Sham-Ouch!

The ubiquitously-perky infomercial pitchman for the ShamWow and Slap Chop was arrested for getting into a fight with a hooker at his posh hotel room. I'm not really sure what I can add to this in way of commentary other than to say this is actually a photo of his mugshot:

Never-Fitting In...

During college I decided I would never fit-in anywhere, because I was too radical to fit in with conventional people, but I had too good of a relationship with my parents to fit in with the radical kids. I often joke that my parents are the reason I never became a famous musician, because they raised me in a stupid loving home and always took time out for me. It's not exactly the kind of childhood you can write heroin-inspired garage-rock songs about.

And much to their credit, my parents still wholly accept and understand, though not always agree with, their little socialist agitator. But even more impressively, they accept and even understand their little pop-culture junkie who is amused by any and every form of mass-produced detritus. Thus, the above Edible Easter Grass, which is not only Imported From Germany but is described enthusiastically as "Grass-Tastic!"

Oh, and in case you're curious, it not only "FILLS A BASKET" full of green-apple (an Easter tradition for centuries...?) flavored edible grass, it's also "GREAT FOR CRAFTS TOO!"

While it's Grass-Tastic! taste is something like actual grass dipped in cheap imitation-apple powder and it's texture can best be described as "sandpapery," there's a mere 100 calories per bag, so you can feel free to fill and eat a whole basket of it without feeling guilty.

This could well become a holiday tradition...

Congress, Priorities, and Taking Any Justice You Can Get

Congress oh-so-rarely does anything I agree with. Nationalized health care is not even up for discussion, despite so many favoring it and clearly sending a message by electing large majorities of Democrats in each chamber and a Democratic president. Similarly, the war isn't ending any time soon, despite everyone and their dog being opposed to it and electing people who were supposedly going to end it.

Really, the only thing I've agreed with Congress on in a long while was that someone needed to bring all of those obviously-juicing baseball players down a peg. Of course, why Congress had to do this in the middle of a war and on the brink of the largest financial meltdown since the Great Depression is beyond me. But still, for possibly the only time I can remember, Congress and I had dove-tailing interests, and it was nice.

Well, once again, I may question their timing, but I'm on board with Congress as they are now set to hold hearings on the possibility of an anti-trust case against the BCS.

Again, this is really not the time, but I think, unlike steroids in baseball, Congress has a clear and actually justifiable reason to be getting into this. Now, obviously ranking sports teams is an inherently subjective process, open to endless debate. However, as any sports fan between the Allegheny river and the Rocky Mountains can tell you, most of the rankings seem to be based on proximity to major media centers.

If this were just people getting pissy about their teams being excluded from the big time (as it might be -- the bill was introduced by Orrin Hatch of Utah not too long after Utah was prominently snubbed from a chance at the national championship), it would be a terrible waste of time. But there are real issues behind this. College football has steadfastly refused to adopt a playoff system and instead decides the two teams who get to vie for the crown on four different polls and 2 obtuse and indecipherable computer rankings. So unlike basketball or baseball championships, where a good ranking can certainly help you out quite a bit, there is absolutely no chance of a cinderella-style upset. Furthermore, there are 8 BCS Bowl Games, to which every "major" conference champion gets an automatic invite.

And again, if this were just complaining about who gets a pretty trophy it would be pointless. But every college bowl game comes with a payout to each team, usually with more to the winner. Your less prestigious bowls like the Meineke Car Cares and Insight.Coms of the world have "meagre" payouts of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, the BCS Bowls have payouts in the millions. And considering that, contrary to popular opinion, most schools are actually losing money hand-over-fist with their football programs, this money could make a huge difference to some schools. Especially schools like Utah, that don't have the national visibility (and attendant merchandising and ad revenue) and aren't one of the only 16 college football teams that actually take in more money than they spend.

And granted, yes, the much more logical solution would to not spend such ludicrous sums and public funds on what is supposedly an amateur sport. But since that is just about as likely to happen as that damn war finally ending, I'm fine with at least trying to get the little(r) guys a chance...

Teaching Sociology: Minneapolis Just Ain't Manly

Gave my students a midterm this past week, and one of the questions they had the most difficulty answering was about what we sociologists call "oppositional masculinity." Simply put, it's the idea that being manly doesn't just mean acting in all the stereotypically manly ways (being aggressive, showing no emotions other than anger, needlessly harming your body to prove a point, etc.), but also means actively rejecting anything that can be seen as feminine. This is why, for example, many guys do not ever learn how to cook. Despite the fact that they probably need to eat just the same as anyone else, cooking is seen as feminine, and therefore not something you should do.

Well, here's a great example of that in action: Minneapolis was named the 18th manliest city in the U.S.

Ignoring the problematic criteria for what makes someone manly (it included the number of monster truck rallies, sports bars, licensed hunters, etc.), what was counted as feminine is especially revealing of how oppositional masculinity works. Points were subtracted for multiple "feminine" aspects, including the number of mini-van sales and home-furnishing stores.

Home-furnishing stores makes sense -- after all, truly manly men don't sit on things or sleep on beds. But minivan sales is the most telling. Of course manly men never take care of their children, for taking care of children is women's work. So even if you father children and love the children you have fathered, you're far less of a man if you buy a vehicle that makes sense for transporting the children you have sired.

Of course, maybe Minneapolis just lost so manly points because it's full of effete intellectual bloggers who complain about these type of things...

Who Populates the Seven Nations of Political Talk?

Those crazy statisticians over at Yale conducted a nationally representative survey a few weeks before the 2008 election looking at political beliefs and preference of talk shows. While many of the results are pretty predictable (more conservatives listen to Limbaugh, more young people watch Colbert), there were definitely some interesting, counter-intuitive findings in the results.

For example, Colbert draws by far the most conservative/Republican viewers of the the three left-leaning commentators in the study (Colbert, Stewart, and Olberman) and a full 23% of O'Reilly's viewers were planning on voting for Obama. I'd like to think the 22% of Colbert watchers who were planning no voting for McCain actually believe Colbert is a conservative...

This study also reinforces several other studies that have found those watching the left-leaning shows have much more education than both those who watch no news commentary shows and those who watch right-leaning shows. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

But what I find the most interesting is that the majority of respondents don't watch any of the shows in question. This could come from many reasons -- not having cable being high amongst them -- but could also represent a splintering of the general public. In interviewing renowned political sociologists Theda Skocpol yesterday for another fine podcast, she mentioned that one of the problems of the proliferation of media sources in recent years is that they tend to attract people who more-or-less already share their world view, while turning off those who don't. Thus, the majority of Americans who aren't into politics tend to simply tune it all out, to the detriment of shared public discourse. I'm not convinced that's actually happening, but the evidence seems to point that way...

The Carnival Mirror of Criminal Justice

Easily the best thing about teaching is the fact that you get to do essentially whatever you want. Obviously, you should probably be teaching something interesting/useful and something that fits under the title of the course, but beyond those two minimum requirements, you more or less have a room full of people who you can do whatever you want with. And as a nerd, that's very exciting.

This semester I'm teaching a large introductory lecture course on criminal behavior and social control, and while I'm covering all of the standard material, I'm taking a bit different track than most instructors. What I'm really trying to convey to the students more than anything else is what Jeffrey Reiman calls the carnival mirror of the criminal justice system. The carnival mirror is simply the idea that the criminal justice system places nearly all of its efforts and energies combating a specific type of crime, while ignoring other, arguably more dangerous, crimes. More specifically, pretty much all crime control is focused on the dangerous behavior of the poor (petty robbery, assault, etc.) while the dangerous behavior of the wealthy (pollution, union-busting, fraud, workplace injuries/deaths, etc.) is either ignored or legalized.

