along with those big ol' strings I mentioned a few posts back), my hands are kinda sore, so that doesn't last long. Ok, I'm in a musical mood, so I'll just play around on my new keyboard...but, oh, it's a MIDI keyboard, requiring me to plug it into my computer to work. Plus, the lessons I have are on the computer screen as well. We've been having trouble with our wireless router lately, so I decided to work on it, but that also requires staring at a computer screen. So far the only things I've found I can do are the dishes (which are so done) and vacuum, but the damn vacuum cleaner's broken. I can probably find instructions to fix it...with my computer.

Obstructionism and Voting

2005-01-07T12:59:00.000-06:00

My little sarcastic posting yesterday about the fear of the Dems to be labelled "obstructionist" made me want to say more about this point.

I don't understand why this is such a bad word, first of all. If you're in the opposition party, isn't your job to oppose, or obstruct the agenda of the dominant party? Weren't you elected to carry out a particular agenda and when that agenda is compromised by the actions of the dominant party, don't you owe it to your constituents to do all you can to obstruct those actions?

Of course, this is the problem: all of this presupposes you have an agenda of your own. Currently, most Democrats do not.

One place to start? Support Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s constitutional amendment guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote. What should the related election reform look like? I like Kos' suggestions:

• Extend election day to at least a week. Keep ALL polls open during that time, not just a few at county HQ.

• Get rid of partisan election officials. A more ridiculous and inherently unfair system can never exist. It is the King of Conflicts of Interests.

• Implement a national standard for voting and fund it.

• Get rid of touch screen voting machines. A paper trail is useless, as a machine could easily be programmed to cast the vote for candidate A, while printing a receipt with candidate B's name on it.

• Select optical scan machines. The technology allows for quick tabulation of the votes, while retaining a paper trail for random audits and full recounts.

• All precincts that reported lines longer than one hour should be required to add voting machines before the next election.

• The pitiful state of voting infrastructure in poor and minority areas is literally criminal, and redress should be sought both in the legislatures and in the courts.

• Ditch the electoral college.

Media Whores for Bush

2005-01-07T12:26:00.000-06:00

Unbelievable:

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

Yes, you read that correctly. $240,000 in tax payer dollars went to a "journalist" to get him to promote No Child Left Behind. Another example of that free and independent media we're always hearing about...

Unfortunately, this isn't the only time things like this have happened recently. Example #2 are "VNRs," short for "video news release". One example:

When a VNR touting the controversial Medicare reform law ended with "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan, reporting," Senate Democrats called foul. The VNR, which aired on 40 stations between January 22 and February 12, 2004, was paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Ryan, the "reporter," was in fact employed by a production company contracted by the Ketchum PR firm to create the VNR for HHS. An investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office concluded that the VNR had violated a ban on government funded "publicity and propaganda." According to The Hill, a newspaper based in Washington, D.C., "VNRs are standard practice in the public-relations industry and local news reports often rely on them."

...Karen Ryan was back in the news in October, when the liberal-leaning People for the American Way identified another Ryan VNR. This time Ryan "reported" on the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind law. A Freedom of Information Act investigation revealed that the U.S. Education Department paid $700,000 to the PR firm to produce two VNRs as well as to rate newspaper coverage according to how favorably reporters described No Child Left Behind. "A number of local stations ran the VNR as is, and added a local twist by simply having their own reporter read the script," reported CampaignDesk.org, a journalist watchdog website.

For more fun features of our post-truth world, check out the link above in example #2 for more "Falsies."

Democrats to Force Debate on Ohio Results

2005-01-06T10:29:00.000-06:00

Sen. Barbara Boxer will force debate on Ohio results.

Senate Dems: Are we an opposition party? What's that?
Senator Boxer: Here, I will show you. (signs challenge)
Senate Dems: Oooh, that takes spine! A tad risky! Some might call it...obstructionist!
Senator Boxer: Yes, you big babies. That's how you get shit done. Watch and learn.

Update:
Senate Dems: No thanks, Barb. It's easier to be cowards and not risk losing the power and good reputation we currently have...and oh, do we have great power and reputation! Right? Right?

