Need A Painstaking Summary of What Messrs G and Dogg Are Up To?

Comedy is one of those things like playing a musical instrument or being able to do math that seems to completely mystify those who have never tried it. But what people who are mystified by these things don't understand is that they're all actually pretty simple -- sure, they take work and maybe some innate talent, but they all have pretty simple, straight-forward rules that once you learn, make them much easier to master.

Take music, for example -- once you know your scales and what types of notes make sense in the structure you're working with, it's not very hard to competently play along with a song or jam with some people. Granted, if you want to get really good at it you need to practice hard and blah, blah, blah, but if you just want to be able to impress some people at a party or pass the time away at home, it's just a matter of learning the rules of music, so to speak.

Comedy is much the same way. To be funny you don't need to be especially clever or witty (though it certainly helps), you just need to understand how to find the humor in any given situation. And there are rules as well; one of my most favorite (and probably most abused) comedy rules is that pretty much anything can be made pretty damn funny by simply over-explaining it, preferably with as obtuse of verbiage as you can muster. This works especially well when the source material is not something usually deemed worthy of an in-depth explanation with technical language.

Take as a prime example the wikipedia entry on Regulate, the '94 jam by Snoop's cousin Nate Dogg. It's a classic tale of two erstwhile gentlemen out for a night on the town, full of women, drugs, guns, and all other fantasy scenarios I can assure you these men never experienced but our nation's racial fears and imaginations make many think they did.

But that's not the point. The point is, if you read the article (and are at all familiar with the song), you will laugh your ass off. Why? Because it followed my favorite rule of comedy by treating a ridiculous subject as if it were intense scholarship, using all the footnotes and scientific citations you'd expect of the entry on blue wales or atomic weights. Is it especially clever? No, not really. but it did follow the rules of comedy and made you laugh.

Today's Depressing News

From the same people who provided us a handy guide to the most likely (inevitable?) ways a zombie apocalypse will break out, we now have a list of reasons why a zombie outbreak will never reach apocalypse levels.

The logic seems pretty sound (zombies are poorly designed for survival, we've got plenty of weapons and ammo to kill them, etc.) but I think these folks are seriously over looking the fact that the hubris of man will render all of these points moot. Or else I have learned nothing from a life of watching horror films.

In any event, regardless of how unlikely a zombie infestation may be, I'm not making the mistake of being inadequately prepared for the inevitable outbreak...

A Good Week To Quit Your Job

This has apparently been the week to quit your job in the coolest way possible. First, Steven Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant, threw down the gauntlet. In case you've not yet heard his story, he was the guy who, after a particularly rude passenger refused to remain in her seat during the runway taxi (as you're always instructed to do, he grabbed the intercom, launched an expletive-filled tirade, grabbed two beers from the drink cart, popped open the doors launching the emergency slides, and then slid down, got in his car and drove away.

Hot on his heels comes a woman currently known only as Jenny, who after surviving a final indignity from her boss, quit her job via a series of pictures and story told on a whiteboard, in which she reveals the rest of her office's hate for said boss and his slightly embarrassing internet habits.

I don't have any thoughts of quitting my job any time soon, though right now I kind of wish I did. In any event, these two qualify as the best disgruntled job send-offs since Grandpa told his manager at the Krusty Burger "I never once washed my hands. That's your policy, not mine!"

Did You Celebrate?

I learned late yesterday that it was actually International Beer Day. I ironically learned this fact while surfing the web at the bar having a couple of drinks before I gave my students their final. This is possibly the best difference between being the student and being the instructor -- whereas my time before tests used to be spent cramming and worrying, it's now spent having some beers and reading funny websites.

In my tardy song of praise for international beer day, here's a nice story on how Carter's de-regulation of the beer industry is almost single-handedly responsible for the recent explosion of micro breweries across the nation and the saving of American beer. No word on whether this was prompted entirely by the creation of Billy Beer, but if it was, that's the kind of nepotism I can get behind...

Deja Vu, But With Life and Movement-Destroying Fun!

Remember that whole ACORN deal? You know, the one wherein a federal criminal made these highly-edited video tapes trying to frame the low-paid social workers at a tremendously helpful non-profit as horrid criminals? The same one where said non-profit was destroyed and is no longer available to help the millions of low-income Americans who rely on its services even though nothing illegal ever took place?