Here's a great example -- Carbon Motors Corp has developed a new "super" police car which will supposedly revolutionize the way police fight crime. They justify their $50,000 per car price tag with such handy inventions as an improved on-board computer, automatic license-plate recognition, and seats which more easily accommodate people with their hands cuffed behind their backs, to name a few. These cars will bring policing into the 21st century and make crime control better and easier, they claim.

But, unfortunately, the car has no way to catch Bernie Madoff. You see, while we're in the midst of the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, all caused by the reckless and more-often-than-not illegal activities of the wealthy, we're still pouring our crime control money into making sure cops can chase down drug dealers more easily.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't particularly want drug dealers hanging out and selling as openly as they do in my neighborhood, but the last time I checked, none of these dude's behavior has caused the global financial system to go into melt-down. Yet because of our distorted carnival-mirror view of crime, these petty drug dealers will continue to arrested en masse, while those responsible for the melt-down will be quite unlikely to be even charged for anything, let alone end up in the back of a new, high-tech squad car...

Loving the Losers

I could lay claim to rooting for two teams in this year's tourney: my plucky Panthers from the University of Northern Iowa and the Tubby-loving Gophers. Both predictably lost, though the Panthers at least made a game of it, unlike a certain local team.So, as it usually goes with any team I root for, I've now got no one left in the tournament.

I'll still watch most of the remaining games, as March basketball is always pretty entertaining. But it's exponentially more so when you have someone to root for. Even the team I only have the most tangential of connections to (American University, the lady friend's alma matter) bowed out despite looking like they might pull off a massive upset.

However, I have at least found one tournament in which everyone has someone to root for, the 2009 Douchebag Tournament. Who's the bigger douche -- A-Roid or Bill Belichik? Ryan Seacrest or Chris Brown? Go vote and make your voice heard...

Cool Movie Notes

Apparently, Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry are teaming up to make the green hornet movie. Not only is it cool that these comic book movies are doing well enough to get the Green Hornet made, but that it's going to star someone who doesn't look in any way like a super hero and going to be directed by a man who will presumably be having the green hornet fighting a series of cardboard boxes.

In any event, something to be excited about it...

On the Other Side of the Test

As I wrote this post to be uploaded at some time in the future, I am currently proctoring the first exam I've ever written. And I've found that, in addition to it being easier on test day when you're in the front of the room, test week in general is the best week(s) of them all.

You see, no one really understands how much effort goes in to teaching. I certainly didn't, and I've been a teaching assistant for two-plus years prior to this. In really thinking about it and breaking down the time I spend on teaching...well, it turns out to be a lot. For instance, I teach every Wednesday night, so I spend every Monday prepping class -- putting together lectures, finding good video clips, thinking up group discussions, etc. So that means that give or take 20% of my work week is dedicated solely to coming up with things to do during class time. This doesn't even include the time spent answering e-mails, talking with students, grading, finding readings, etc. It's crazy how that shit adds up.

Which is why test week is awesome. It turns out tests are fairly fun to write (at least the first time), and you don't have to do any class prep that week. Nope, you just get to kick back and write snarky blog posts while the students sweat out 2 hours or so of criminological theory. And now having been on both sides of this divide, I must say it's much more enjoyable and less stressful in the front of the room.

Of course, once you give a test you have to grade a test, but that's where our severely under-paid and over-worked teaching assistants come in...ah, good ol' test week.

In Defense of Television

Mother, teacher...secret lover?

A few years back, in their always-entertaining best-of-the-year lists, the Citypages had a line I often like to steal that went something like "Saying you don't watch television because there's bad shows on it is like saying you don't read because Danielle Steele writes bad books." And while there's obviously a bit of difference between the two, I think it's a pretty apt metaphor for those people who like to think themselves better than the unwashed masses because of their lack of television viewing/ownership.

This is not to say there's not valid reasons to dislike the boob tube -- for instance, pretty much anything on MTv, VH1, or any other Viacom-owned station (save, of course, Comedy Central). But think of all the good things on television: the aforementioned Comedy Central with Stewart and Colbert, nightly broadcasting anti-establishment satire reaching a much wider audience than any other political parody you'd be able to name, or the new generation of fast-paced, highly literate sitcoms like 30 Rock or the dearly departed Arrested Development.

Historically, television has served to make the great moments of American collective consciousness that much more impacting and real. In fact, you could go so far as to argue the Civil Rights movement would have been seriously negatively impacted without television; even Dr. King famously argued that what made his brand of non-violent resistance so successful were the nightly television images of peaceful demonstrators beset by angry dogs and fire-hoses.

Or maybe it's just because of the personal impact television has had on my own life. As I'm teaching my first course this semester, I've been watching a great deal of old Simpsons episodes to use in class (it's a three-hour long night class, so you gotta break up the monotony somehow). Anyway, as I've started to re-visit the show that was so central to my childhood, I've realized pretty much all of my distrust of authority figures and general critical-thinking skills largely came from watching the Simpsons. In fact, I recently read a great interview with Matt Groening in which he said the reason he chose to go with television as medium (over the comic strips he was already creating at the time) was specifically so he could reach out to the kids like me -- kids is small towns who know something isn't right about the world, but don't exactly have a local radical bookstore they can go to.

But in the end, I keep coming back to the Citypages quote -- please don't judge my most beloved medium simply because some people have used it poorly...

They Don't Say How Much Phish Took From Them...

Been meaning to blog this, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Last month, police arrested nearly 200 people and seized over $1.2 million in drugs from people going to a big Phish concert.

This really highlights the inanity of the drug war -- 200 officers were assigned to the concert, and the article notes that the vast majority of the arrests were for simple possession. Granted, no one's arguing that these people weren't breaking the law. However, one could argue that these people weren't hurting anyone but themselves, if anyone. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good to discourage people from listening to Phish by any means necessary, but this is a little over the line.

I'd be interested to know what other crimes occurred in the vicinity of that concert that were more worthy of police attention. Of course, it's impossible to know that, as the police were busy shaking down hippies. Even if you agree that these drugs should be illegal, I still think you'd be hard pressed to come up with an argument as to why we have to devote so much of our criminal justice resources toward making sure people have to listen to Phish sober...

We Got A Black Guy in the White House, but We Don't Want Him in Our Locker Room

Gene Wojciechowski has an article on espn.com right now arguing that embattled receiver Terrel Owens should look to Randy Moss for guidance on how to resurrect his career. Essentially the argument is that Owens is a trouble-making malcontent, and unless he reforms like former trouble-making malcontent Moss, he will never be respected or get into the Hall of Fame or all other sorts of terrible things.

And while I'm certainly not arguing that either of them are perfectly upstanding citizens, it's pretty easy to see examples of how sports coverage and our wider society are still pretty damn racist in this article.

For example, let's look at the list of Moss' sins offered up in the article as proof of his corrupt soul. Wojciechowski writes:

with the Minnesota Vikings, he pretended to moon opposing fans, confronted a traffic officer, left the field before the end of a game, verbally abused game officials, squirted water at a side judge, said he didn't think the Vikes would reach the Super Bowl and once announced, "I play when I want to play." As a Raider, Moss openly criticized the franchise.

Now let's look at all of these terrible things in perspective. Pretending to moon opposing fans? Sure, Moss did once, after a touchdown in Green Bay, mimic pulling down his pants to moon the opposing fans. Why did he do this? It was in parody of the Packers' (mostly white) fans who actually do moon the opposing team's bus coming into and leaving the stadium. I've yet to see a hyperbolic article about how evil Packers fans are because they actually moon people.