Random New Years Thoughts

2005-01-05T22:21:00.000-06:00

1. French press coffee makers really do make better coffee. Apparently, the key is that the paper filter in drip makers catch all the oils from the coffee beans and this oil is what gives coffee it's aroma and flavor. French press makers retain these oils instead of trapping them in a paper filter. And they're cheaper. And they're really simple. Good Christmas gift.

2. Heavy gauge guitar strings rock. I've played 9's all my life. Switched to 10's this summer. Switched to 11's two days ago. They sound better, stay in tune better and, while slightly harder to bend, are actually easier to play in tune than floppy light strings. Plus, you feel like Superman if you get used to 11's and pick up a guitar with 9's.

3. It's cold in Minnesota. It's warmer in Kansas.

4. When all of your friends get older, employed, married/otherwise "attached" and move out of state, it's a lot harder to stay in touch with old friends when you go home for the holidays. This is a shame.

5. I'm multi-instrumental! For Christmas, I got a MIDI keyboard and computer-based piano lessons. Maybe soon I'll be able to play more than just the white keys.

6. Howard Dean should be the next DNC Chair and Russ Feingold should be the 2008 Dem nominee. That's two big decisions taken care of - what's next?

7. Another example of capitalism's absurdities: it's rumored that Apple is currently putting 5 GB drives into iPod mini's because they ran out of 4 GBers. Problem? They haven't actually announced the 5 GB model yet, so they're just limiting the capacity of the new 5 GB drives to 4 GBs. A few years back, I remember they were limiting the speed of their processors so that they wouldn't eat into the market for the higher end laptops. I have Apple stuff, so I bitch about Apple, but this is standard industry stuff that all companies do. This is the "rationality" and "efficiency" of the invisible hand!

8. Number of the week, candidate number 1: "More than 886,000 deaths could have been prevented from 1991 to 2000 if African Americans had received the same care as whites, according to an analysis in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health."

9. Number of the week, candidate number 2: Bush's initial proposal for tsunami aid: $15 million. Expected price of Bush's inauguration ceremony later this month? $40 million.

10. Mail-in rebates are crap. And they're everywhere now. Instead of having sale prices, stores just have mail-in rebates which are a huge pain-in-the-ass. The only reason I can think they do this is that they know that a lot of people will be too lazy to actually fill out the rebate form, cut out the UPC code and mail it all in.

Goin' to Kansas City

2004-12-26T01:05:00.000-06:00

We're heading home for the next week so I probably won't be posting much. In the meantime, my kitten will be guarding my laptop, to prevent any accidental blogging:

Merry Christmas

2004-12-25T10:48:00.000-06:00

Santa gave Jesus a pogo stick for his birthday.

Update: Good reading for this Christmas Day. An excerpt:

Every Sunday in church, Christians recite the Nicene Creed. "Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven. And was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary and was made man; was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried; and the third day rose again according to the Scriptures." It's the official summary of the Christian faith but, astonishingly, it jumps straight from birth to death, apparently indifferent to what happened in between.

Nicene Christianity is the religion of Christmas and Easter, the celebration of a Jesus who is either too young or too much in agony to shock us with his revolutionary rhetoric. The adult Christ who calls his followers to renounce wealth, power and violence is passed over in favor of the gurgling baby and the screaming victim. As such, Nicene Christianity is easily conscripted into a religion of convenience, with believers worshipping a gagged and glorified savior who has nothing to say about how we use our money or whether or not we go to war.

Adult Christ also liked to pogo. Christians should be more like Adult Christ.

Feinstein wants end to Electoral College

2004-12-24T16:28:00.000-06:00

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college. I remember as an undergrad, our Intro to Polisci class couldn't believe how stupid the electoral college was and our prof said that it would never change unless it started screwing stuff up. Well...

Interesting stuff I didn't know though:

Feinstein's staff pointed out Wednesday that 25 years ago, the Senate voted 51-48 for a proposal to abolish the Electoral College, a majority but still far short of the two-thirds required. About 10 years before that, the House voted 338-70 for abolishment, but the Senate didn't act that year.