Yeah, that one.

Well, in a none-too-surprising twist, having clearly learned the lesson that destroying people is easy, consequence-free, and doesn't even need any real evidence, the same assholes have now destroyed the career of Shirley Sherrod for making a speech about how racism is wrong.

And you might think the news media that so quickly jumped on the ACORN-is-evil bandwagon and then had to apologize for never checking the facts (you know, the most basic tenet of journalism) would maybe take the next heavily-edited video from the same guy with maybe just a grain of salt. But you'd be wrong.

I don't mean to sound too radical, but this almost makes me wonder if the mainstream American media outlets are not very good at reporting the news...

Where To Go To College This Fall

In an annual tradition as majestic as the running of the bulls and as necessary as the Super Bowl, the Princeton Review has released its list of the top 10 party schools in America. With the University of Georgia leading the way and drunken Hawkeye fans clocking in at #9 (and while they only clock in at number 10 on Playboy's party school list, they are one of only 3 schools to appear on both lists), it's the handiest reference guide for where to go if you don't want people to respect your degree but you do want to have a really good time and/or herpes.

But not to be outdone, the brilliant minds over at HuffPo have put together the top 10 anti-party schools, where you can go to sit quietly in the library without all that damn noise.

So if you're a youngster thinking about attending college next year, I would study these lists carefully. Even if they don't help you make your choice, they'll most assuredly come in handy if you're ever on College Jeopardy.

When Is A Dinosaur Not a Dinosaur?

In a classic example of how even the study of things long since gone constantly changes, a group of paleontologists have posited the argument that the triceratops is really just the juvenile form of the torosaurus. Apparently the triceratops' skull was still soft enough to evolve as it grew, flattening out and losing its sharp edges as it became an adult.

While I'm sure this is rocking the paleontology community, it leaves many more questions for the The Land Before Time series. In it, Cera's (the triceratops) father is clearly depicted as an adult triceratops, not a torosaurus. Does this mean the film is now due for a scientifically correct update? The world awaits...

Funkytown Beyond Prince

People outside of the Midwest tend not to know much about Minneapolis. As Slug pointed out, we've got 10,000 lakes and Prince, and beyond that, it's hard to find too much to brag about.

But like so many things about Minneapolis that surprise outsiders, we really do have a pretty rich legacy of performers/musicians/entertainers etc. that stretch well beyond the purple Yoda and the Garrison Keillor. The strib this morning has a great list of 50 moments that put Minneapolis on the map, at least in terms of pop culture.

While some are a little dubious and probably just included to make the list a nice, round 50 (Janet Jackson records her first album here entry -- I'm looking at you), but some are unquestionably important -- Nirvana holing up in a snow-barren studio to record In Utero, Rage gets shut down outside the RNC, the birth of MST3K, Dylan re-records Blood on the Tracks, August Wilson gets a couple of Pulitzers -- that really say something about the arts scene we've got going on here.

That, and about 5,000,000 less hipsters than NY, make MPLS one of the best arts and music scenes around, in my completely un-biased opinion...

Even Captain America Hates The Tea Party

Marvel comics has recently been forced to apologize to the racist illiterates in the tea party for, well, calling them racist illiterates.

In a recent story arc of Captain America, ol' Cap and The Falcon are investigating a right-wing anti-government militia called The Watchdogs. As part of their information gathering, they're depicted monitoring a tea party-style rally (with oxymoronic and incorrectly spelled signs taken straight from reality).

Apparently some associated with the tea party have gotten all twisted out of shape about this (imagine that -- the tea party becoming enraged about something for little to no reason) and demanded Marvel apologize for it's accurate portrayal of them, which it caved and did.

But still, it's good to know that after all these years, ol' Cap is still standing up for truth, justice, and the American way...

Mama Don't Take My Kodachrome Away

In a pretty standard business-type news story, Kodak is ceasing production of their famous Kodachrome film, no doubt due to all those damn kids with their "digital" cameras and smartphones and damn hip hop music.

In a more interesting news story, however, Kodak is giving the final roll ever produced to famous photographer Steve McMurry to use and the resulting photos will be published in National Geographic.