Leaving the field before a game was over? Sure, I remember that game. He left with 3 seconds left when the opposing team was up by nearly a touchdown and was kicking off with 3 seconds left. Much as everyone in the stadium or watching at home predicted, they squib kicked and the game was over with no chance of an offensive play. You know who else has walked off a field before the game was over? Universally beloved cheater (and white guy) Bill Belichick. Of course, though, he's the head coach, not just one of dozens of players. Again, I'm yet to read an article about how Belichick is troubled goods and teams should stay away from him.

As a Raider Moss criticized the franchise? Oh no! You know who else has criticized the Raiders franchise? Everyone who has ever watched football. It's a terrible team owned by a certifiably insane person. Saying an employee of a corrupt business has no right to criticize said business is not only stupid, it's un-American.

And I could go on and on for everyone of those actions. Does that make the excusable? Maybe or maybe not. But I could also point to much less excusable behavior in football (say, Brett Farve's recreational abuse of painkillers) done by white players that doesn't make them pariahs in the league.

The point is guys like Moss and Owens may be assholes (Owens seemingly much more so), but it's hard to understand how much of that image is them, and how much of it is our racist image of the way people are supposed to act. When white players are assholes and prima donnas that expect everyone to bow to their will (again, Mr. Farve for example) it's called integrity and leadership. When black players do the same thing, it's called being a clubhouse cancer. It's hard to say that racism doesn't play a significant role in that.

UNI Fight! UNI Fight!

It's another good sports year for poor kid U. Fresh off the exciting, yet disappointing, appearance of easily our most famous alumnus in the Super Bowl, those plucky Panthers won their way into the NCAA tournament yesterday afternoon with a thrilling victory over the Redbirds (not to be confused with Cardinals) of Illinois State.

This is the first time the Panthers have been to the big dance in 5 years, and while I'm not too optimistic about their chances, it's always exciting when your tiny middle-of-nowhere school gets to go compete with the big boys. Who knows? George Mason set the bar for scrappy little schools only a few years ago, and with the likes of Kwadzo Ahelegbe and Ali Farokhmanesh leading the way, antyhing is possible...

I've Just Wasted Your Entire Morning

Simply go this website: http://www.ronwinter.tv/drums.html.

It's an online electronic drum kit you play with your keyboard. You will not be able to stop.

What's Your State's Official Rock Song?

After a long and distinguished competition, the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize" has been named the official rock song of Oklahoma. This got me thinking -- what would Minnesota's official rock song be? Off the top of my head I can think of a lot of bands that would be in the running: Prince, the Replacements, Husker Du, Dillinger 4, Dylan...if I had more time these days, I think I could come up with a pretty good slate of competitors. What about you, faithful readers? What rock song should represent your state?

The Schadenfreude of Weird Auctions

If there's one thing any good, red-blooded American can get behind, it's the rich and powerful being humbled to the point where they must sell off their offensively ostentatious possessions to us normals. For instance, last year Lou Perlman, the creepy weirdo behind the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, and pretty much everything else that sucked about the 90s, was nailed for millions in tax evasion. As a result he auctioned off nearly everything he owned on e-bay. For a good period I was the high bid in an auction for one of the Backstreet Boys European Grammys, but I dropped out when the bidding got a little beyond my price range (there's only so much I'll shill out for irony's sake, but still, what a conversation piece it would have been to have that sitting on my coffee table...)

But now there's an even better auction going on, as the prince of pop himself has finally been forced to sell off the increasingly disturbing ways in which he pissed away his fortune. My favorite item thus far? Michael Keaton's Batman suit from the first 80s batman movie, appropriately enough displayed on a life-size replica of MJ himself. Now imagine having that in your house:

Reunions

Today, while wasting time on facebook rather than working on much more pressing matters, I was invited to join a group planning the apparently-upcoming 10 year reunion of my high school graduating class.

Other than making me feel old, it really just confused me. What is the purpose of these things anyway? Especially in today's technologically-advanced world of the future we live in, can't people just get in touch with those they'd like to be in touch with? Do we really still need to bring people from thousands of miles all over the country to awkwardly sit in a cafeteria and force small talk with people they vaguely recognize?

Maybe it's just me; I have no intention of ever going to high school reunion, but mostly because there's only about 2 people from high school I'm in contact with at all in this stage in life. But I think it's bigger than that -- what is it that compels people to put so much stock in a meaningless social and geographical marker? Why do I supposedly have something in common with people I happen to go to school with a decade ago? More to the point, what could I possibly share with these people that would make me want to waste a weekend hanging out with them? If you miss the people you went to high school with, why don't you just go visit them?

Perhaps I'm just too cynical, but I just can't bring myself to understand why people would want to re-live their teenage years...unless, of course, said teenage years were the peak of these people's lives, as I well suspect they may be. But in that case I would really recommend counseling, not a reunion.

The Current Internet Meme

So here's a popular little game going through the internet that's quite addictive:

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “Random" or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. The third picture will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.(I recommend photobucket.com)


Here's two I've come up with -- this first one is the seminal debut album of shred-metal gods Religious Leaders in 1853, simply entitled "Above all else, wavering loyalty"



Or for a more relaxed listening experience, I recommend the free-jazz sounds of Ma Zun on their latest release "What They Did or Did Not Do"

The World's Greatest Super Group? No, Not at All

Announcing possibly the weirdest supergroup ever formed, Tinted Windows. Featuring former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha on guitar, Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, 1/3 of Hanson (Taylor), and Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger, it promises to be...weird.

It turns out that Iha and Schlesinger own a recording studio together, so that explains half of it. And then I supposed Cheap Trick ain't so bad, and it's not like there's a great number of concert gigs and album recordings to get in the way of Carlos' free time. But a Hanson brother? Does this mean Hanson became really cool behind my back?

My theory? After the demise of both the Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle, Iha is just wandering around Los Angeles looking for anyone who will play with him...

I Thought The Whole Reason We Got This Guy Was Because He Wouldn't Do This

Why does Obama keep mentioning Iran's nuclear-development program despite the fact that government scientists agree that Iran is making no attempt at gaining nuclear capacity?

Why? Because there's a political consensus on the matter. Granted, I definitely did not drink the kool aid on this guy and didn't expect him to be that great, but I really thought we could at least count on him not to the exact same thing Bush did on hostile governments and nuclear proliferation.

Here's How We Deal With Problems in 'Merica

CNN.com this morning had a lis of the top 5 places you should visit before they're destroyed by global warming.

I can't help but be taken back just a little by that. Not that a mainstream news article finally treats global warming as a given, but that their proposed solution for it is to get in all the normal planet you can before the inevitable happens.

No mention of, say, anything we can do to prevent or combat global warming, just a list of some good tourist sites that will be ruined by our planet's (human-caused) rising temperatures.

Not to say we're partying on a sinking ship, but does anyone else feel like we should maybe do something about the rising water?

Nixon: Even More Bat-Shit Crazy Than You Thought

This past December, the Nixon presidential library released its largest collection of archival papers and tapes, revealing even more paranoid insanity from America's most-beloved paranoid crazy president. Now that the library has shifted to federal caretakers (and away from private Nixon loyalists, under whom the only mention of Watergate was a display arguing it was a political coup launched by Nixon's enemies), much more has come to light about Nixon's enemies list and over-all craziness.

My favorite example: Nixon was so obsessed with being loved that he made all civil service employees in the white house remove all pictures of former presidents, including one 41-year veteran of the White House who was forced to remove a picture of Kennedy with a personal inscription.

All of this is searchable online at the museum's website, so feel free to take this president's day afternoon off and regale yourself with irrefutable evidence of the decline of Western civilization...

Bongs and Biceps

For any of you following the sporting world, or really even just the news, you know that two of the big stories out right now are that Olympic hero Michael Phelps smoked some weed at a party and Alex Rodriguez used steroids for at least 3 years.

While the A-Rod story is much more recent and the hysteria is still only building, I find it very instructive to look at the punishments handed out in these two cases. Phelps was handed a three-month suspension from the governing body of his sport, while A-Rod has yet to get any more punishment than the usual flack he gets for being a vain, self-serving choke artist.

So just to recap: Phelps uses a relatively harmless drug used by roughly 40% of our population (according to most reputable social data) and receives a three-month suspension from his sport. Rodriguez uses a highly-damaging drug that is both illegal and specifically banned from his sport, and has yet to receive any punishment.

In addition to Phelps' punishment, 8 other people (identified through photos) have been charged with either misdemeanors or felonies, while those who supplied A-Rod have escaped both detection and punishment.

Again to recap:
Smoking weed: 9 people punished extensively
Using steroids to score a $252 million contract: 0 people punished

Is it not time to at least start a conversation about where our nation's priorities are on drug use?

Ever Wonder What Kids Like?

Well, wonder no more, for there are marketing executives to tell you exactly what teenagers think and like!

I'm not sure what creeps me out/sickens me the most about this...the sickening marketing of our children? The screaming obviousness of all of it presented as if it were a novel concept? The fact that someone got paid to do this?

No, I think I'm going to go with the pseudo-science aspect of it. It always makes me laugh when people look down on those of us in the social sciences as if we're not real sciences, and claim that those of us in the academy don't really do any work or real research. But that's not it at all; we're all just in the wrong field.

If someone tried to turn in that "research" to any sociology journal, they'd be laughed at so hard they'd [insert folksy saying about what happens to someone being laughed at here]. But if you do that same shoddy research and call yourself a marketer, you not only get paid 10 times as much as a professional sociologist, but for some reason you're seen as a productive a valuable member of society, as opposed to an ivory-tower egghead that doesn't know what they're doing.

Far be it from me to suggest something so radical, but it almost feels as if we as a people have skewed set of priorities...

Not That It Needs to Be Pointed Out...

But despite the election of a bi-racial president, it turns out racism is not actually dead.

A political cartoon from the Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times:

Is Baseball Forever Ruined?

An interesting sky-is-falling piece on the state of baseball in light of A-Rod's positive steroid test. While I don't quite agree that the sport is indelibly ruined because of yet another hulking man-monster being revealed as a steroid user (much like with Bonds or Giambi, it's not that hard to tell something's going on when a skinny guy suddenly morphs into a muscular giant, but it does make some interesting points. As Stark points out, if A-Rod's steroid connection keeps him out of the Hall, which is likely considering the fate of McGwire and (likely) Sosa, this means the owners of the following statistical categories will not be in the baseball Hall of Fame:

The all time hits leader (Pete Rose)

The single season home run leader (Bonds)

The all-time home-run leader (Bonds)

The most 60 home-run seasons (Sosa)

The winningest right-handed pitcher of the modern era (Clemens)

The person who will probably break the all-time home-run record (A-Rod)

As I said, I don't think this will permanently destroy the game of baseball, but it is pretty weird that the holders of most of the major records in the sport will never be in the Hall of Fame...

Ahh, the first fake spring of winter

High in Minneapolis today: 40

This marks the second week in a row we will have had two days in the 40s. And as much as I like those days, in some ways I wish they just wouldn't come in the first place, because I know that there's still plenty of February left, and that it'll probably go back to -20 next week. All this one day of nice weather does is give us false hope that maybe the rest of winter won't be so bad.

But I figure the cold weather makes us a better a heartier people out here, so maybe this is just another wrinkle of nature trying to test us even further with the mocking taunt that for a lot of people, this weather is as bad as winter gets, not the most beautiful day in months...

Beware the Gopher!

The Emaciated Gopher sounded the first warning shots to the University of Minnesota yesterday, as 70-some grad students marched against poverty-level wages and exorbitant student fees. The University responded with a Bush-administration flunky who says that making far less than the federal poverty level is something we should be grateful for. But only for grad students, not for, say, the 7th highest paid college president in the nation. Check out some surprisingly good media coverage of the event here (with some nice video):

http://kstp.com/news/stories/S771336.shtml?cat=1

Poor Kurt

So the Cardinals didn't win the Super Bowl (apparently Kurt Warner doesn't love Jesus quite as much as he says he does), but they at least made it a better game than I think most people were expecting of them. But what do you think people, was it enough to punch Warner's ticket to the Hall of Fame?

I think so...in fact, I think it should have been a settled matter before the game. He may not have won, but he (and the rest of the Cards) at least proved it wasn't a flue that they got there, and had one or two lucky breaks gone the other way, they would easily be Super Bowl champs right now. And considering that Big Ben now has two rings and a long career ahead of him, he's probably Hall-bound in his future as well.

That makes it a Super Bowl meeting of two probable Hall of Fame QBs, one from Louisville and one from the University of Northern Iowa. Either way, it was a banner day for fans of the little guys...

I Knew This Was Coming...

For all those who laugh at you when you warn of the impending zombie apocalypse, you can now tell them to stuff it, because this shit's coming. Check out this sign from an Austin roadway:




Sure, "the news" claims it was college pranksters, but we all know it was the work of courageous heroes attempting to warn as all.

But the best part of the news article linked to above? They feature a link to a website for zombie pin ups, you know, in case you're really excited about the coming invasion...

Why Billy Joel Sucks

The Missus and I got into an argument once over Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" when she praised it for being so creative. I countered with the notion that it's not creative at all, it's just listing things that happened in the 20th century in no particular order and occasionally rhyming. It has no consistency, no timeline, no over-arching narrative, no commentary on what's happening (other than the insightful "wow! isn't the world a crazy place where stuff always happens?"), nothing...it's just a meaningless recitation of major events and completely inconsequential events he threw in for reasons of cadence and rhyme.

And even then, the lyrics are fucking ridiculous. Listen to the song and really pay attention to it -- half the things he mentions are just people's names he throws out, and half of those people really don't warrant it. For instance, Bob Dole?!? What exactly was Bob Dole's impact on the fire of the world (which keeps on turning)? Being a forgettable Senator and handily losing a presidential election?

And what finally pushes Mr. Joel over the cliff at the end of the song? Nuclear paranoia? Mid-east turmoil? The savings and loan crisis?

Nope. The cola wars. Pepsi vs. Coke.

Do what you will to the world, says Billy Joel, but don't pit two innocent sodas against each other like that. How can we collectively live with ourselves after the billions of dollars in property damage and thousands of lives lost in that meaningless war?

For further proof, check out this great article detailing why Billy Joel sucks so much more than other similarly shitty pop musicians.

And There Goes The Last Lingering Bits of My Childhood Innocence...

Nancy Cartwright, voice of Bart Simpson, has not only at donated over $10 million to the Church of Scientology, she is lending her voice, posing as Bart, in a series of robocalls inviting people to convert to Scientology:



I don't know if it's sadder that she's doing this, or that it's gotten to point where I laugh at the idea of Bart Simpsons' likeness being able to sell people anything...