The best bit of the story: in a not-at-all ironic twist, because he did not want to waste any of the pictures on that final roll, McMurray used a digital camera to take every shot first to make sure he was getting the image he wanted. But time keeps turning, seasons come and go, further cliches about the passage of time, etc.

Why Are The Homophobic Always So Homoerotic?

Apropos of nothing on a friday, here's a good collection of incredibly homoerotic sports photos.

In the way of a bit of commentary, multiple studies have found that the people who tend to be the most aggressively and outwardly homophobic are usually doing so as a way to hide and/or come to grips with their own homosexual urges (see Craig, Larry and the entire Family Research Council, etc.). So while these are just fun out of context photos, maybe they're getting at a bigger truth...

Need To Understand A Band?

But don't know where to look?

It's a serious problem -- many artists have careers so long and mystifying that you can't simply pick up any album and start there, because chances are usually as good that you'll get a shitty one as much as you'll get a good one. To make sure you know where to start and are no longer sneered at by the hipsters at the coffee shop who can't believe you've never heard this album before, there's Discographies, helpfully breaking down a band's output into 140 characters or less.

Here's a good sampling of some of their work:

Bob Dylan: 1 Woody; 2, 3 ambition; 4 pot; 5-7 speed; 8-9 pot; 10-11 AJ Weberman; 12-16 booze; 17-19 Jesus; 20-27 pot; 28 death; 29-32 pot.

The Beatles: 1st-4th) recorded in black & white; 5th-8th) the drugs kick in; 9th/10th/12th) entropy; 11th) invents ELO & Oasis by accident.

Gee, I Wonder Why We Can't Keep Members

It's probably no secret now that the Catholic Church is having a problem or two these days. Amongst the many others, one major problem is retention -- people are leaving the church (or dying) in numbers far surpassing the people coming in. This is especially evident in small rural areas like where I grew up where Parishes are rapidly consolidating due to lack of members and especially priests. For example, the Parish I grew up in has now consolidated with several others and has a scant three priests for about 8 or so churches.

I can't help but think that a major part of the reason so many people are leaving is that the Catholic Church still thinks it's the year 1500 (in so many ways) -- they think that if they say we shouldn't do something, we'll all faithfully obey. Much like those who planned the Iraq invasion, they don't even seem capable of pondering the fact that people might not agree and might instead take a very obvious different course of action (in this case leaving the church instead of shunning their gay friends, for example).

And there's a huge problem recruiting new priests. My old man has a pretty good theory that this is the fault of Catholic schools -- while once they were designed to serve quality education to the poor, they've become daycare centers for rich brats. And this obviously makes a difference in grooming future priests; if you're poor, becoming a priests might look pretty cool (a job for life, respect in the community, etc.), but if you're rich, a dual vow of poverty and chastity doesn't look like a very good option.

But you know what would be a pretty easy solution to getting more priests? How about allowing the other half of the world's residents (the ones without penises) to be ordained?

But it looks like that won't happen any time soon. As Father Roy Bourgeois (who seems to be a much better Catholic than Benedict XVI, but that's another post for another day) recently found out, the ordination of women has been specifically identified as a grave crime.

For those of you not in the now, grave crimes are a big deal in the Catholic Church. For example, they're one of the few reasons for which someone can be excommunicated, one of the biggest punishments the church has (other than that whole eternity in hell thing). You know what else is a grave crime? Sexually molesting children.

I feel compelled to point out that lots of priests have molested children and none that I've heard have been excommunicated, but the one priest that ordained a woman -- excommunicated before the ceremony was over.

Just a crazy guess here, but this might just be a good example of why people aren't super interested in being Catholic these days...

Oh, Those Internets

Possibly the thing I enjoy most about the internet is that there are a lot of clever people in the world, and internet memes let us all enjoy in their creativity. So, say an über-famous anti-semetic religious fundamentalist actor is recorded saying long, semi-coherent strings of incredibly racist and sexist things.

In days long gone by, this would simply be something we all laugh at. But fortunately, in today's age, we have rappers making sweet remixes of it and enterprising graphics artists pairing the best/worst of his quotes with adorable kittens.

God bless the internets...