Better Start Funding a Missile Defense Program

A New Zealand man spent $9 on a generic mp3 player at a thrift store and came home with something chock full of military secrets, including troop positions (as well as the home phone numbers and addresses of many soldiers) as well as weapons movements and other very sensitive information. Astute readers will remember that this is far form the first time this has happened; a few years back a laptop was lost containing private information about thousands of soldiers.

And yes, I know everyone makes mistakes and blah, blah, blah, but how does this seriously continue to happen? But an even more pertinent question is why do we outspend the rest of the world combined on our Armed Forces when we're attacked by men with box cutters and it only take 9 bucks at a thrift store to get military secrets?

Happy New Year!

'Tis the year of the Ox. So...go be ox-y today.


This is going to be this dude's best year ever, according to the Chinese

Never Overlook Those Panthers

As the humble li'l University of Northern Iowa Panthers notched a comeback victory over the pesky Bradley Braves last night to remain atop the Missouri Valley Conference (and in line for its automatic tourney bid), our greatest export is prepping for another Super Bowl, only this time with the Cardinals.

When Kurt Warner came into the league and burst onto the scene with a freakish first season as a starter, those of us familiar with his resume on the now-defunct Iowa Barnstormers knew it was no aberration. But soon he got the injury bug, got bounced from the Rams, was signed by the Giants to be a mentor to Eli, and then shipped to Arizona to live out his golden years as so many over-the-hill Americans do.

Except he's come back to show that his time on top the league was no fluke and that he's always been a great quarterback. But over on si.com, Kerry Byrne argues that the pride of Panther nation is actually a better quarterback than the vaunted Peyton Manning.

Yeah, even I didn't believe it when I saw the headline, but he makes a good case -- Warner has a better career passer rating, a better post-season passer rating, a better post-season record, has been to more Super Bowls (with arguable worse teams), and has thrown more post-season touchdowns, despite playing in five fewer playoff games. If he had been in the NFL his entire career, we can only ponder the kind of eye-popping stats he could have put up by now.

Which all goes to confirm what I've been saying since the Cards became a decent team this season -- if Warner isn't an automatic first-ballot Hall of Fame QB, then I don't know who is.

Capitalism Kills...Quite Literally

A recent article in the British medical journal The Lancet argues that well over 1,000,000 Eastern European working-class men have died as a result of the transition to capitalism. Yup, over 1,000,000 (for a good summary of what this means, check out this article.)

Say what you will about the Soviet Union (and there's plenty to say; it wasn't necessarily that great of a place to be), but this certainly has to put a bit of a fly in the ointment of the "free market cures everything" crowd. Sure, in the Soviet Union people couldn't get McDonalds, but they could get free health care and guaranteed employment. And they didn't die at the clip of 1,000,000+ people a decade.

This is not to defend Soviet-style socialism -- which if we really wanted to get into it, I could argue had long ago stopped being socialism -- but to point out how ludicrous it is that we leave life-and-death matters like health care and food supply to be apportioned out by a make-believe fairy tale we call the market instead of using common sense measures to make sure everyone has enough food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc. to maintain at least a modicum of livable existence.

After all, why is it that a corrupt, bureaucratic totalitarian government could do a better job of feeding and caring for its citizens than, say, the most powerful nation on earth, where over 90 million people are under-insured or have no health insurance at all?

Just because the Soviets screwed up communism when they tried it doesn't make it bad idea...

So Yeah...Fuck That Guy

I think the reality of Bush being out of office really hit me last night as I watched the Daily Show, the final Daily Show of the administration. As most people who do so, I was first getting seriously into politics when I was in college. My freshman year Bush was elected and the Daily Show was just beginning its steep climb to respectability. And through the course of this administration, the Daily Show has probably done the best job of pointing out the odious mixture grave stupidity and arrogant, unearned confidence that have so marked this administration, and I couldn't help but note a bit of melancholy in their coverage of the last night of Bush.

And really, what more is there to say? The man and his administration have fucked up pretty much everything they've touched, and it really isn't that radical to suggest that Bush will be remembered as one of, if not the, worst presidents ever. Even people who voted for him twice (twice!) don't even bother to defend him anymore. And both he and Cheney, in all of their exit interviews and speeches, have not even pretended to show remorse. I don't have nearly as much Hope™ for the new guy as a lot of people do, but we can all agree that getting those bastards out of power is good first step toward making things better. Other than that, what bad things can I say about the guy that haven't already been said and won't be said again and again for many years to come? Not too many.

So, yeah...fuck that guy.

I'm Not Sure It Was Ever There to Begin With, But...

If you were under the misguided impression that "art" had anything to do with the making and packaging of movies anymore, the New Yorker has a great article detailing the horrible, horrible process of marketing major studio films.

Whether it be through making sure the African-American character stands at profile on the movie poster so as to make his race "indiscriminate" or not releasing the trailer for a chick flick until it "tugs on the ovary," the article is full of factual nuggets explaining how we, the movie-going public, are nothing but easily programmable idiots. Enjoy!

Hill Billy Music Day

Over the past year, I've managed to acquire a fairly nice banjo and an incredibly beautiful hard-top mandolin. However, I've had extremely little time to practice. That, coupled with my growing love of all things Gram Parsons, has had me itching to find the time necessary to get at least decent enough to play them along with others.

As such, with the girlfriend on vacation and the roommate out of town, I am having the first of what hopefully will become annual event -- Hill Billy Music Day. I got myself a fifth of whiskey and am locking myself in the house all day, doing nothing but slowly draining that bottle (well, not the whole bottle) and becoming proficient at the banjo and mandolin in the process.

You know, there's a great deal of challenge and stress in academia, but it's also the kind of job that allows you to take the occasional week day off for drinking and making music. And that's my kind of job...

What's Cool on The Internets These Days? A Round-Up

No time for a full post this morning, but I do have some pretty sweet links I came across if you are trying to waste some time and/or educate yourself (but really, waste time):

First, over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald gives a great breakdown of how Thomas Friedman and the other flunkies at the New York Times are explicitly advocating terrorism.

If you are also on your third cup of coffee this morning (I really, really need to cut back), then you may be soon seeing the dead (in hallucinations; you're not going to die soon...at least, as far as I know).

Finally, are you racist? Sexist? Judge people based on their religion? No? Maybe you just don't admit it. Find out here at Harvard's handy tool for diagnosing subconscious prejudice.

In How Many Ways Can One Urinate?

I recently received a questionable parking ticket (but aren't they all questionable?) inside of which there was a little green card telling me my case could be dismissed if I entered in the Restorative Justice Community Action program. Of course, I wasn't eligible for such a program because my fine was only $34 and it says in giant bold letters on the flier that this program is for non-traffic offenses only (which makes one wonder why it's included in a parking ticket...), but I'm glad such programs exist. Most of the eligible offenses (drinking in public, loud music, loud dog, loitering, posession of a small amount of marijuana, etc.) are the exact kind of minor crimes I would argue are best punished by community service and no record, rather than an excessive fine and damaging criminal record.

But what interests me most about the list of offenses is that there is not one, not two, but three separate categories of public urination. You can be charged with disorderly conduct public urination, indecent conduct public urination, and indecent exposure public urination. I suppose I can guess the difference between the last two, but I'm not quite sure what the difference is between indecent and disorderly conduct.

A quick google search failed to shed any light on the definitional differences, but with my limited knowledge of the criminal justice system, I know there's likely a very hazy delimitation of what makes one's urination more indecent than disorderly. Either way, though, there's something to think about the next time you really need to go and there's no bathroom in sight, because you may be committing somewhere in the neighborhood of three crimes at the same time...