Yup I'm a Racist

An image making the rounds from a tea party event. Some enterprising folks have printed up shirts reading "Yup, I'm a Racist" with a list of their tea party endorsed views on the back.

In a confusing interview with one of the folks selling the shirts, he claimed this was a satirical response to be calling racist so often. I'm not really sure that it's quite getting the message across, but then satire has always been better done by the left anyway...

R.I.P. Harvey Pekar

Early yesterday morning, Harvey Pekar was discovered dead in his apartment. Pekar, of course, was most famous for his American Splendor series, chronicling his life and experiences as a working stiff in Cleveland. He became somehwat of a public figure after his repeated tousling with David Letterman on the Late Show, mostly surrounding the shady arms dealings of GE, NBC's then-parent company.

Pekar's comic was most famous for using the medium of comics to tell stories not about superheroes, but about a balding, overweight misanthrope and his daily grind working in a VA hospital mail room.

I once had the great fortune of getting to interview Pekar on his graphic novel adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working and his views of how sociology informed his works (short answer: it did not). While the interview provided me with a harsh lesson on the fact that interviewing someone famous for being irritable and not doing interviews does not readily lend itself to a very good interview, I did manage to get him to angrily relate possibly his most famous quote of "comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures," which has always been a favorite line of mine.

So at least there was that.

Anyway, Pekar kept working right up until his death and has left a lot of material behind to remember him by. If you're not familiar with it, now would be a great time to stop what you're doing and go check it out. He will be missed...

Put Up or Shut Up

The classic response to the tired "Im-me-gints is stealin' all our jobs" line has always been "No, they're mostly taking jobs no one wants."

Well, to test this theory and highlight the plight of farmworkers in America, the UFW has launched the website Take Our Jobs, where you can sign up to take over the job of an immigrant farm laborer.

According to UFW prez Arturo Rodríguez, only 3 people have thus far taken up the offer, though Stephen Colbert last night pledged to join the ranks.

So if you're unemployed and blaming immigrants instead of the real culprits, go ahead and get yourself a job...

A Li'l Summer Listening

Need something to listen to at your barbecue, while washing your car, or while stuck inside working on lectures (like me)?

How about the official summertime mixtape, put together by no less than the potent combo of Mick Boogie and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Yeah, those are the dudes you want making your summer mix. Download it for free here.

You Never Even Knew You Wanted It

Given her recent success as host of Saturday Night Live, the big facebook push to get her to host the Oscars, and her Ringo-like ability to outlive everyone else in her famous quartet, it seems only right that Betty White would be getting the full paparazzi treatment these days.

And what all does that include? Well, of course nude photos.

Yeah, that's right. Nude photos of Betty White, apparently from a 40s era deck of novelty poker cards. So...um...do with this information what you will, but don't say this blog has never brought you interesting news.

50 Fattiest Foods, By State

Not much time to blog today. but if you're bored and wondering why Americans are so damn fat (something I assume you do all the time), check out this list of the 50 fattiest foods by state.

I'm disappointed that Minnesota's is relegated to a fast-food chain item from a company that just happens to have its headquarters in Minnesota (surely they could have come up with some more local, like my new favorite, the deep-fried peanut butter cup). But Iowa's is pretty kick-ass -- a hot fudge sundae, but instead of ice cream and hot fudge, it's meat, potatoes, gravy, and cheese.

This was the first I've heard of such a thing, but maybe it's just one of the many cool things Iowa waited to do until I left...

Hello, I'm Troy McClure...

You may remember me from my entire filmography:

Ambitious, But Too Hurried

In today's news that's not really news file: apparently Snoop Dogg tried to hire out the entire country of Liechtenstein to be in his new video.

The best/saddest part of it is that Liechtenstein's "property agent" (whatever the hell that is) said it would have been possible, but Snoop just didn't give them enough time.

Oh, Snoop! When will you learn to plan ahead?

Why Don't We Have Universal Healthcare?

I'm teaching a course this summer entitled "Law, Politics, and Inequality" and one of the main points I'm trying to get across to my students is that we could solve many crime, poverty, and various other issues surrounding inequality pretty easily, we just choose not to.