New Post for the New Year

It's been quite a while (two weeks, to be exact) since I've been on this thing, blogging out my li'l rants and various ramblings to the great information super highway. What can I say, other than a much needed mental vacation was taking place. But alas, I'm back to soul-crushing grind of my regular life, and as such will be posting with regularity again.

This was, however, one of those breaks where nothing really interesting happened. Don't get me wrong, it was a good time hanging out and catching up with family, but that doesn't exactly make for scintillating copy. I've got a good dozen half-written posts waiting to be finished, so I will have new and/or interesting content soon, but for the meantime, enjoy this obit of the man who provided Hattie Carroll with her lonesome death...

Marketing and the Thought Process

Sorry for the dry well of postings, but I'm visiting the folks and stuck using a dial-up connection that, in addition to be slower than (insert funny slow things here), also likes to cut out randomly every 10-15 minutes. So needless to say, my internet use has been paired down to a minimum of "necessary" time.

But here's one for the rants no one really cares about file: as I usually do after Christmas, I was in the major box stores looking around for cheap deals on necessary items with my folks, safe in the knowledge that they'll usually go ahead and buy it for me (I'm 26 and have yet to purchase a pair of socks myself). Taking advantage of markdowns on the incongruous items that I can't believe are ever purchased as presents, I picked up a 3 pack of generic boxers.

The boxers themselves are fine, but it's the packaging that kills me. They came in a standard clear plastic bag that you tear open on the top. Except on this package, there was one of those zip-lock closing mechanisms, like you find on a bag of carrots or the eponymous sandwich bags.

Now, I've been pondering this all afternoon, but I cannot figure out the purpose of this. I suppose it is a 3 pack, so I won't be wearing them all immediately, but do I need to keep them fresh? Am I supposed to wash them and then return them to the bag, closing it tightly so they don't get stale? Or are they designed to be carefully removed one at a time and then sealed back up, so the remaining, un-worn boxers retain that fresh new clothing chemical smell?

I'm not sure there really is a reason for the zip-lock, but what blows my mind is that at some point in time someone was responsible for deciding to put it on there. I have to imagine that a standard shrink-wrap package without the re-usable zip-lock is cheaper and easier to produce. So somewhere along the line, someone (presumably in the marketing department) had to stop and say "Wait a minute everyone? What if the boxers came in a resealable bag? You know, to retain their freshness." And then, understanding corporate America as I do, this had to go through several committees and higher-up personnel, all of whom didn't understand what was going on, or thought that yes indeed, it would be a good idea to put cheap pieces of underwear in a resealable bag.

It's these kind of things I can't help but think about every time I walk past the business building on campus and realize that the marketing majors inside will earn far, far more money in their lifetime than I will. But then again, I'm not smart enough to come up with the idea of selling a non-perishable item in a resealable bag...

World's Oldest Pot Stash Found

Via the Discovery Channel website, it seems that archeologists have found the world's oldest stash of pot. Dating over 2,700 years old (the story is quick to point out it won't get you high after sitting that long), it was buried with a shaman. The careful removal of all male plants indicates it was harvested for the same reasons it's being harvested today. Apparently the shaman thought he'd need quite a bit in the hearafter, which either speaks to a really cool or really frightening afterlife, depending on what your personal views are.

In unrelated (or is it?) news, a contestant got the showcase exactly right on the Price is Right.

So big news in both marijuana and day time television; we have apparently just gone through the stoner's best week ever.

You Know, the Reason People Used to go to College

Over at the New America Foundation, they've compiled a list of what the BCS bowl pairings would be if academics were factored in (answer: we'd be looking at a one-sided drubbing of Boston College over Northwestern).

While such worthless pursuits as learning will never be a factor in big-time college football, the article highlights some pretty disturbing trends, such as a 30% graduation rate for University of Texas football players, with only a 27% rate for African-Americans. And the vast majority of those not graduating are not going on to Vince Young-level contracts in the pros. No, most of them are going on to meaningless dead-end jobs without college degrees.

To repeat a tired criticism of the shamatuer system in college football, back in the day when powerful Southern white men used poor and uneducated African-Americans to achieve great wealth while paying nothing for services performed it was called slavery. Now it's just America's pastime...

The Last Class...Ever

The end of the semester is always a fun and exciting time, but I have to admit today is a bit more exciting than all of the previous ones combined. You see, in my short 26 years on this planet, I have been going to school for 21 of those years. And not including the one year between undergraduate and graduate school, I don't even really remember the years without school, so I pretty much don't remember a time when I wasn't taking classes.

But today it all changes, as I head to the last meeting of the final class I will ever take. Granted, being an academic I will more or less be in the classroom for the next 50 years or so, but I will be in front of the room. And yes, I know we're all life-long learners and blah, blah, blah, but this is the clear-cut end of my formal, classroom-based education.

I still have a final paper to write for the class so this is a bit anti-climactic as an end point, but it nicely marks a formal end to my years upon years of course work. And on the plus side, since it's graduate school, we're meeting half of the course in the classroom and then moving to the bar for the second half, so it's a proper send off.

Support Chicago's Factory Occupation!

As I write this, workers of UE Local 1110 in Chicago have occupied their factory to prevent its imminent closure. Here's a good write up on the situation

Workers occupying the Republic Windows & Doors factory slated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management.

In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation.

"We decided to do it because this is money that belongs to us," said Maria Roman, who's worked at the plant for eight years. "These are our rights."

Word of the occupation spread quickly both among labor and immigrant rights activists -- the overwhelming majority of the workers are Latinos. Seven local TV news stations showed up to do interviews and live reports, and a steady stream of activists arrived to bring donations of food and money and to plan solidarity actions.

Management claims that it can't continue operations because its main creditor, Bank of America (BoA), refuses to make any more loans to the company. After workers picketed BoA headquarters December 3, bank officials agreed to sit down with Republic management and UE to discuss the matter at a December 5 meeting arranged by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill), said UE organizer Leah Fried.

BoA had said that it couldn't discuss the matter with the union directly without written approval from Republic's management. But Republic representatives failed to show up at the meeting, and plant managers prepared to close the doors for good -- violating the federal WARN Act that requires 60 days notice of a plant closure.

The workers decided this couldn't go unchallenged. "The company and Bank of America are throwing the ball to one another, and we're in the middle," said Vicente Rangel, a shop steward and former vice president of Local 1110.

Many workers had suspected the company was planning to go out of business -- and perhaps restart operations elsewhere. Several said managers had removed both production and office equipment in recent days.

Furthermore, while inventory records indicated there were plenty of parts in the plant, workers on the production line found shortages. And the order books, while certainly down from the peak years of the housing boom, didn't square with management's claims of a total collapse. "Where did all those windows go?" one worker asked.

Workers were especially outraged that Bank of America, which recently received a bailout in taxpayer money, won't provide credit to Republic. "They get $25 billion from the government, and won't loan a few million to this company so workers can keep their jobs?" said Ricardo Caceres, who has worked at the plant for six years.

Please do all you can to help. If you'd like to donate some desperately needed money, you can do so here:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=No8nRgE_ayJCxPHb0fhnUTkpjnSitqz-MJm1nO43a1FR8sMeAYQKnnMO9RK&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f9fecf49521b3f5af8500b6262ba08c6a6c42096c47a6d044

For more information on what's happening and on what you can do, click here:

http://www.ueunion.org/ue_republic.html

There's also extensive coverage of the occupation here:

http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/

And if you're the petition signing kind, please go here: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica/

Slow Week and All of That

On Tuesday morning I arose at 7 a.m. and donned a shirt and tie (two things whose monumental significance cannot be overstated) to defend my prelim. The prelim is basically a big test in the form of a paper we spend 6 months writing and then have to defend in front of our committee. By passing it, I've more or less passed the last big hurdle on the way to getting my Ph.D. Except for that whole dissertation thing, but how hard can that be?