For example, we know that addiction treatment is pretty effective at reducing the number of drug users and we know that arresting people for possession is completely ineffective at reducing the number of drug users in our society. Yet we do a bunch of one of those things and pretty much ignore one of those things...

Or take poverty -- about 40% of all people living in poverty are children (a good fact to remember the next time you hear someone tell you poor people are poor because they're too lazy to get a job). Yet we spend preciously little on social services for children, and yet we outspend the rest of the world combined (and then some) on our military.

I could go on, but the point is we could solve a great deal of our social ills, we just choose not to for various reasons. But our failure to solve them is most assuredly not because we don't have any idea how to and definitely not because we don't have the resources.

With universal healthcare, the conservative response is always "How can we afford this?!?" as if guaranteeing all people healthcare will bankrupt our nation. Well, today the strib released its Minnesota 100 list of the top paid CEOs in the state.

Check out who's number one -- Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth Group Inc. This poor fellow only took home $101,959,866 in compensation this year (yes, that would be over 101 million dollars).

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about -- we as a society could choose to spend 101 million dollars on healthcare for thousands of people or we could choose to give 101 millions dollars to one guy. This was not pre-ordained nor inevitable, it is a choice we as a society have made. A choice to keep millions of people without healthcare and keep a very, very small number of people in embarrassing riches.

But on the bright side, we could also theoretically choose to do something else someday...

This Is How We Win The War on Terror!

According to this interesting article, an American construction worker was arrested in Pakistan armed with a 40-inch sword and pistol with night vision equipment.

His mission? He was scouring the country to find and kill Osama Bin Laden.

Apparently, after he was detained, authorities first thought he was joking until they discovered his cache of weapons. It turns out he had quite the plan -- he had been to Pakistan several times, had learned some of the local language, grew a beard to fit in, and even purchased all of his weapons there to make sure he had a ready and accessible cache. In the most recent update I've seen, he's been released by authorities and will likely be deported.

But I say this is the future of American warfare -- we already have more private contractors than soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan (many of them doing essentially what our soldiers are doing but aren't beholden to minor matters such as "international law"). But when we privatize, we have to pay big money. Why don't we just let the American people take it on themselves? Heck, we could even pay for the guy's plane ticket, and it would still save us a great chunk of change...

If It Had Existed Then...

When I was in a punk band in college, we practiced in the loft of our drummer's dad's electrical shop (Denver Electric: We Mend Your Shorts -- no kidding, actual motto on the sign above the door). As well as being a nice place to practice as loud as we wanted, it also featured an old, worn cardboard box full of Playboys circa the late 1970s and early 80s.

In addition to the less-erotic-than-hilarious pornography of old (women of the Soviet Union!), it also featured some pretty sweet articles (Steve Jobs on the computer wars: "If Bill Gates wins out, there will be no significant improvement in the personal computer in the next 20 years) and ads for technologies that were outdated by the time I could walk heralded as the wave of the future.

But this is really just a long, roundabout way of explaining why I'm really familiar with late 70s magazine ads and their detailed copy of weak attempts at drawing the reader in. It's what makes these rendering of current tech devices rendered as if they came out in the 70s so amusing and spot on. Check it out, especially if you too are familiar with ad copy from the era, even if your familiarity has nothing to do with the sexual proclivities of electrical workers from 30 years ago...

Check Back On Monday...

There's nothing worse than a blogger who doesn't post regularly. Maybe the only thing worse is a blogger who doesn't post and then only writes a post about how he's not posting...

So, in short, I'm the worst type of blogger.

But I have excuses! Many, many excuses! It turns out scheduling international research travels to conclude only about 20 hours before the class you're teaching starts isn't such a solid idea. It also turns out that sleep deprivation and being wildly behind on your work do not particularly help each other.

But today, dear readers, is the day I get dug out from under a giant pile of work or die trying.

Regular posting will resume monday...


Pictured: Me and my giant pile of work to be done

How Much More Racist Can They Get?

Sure, Arizona's passing of SB1070 has made the state look like a collective of backward, inbred fucktards (to use the scientific term), but some people could still defend it. Granted, they're stupid and racist people, but they tried to at least talk a good game as to how this somehow was not about race and was only about "enforcing the law." You know, like those laws about how it's illegal to be Mexican.