Anyway, tuesday was the culmination of a looooooooong and draining process, so I've mostly spent the last week in a mixture of partying and recovering. Not that I don't have a great deal to do before this semester's over, but the nature of academia is such that you so rarely get an objective milestone to meet and pass. And when one of these rare events presents itself, one has to milk it for all of the congratulatory partying and time off that one can...

Economists Couldn't See This Coming, Which is Their Only Job

This is from a New York Times interview with Jamie Galbraith:

Do you find it odd that so few economists foresaw the current credit disaster?
Some did. The person with the most serious claim for seeing it coming is Dean Baker, the Washington economist. I saw it coming in general terms.

But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis?
Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.

What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?
It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.

You’re referring to the Washington-based conservative philosophy that rejects government regulation in favor of free-market worship?
Reagan’s economists worshiped the market, but Bush didn’t worship the market. Bush simply turned over regulatory authority to his friends. It enabled all the shady operators and card sharks in the system to come to dominate how we finance.

As a social scientist, it irks me when the opinions of economists are given such a great weight in public and political discussions, yet the opinions of people like me who actually do research rather than just spout the same ideology over and over are relegated to the dustbin of ivory-tower eggheads who don't know anything.

But what makes it even more insulting, is that economists are usually wrong, and often in spectacular ways such as this. And yet, they're still the highly-paid experts everyone listens to. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose...

Where Your Tax Dollars Go

So it turns out the fine folks at the St. Paul Sheriff's department spent over $300,000 spying on people in the run-up to the RNC.

Even ignoring the horrible things this says about our democracy, is there not something better we could be doing with a third of a million dollars in the Twin Cities? Last time I checked, we've got a bunch of homeless people who need places to sleep and food to eat, bridges that keep falling down, rising tuition costs at our universities...I could pretty much keep that list going all day. And everything on it would be a better use of a giant chunk of money than is spying on our citizenry who are doing nothing more than exercising their constitutionally-protected right to organize.

And really, what did this horrible breach of legality get us? It was already clear this small group was not going to be able to shut down the convention. All of the "intelligence" suggesting there was going to be violence was either made-up or based on a laughable and clearly incorrect informants (do we all remember how Mike Whalen's house was raided for shipments of weapons that turned out to be pamphlets about vegetarian recipes?).

For me, the timing of such a story couldn't be more perfect, as tomorrow morning I defend a prelim on how the police, both historically and contemporary, have existed far more to preserve the existing status quo than to protect the citizenry or prevent crime. I think any question I get about my central thesis can simply be directed to the reports of the police spending a third of a million dollars to spy on the anarchists based on the fact that people who look different are surely up to something...

Let's Welcome a New One to the Fraternity

Ladies and Gentlemen, your humble li'l blogger has found and confirmed only the third known other Jesse Wozniak in the world. Well, technically in Google, but I'm pretty sure they'll own the world fairly soon anyway, so it's more or less the same thing.

As I've mentioned here before, I only know of two other Jesse Wozniaks. The first is the son of Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers and who is coincidentally pretty close to me in age. Switched at birth? Possible. My mom and Steve Wozniak had a torrid affair shortly before Apple took off and she and her now bastard child were denied any of his newfound wealth and glory? Probable.

The other Jesse Wozniak is a apparently a pretty respected ATV racer whom I was once mistaken for in college. He once found my blog and left a comment about finding out about me in much the same way. He also complimented the short plays I used to write at the time, and I felt like a compliment from a Jesse Wozniak that wasn't me meant more than from most. I have no idea why, but I think that makes me vain.

For a period I though there was a third JW that was a photographer, but the aforementioned ATV racer's comment seemed to imply that he was one and the same with the photographer JW, so I had to put photographer guy on the "maybe a Jesse Wozniak" list.

But now a well-intentioned self-googling (I don't remember the number of my office at school -- I just know where it is. So I always have to google myself when I fill out forms because it's the fastest way of finding my office number. Call it obtuse, but I call it adapting to today's technologies) turned up a gem.

Announcing the third Jesse Wozniak:

Hailing from the bustling metropolis of Ferndale, Michigan, this Jesse Wozniak plays multiple instruments and has been in such luminary Ferndale psychedelic bands as Corpse Smoke and Blue Black Hours. Having listened to a few tracks from BBH's MySpace page, on which this JW plays the drums, I can't say they're necessarily my cup o' tea (though "Space Lightning" ain't too bad a track), but they have over 20,00 page views, so the good folks of Ferndale must be behind them.

Let's all please welcome our psychedelically drumming Michagander to the flock, for he is:

A Jesse Wozniak.

Procrastination = Better Than Work

Check out the Notre Dame marching band giving tribute to Mario Bros:



Astute Mario fans/people with no life growing up will note that they appropriately form fish for the underwater level music, and make a castle for the finale music. The only thing missing is the giant Mario shooting a fireball at the goomba while they play the underground level music. Still though, easily the best marching band routine I've seen in a long while, which technically doesn't mean much, but its impressive nonetheless.

A Bully With No Power

Though I am both politically and morally barred from ever feeling pity for President Bush, he really does look like the kid who just found out that everyone didn't love him, they were just scared of him. And now that they don't have to be scared anymore...well, the video says it far better than I could:

I'm On The Air Waves

The Contexts Podcast is finally here! Go to the website and download it.

The Contexts podcast serves to bring you cutting edge sociological research, in-depth interviews, and general social science smartness, all delivered in the relaxed and sonorous tones of your humble li'l blogger and his broadcast partner Arturo.

Go to the website to download/subscribe or search the Itunes store for "Contexts."

Yes Axl Can!

Over at the AvClub, Chuck Klosterman reviews the long-anticipated Chinese Democracy. I don't mean to call it the most-anticipated album of my life time, but I've been waiting for this one since it was cool to like GNR un-ironically. And it turns out the album isn't that bad, either, at least according to Mr. Klosterman.

In this day of downloads and free corporate music, might I be actually compelled to go purchase Chinese Democracy? I'm not sure I'll go that far, but it would be like owning a piece of history...

Which makes me wonder -- between the election of a bi-racial president and the actual, honest-to-goodness release of CD, is this the most historical year in recent memory? I like to think so. I like to think that someday, when people are accepted regardless of their skin color and crazy conceptual hair-metal albums are released without restrictions on the "creative" process, we'll all look back on 2008 as the year that made it happen.

My New Time Wasters

The best thing about working on a big project like your prelims is that you end up spending a great amount of time finding stupid things on the internet. My two most recent favorites:

Sleeveface, a website in which people carefully position album covers to look like they're part of the actual photo. Here's the best I've found:



And I feel like this one's already made the internet rounds, but I also quite enjoy Indexed, a collection of 3x5 cards that help explain life:

Stand Up Against H8

See below the call for action in Minneapolis as part of the national day of protest against Prop 8:

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR LGBT RIGHTS

Saturday, November 15
12:30pm
Outside Government Center
350 S. 5th Street, downtown Minneapolis

While celebrations erupted Tuesday night over the election of the first African American president, many also watched in sadness as California, Arizona, and Florida voted down marriage equality for LGBT people. Since then, tens of thousands have taken to the streets to oppose this discrimination and declare that the right to marry the person you love is a fundamental human right, regardless of sexual orientation!

Saturday, November 15th has been called as a National Day of Action in support of LGBT rights (see www.jointheimpact.com). Tens of thousands will protest all over the country, in every state, declaring our opposition to all forms of discrimination and demanding an end to homophobia – and to help launch a new civil rights movement, for full equality for gays, lesbians, and transgender people.

This is an issue of equal rights for all Americans! Stand up and make your voice heard! Join us in pressuring the California government to overturn Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage.
--------------------------

Some National B.S. Becomes Local

Do you remember that girl from a Pittsburgh suburb who claimed she was attacked and beaten by Obama supporters for the crime of wearing a McCain button? The pictures were pretty terrible, and a for a few days, the right-wing media was all over the story. But then do you remember how it came out that she faked the whole thing and is now facing charges of fraud and filing a false police report?

Well, it turns out my own little neighborhood has its own version of this bullshit story. An Augsburg College first-year is claiming some unidentified black people beat her up election night for wearing a McCain/Palin button.

Now, the fact that this story is an exact replica of its more famous fake predecessor should probably be enough to let you know it's fake, or at least make a major metropolitan newspaper put a little more investigation into the story. Or so you might think.

But of course, you'd be wrong, because it was a giant spread in this morning's paper. What's most interesting about this girl's story is how she and her parents try to frame it as a minority's rights thing -- because everyone in the Twin Cities is a liberal they just can't stand the poor minority viewpoint of conservatives. I'm a bit confused seeing as how their entire platform is that minorities should have no rights what-so-ever, but I suppose it's different when you see yourself as the minority.

But even if the story was true, are we really to feel bad for this girl? Ok, that may be too harsh. Certainly, no one deserves to be beaten up for their political views. But what about those who support a candidate who built his entire campaign around racist attacks and vilifying all who are different? What about a campaign that used rhetoric so harsh the Secret Service has accused it of prompting death threats to Obama?

You know, conservatives love to stick it to anyone who ever claims discrimination and say they should quit whining about how the world is unfair, suck it up, and not blame their problems on other people. They vote against gay marriage and affirmative action because even recognizing the humanity of those different than them is beyond their capability. But then when the tables are turned, look at how quickly they run crying to Big Government to protect their sad widdle chiwdwen who are being picked on...just because they're different...

Sigh.

Sometimes I feel like this is all part of a grand scheme to destroy irony and all forms of satirical humor by making reality far more ironic than any sarcastic late-night pundit ever could...

Feel Free to Feel Old

Remember the controversial naked baby from the cover of Nevermind? Well, he's 17 years old now (and apparently kind of a douche).

For a visual comparison:

Current Season Weather Warning and the Culture of Fear

Several years ago, USC sociologist Barry Glasner wrote a book called The Culture of Fear, in which he essentially argues that most major institutions in America now use fear as a way to manipulate and direct people (though he obviously is a bit more nuanced in the book). I couldn't help but think about it this morning as the radio announced a "winter weather advisory."

Now, I'm sure this phrase actually means something specific, but just think about it as it is. Winter. Weather. Advisory. So let's see, it's the current season (winter) doing something that happens every day (weather) coupled with a blandly perplexing warning (what exactly are we advised to do?). They are essentially telling us that winter means there is bad weather, and you know, be careful about all of that. Because we all need a warning that the weather gets worse when frozen rain falls from the sky.

In a way, it's much like the terror alert level. Every time I've been to the airport in the last two years, the threat level has been "orange." Not only is orange completely devoid of any meaning as a category, it would do me no good even if I knew what category it represented. What am I going to do, single-handedly foil a terrorist attack because I now know to be on the lookout for it?

In much the same vein, the U has a text message program that lets you know every time a crime has been committed on campus. Again, in what way does this serve anyone other than to make them afraid? Oh, ok, a robbery happened outside the library...now I never go the library again? What conclusion am I supposed to draw from such a random piece of information?

So I guess we can argue all day over how intentional this fear-creation is and to what ends it is being used, but it's hard to argue that we do indeed live in a culture of fear...

You Can't Spell "Relaxo" Without "Relax"

Well, I finally finished the prelim (well, the first draft) and got it send out to my committee. After doing pretty much nothing else for the past two months, I decided it's time to finally relax a little bit. So what did I do this weekend? Pretty much nothing productive. I did, however, watch a great amount of t.v. and imbibe at levels appropriate for doing nothing. Oh, and I played a game of flag football.

So, in other words, I had pretty much the perfect weekend...

Visiting the Home of Walt Whitman, Poet and Noted Queer

For fans of the State and/or Stella and/or surrealist semitic comdeia del 'arte, David Wain has a new weekly internet sketch comedy show aptly entitled Wainy Days. It's pretty much what you'd expect from David Wain, plus a lot of celebrity cameos (well, celebrities of the absurdist comedy world). If nothing else, it beats doing work:

My $.02 on Barack

So it was indeed an historic election last night. Of course, this didn't much help me sleep, as the folks in my hippie/immigrant neighborhood were out literally dancing in the streets into the wee hours of the morning.

And you know, I wish I could feel that elated. Don't get me wrong, this election turned out pretty well. Obama is clearly going to be a much better president than McCain, he'll probably get some worthwhile stuff done, and if nothing else, there's great satisfaction to be found in the Republicans losing an election in which they banked so heavily on fear and racism. It says at least a few good things about America.

But I can't help but feel Obama is the standard Democrat -- far better than the Republican alternative, but not really what I want. I couldn't help but feel a twinge of irony last night as people whooped and hollered over his statements about the war when the man campaigned on increasing troop levels, which is hardly what you do when you're ending a war.

And I'm not too cynical yet that I don't believe it's a big deal to finally have a president who is not white. It's a big step for this country, and I think it signals a great deal to the rest of the world (I have a whole different rant about how Obama's election really means more for our standing in the world than anything else).

Yet at the same time, let us remember that the entire point of the civil rights movement was that the color of a person's skin makes them neither inherently good or bad. Much as you should never look down at a person of color because of their skin tone, you can't say Obama's going to be any different or any better based on a bunch of rhetoric and his skin. Let us remember how much "better" England got when they finally got a female head of state...

In the end, like all presidents, this one is going to have to be pushed and pushed and pushed every day if we expect him to make any truly meaningful changes. So go ahead and celebrate and make orations about the historical significance of this moment, but be ready for January when we have to start work to hold him to everything he's claimed he's going to do...

Vote Convict 9653

"I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want and get it"
--Eugene V. Debs

If you're in the Twin Cities and someone's trying to mess with your vote, call 1-866-687-8683, and tell your friends. Phones will be answered in English, Spanish, Somali, and Hmong.

R.I.P. Studs

As most of you are probably already aware, Studs Terkel died last friday at the tender age of 96.

A journalist, skilled interviewer, labor organizing, sports broadcaster, and all-around rabble rouse, Terkel was an inspiration to many. As a researcher who attempts to understand and interview people, I can only hope to be half as good as Studs was in getting to the marrow of the issue with everyone he spoke to.

I don't have the time to write the kind of post a guy like Studs deserves (though here's a good one), but I'll never forget reading one of his most famous interviews with a former member of the John Birch Society, a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic companion to the KKK in which the fellow describes how he came to understand that such racial divisions were just made up by the powerful to separate us from one another and the power we have when we organize and work together. Only a guy like Studs could bring that out of people.

He'll be missed.