But now they've really outdone themselves. A mural of school children at Miller Valley School in Prescott, AZ will now have the faces of children in it "lightened" to appease the racist-as-fuck community.

What's even more glaring is that the racists who demanded this (probably the same people who were continually driving by shouting racial epithets at those painting the mural) are still trying to pretend they're not racist!

How do they get away with such a glaring contradiction? Simple -- they're not upset that a child depicted in the mural isn't white, they're upset the mural doesn't "reflect the community." Even though the child depicted in the mural is a student at that school, which I think would pretty safely place him as a member of that community.

But I guess that's the beauty and brilliance of today's color-blind racism. They don't hate people because they're not white, they just happen to hate people who just happen to be not white...

first ave stars

After many, many years of piling them up, historic First Ave has painted over its many stars. In an attempt to update the exterior and allow some new folks a chance to have a star, First Ave will be eliminating about 100 of the stars when they re-paint their exterior.

But here's where it gets really exciting -- while some of the stars are safe beyond question (think your Princes of the world) and most of them will be decided on by long time First Ave staff, they are asking the public to chime in on who should stay and who should go.

So what do you think? Check out this definitive list of the stars and ponder the tough calls...does Menudo get to stay? What about Tom Arnold?

How can anyone even fathom such a decision?

Pet Peeves and Internet Misattribution

One of the little things that annoys me to no end is the way things are constantly attributed to the wrong people online. If you've ever downloaded music, you probably know what I'm talking about. Any jam-bandy type song will be attributed to Dave Matthews, any white-sounding rapper is labeled Eminem, etc. I can't quite figure out why this annoys me so much; I think it's something about the collective ignorance of Americans and their willingness to believe anything they are told sometimes. Because in most of these instances, the work does not sound anything like the person is has been attributed to, but it will exist like that for ages.

Probably the most prominent example is a bluegrass version of Gin and Juice that sounds absolutely nothing like Dave Matthews stylistically or vocally. And yet, I don't know that I've ever seen a version of it floating around the internet not attributed to that no talent ass clown, to borrow a phrase. The song was actually recorded by a small time bluegrass band called the Gourds. I guess what gets my ranker up is that The Gourds sound like they're actually somewhat talented and I'm sure they don't have the deep pockets or legions of fans Mr. Matthews has, yet he's getting credit for their hard work.

Though it also cuts the other way. Weird Al most famously is given internet attribution for pretty much every parody that exists, even if it's a woman singing or some other very clear give away that it is clearly not him. And I read in an interview with him once that he doesn't mind it so much, but often the songs are really juvenile, crass, or hurtful and he's not particularly happy about it being assumed he created it. There's actually so many songs incorrectly attributed to him that some plucky fans have a webpage called the Not Al List dedicated solely to correcting these incorrect attributions.

So I'm not really sure how to wind this post down, other than to implore you to take an extra 15 seconds to properly credit an artist for their work. Or continue to annoy me. Whichever you prefer...

Why Context Matters

Sociologists are all about context. Why here at Minnesota, we even have a sociology magazine called Contexts. We focus so much on context because, as people studying the social world, we know that you can't simply look at something and understand it, you need to put it in a time, place, etc. For example, when I teach intro classes, I often use the example of female genital cutting. FGC is a practice in some African nations where a young girls' clitoris is cut off (often with a shard of glass or jagged piece of metal) and then her labia are sewn shut to preserve her virginity for marriage.

As an outsider looking in, it certainly looks like a barbarous practice. But if you look at in context, it you find that most women who undergo it choose to do so (though, granted, it's a pretty loaded choice), and who are we as a society to judge when we cut off the skin of the penises of our male children for no reason?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm still totally against FGC, but when looking at in context, it becomes a much murkier picture and it isn't so easy to immediately and completely condemn it.

The imprisonment of suspected radicals in Guantanamo Bay is another perfect example of why context matters. If you simply take the given reasoning behind it with no other information, it looks like a perfectly rational decision. The men held in there are all radical terrorists hell bent on killing innocent people, so it makes sense to keep them locked up indefinitely. And if some abuses occur, well that's too bad, but even some abuse of these people can be tolerated given what horrible things they would do if they weren't locked up in there.

But if you understand Guantanamo in context, it's suddenly not such a rosy picture. For instance, many of the men imprisoned there were not captured by American forces, they were delivered to American forces as people who should be detained. What isn't widely known is that often the Army will pay out cash rewards for turning over a suspected terrorist. Now think about that -- in the middle of a chaotic civil war with multiple hostile factions, isn't there a decent chance someone might take the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by putting one of their enemies into indefinite detention and earning some cash on the side? Or might someone who lives in a money-starved nation with few resources see a weak stranger as the opportunity to make some good money really quickly? These scenarios are spelled out pretty well in Taxi to the Dark Side, a fantastic documentary that spells out exactly those (and several other) scenarios that lead innocent people to be put in Guantanamo.

And to add further verification to these logical exercises in context, of the 50 Guantanamo prisoners who have been able to go to a habeas hearing to determine if they should even be locked up, 36 of them have been set free for lack of any evidence to hold them. Just to repeat, 72% of Guantanamo prisoners that have had a habeas hearing with a judge provided by the very people imprisoning them have been set free because there is absolutely no evidence they are dangerous in any way, shape, or form. Why is this number so high? Well, because of the reasons described above. People are simply being rounded up and then sorted out later.

So when you get some of this context surrounding the Guantanamo detentions (high numbers of innocent people, really shady situations leading to imprisonment in the first place, etc.), suddenly it's not so easy to support the existence of Guantanamo or take politicians at their word that all the people housed there are dangerous and cannot be let go.

And that's why context is important...

Not To Accuse Them of Being Shady or Anything...

But it turns out those folks over at British Petroleum might not be the stand up corporate citizens we've been led to believe.

So you know how their immense negligence and shameful corporate greed recently led to the worst environmental disaster in the history of our hemisphere? Well, it's been in the news a bit recently, and gotten so much attention even the President has had to take several trips down there to survey the damage and pose for photo ops.

And if you caught one of those presidential photo ops, you might have thought at least BP was doing something to clean up the millions upon millions of gallons still gushing into the gulf. But you'd be wrong, because it turns out BP hired hundreds of temp workers to look like they were cleaning up while the President was there, only to bus them out as soon as he was gone.

But to be fair, given their complete lack of concern about safety to begin with and complete lack of effort in even stopping the gushing leak, let alone clean it up, many people have asked why BP can't even pretend to care about all the damage they're reeking.

Well, it turns out they can pretend they care. They can pretend very well...

First Blog In A While

Sorry for the relatively long period of silence folks, but I'm currently overseas and my internet access, well, she ain't what she used to be. But I find myself with an unexpected surplus of free time tonight, so hopefully I can knock a couple out and be back to the regular blogging that my legions of fans so angrily demand...

(Humorously right on cue to me writing a sentence about how my internet connection isn't that great, the power went out. Not everywhere has the decadence of American imperialism...)

Anyway, one of the areas I'm always reminded America lags far behind the world whenever I travel is in the area of colorful moneys. Sure, we're slowly but surely getting there, but anyone who has ever traveled internationally can attest, money elsewhere is so damn colorful.

Even our humble neighbors to the North have some pretty interesting bills, as the artwork below demonstrates. Unfortunately, that's not a standard issue Canadian bill, but rather one of many that has been upgraded in one of the most interesting flickr memes I've ever seen.

I can't really decide which is funnier about this -- that there exists such a collective of people making amusing images out of Canadian currency, or that if you look you'll notice the search term is just for Canada as there is apparently already such a wealth of defaced presidents that it gets its own drop down menu.

Either way, I'm glad to be back to blogging, and like a box of bran and prunes, posting should get a lot more regular soon...

Even Their Fans Are Jerks

While the Twins mercifully and finally won a home game against the damnable Yankees, even their fans were busy being entitled brats who have no respect for anyone. Watch it:



My other favorite part of the video? The Yankees network reporter saying "Two words: pork chop stick." Apparently they can't count, either...

I Continue To Assure You I Am Not Making This Stuff Up

In a plan that should shock and surprise no one, and yet horrify us all the same, the CIA had plans to portray Saddam and Bin Laden as pedophiles through fake videos (presumably in separate incidents, unless they were going for a scandal of historic proportions).

This is absurd and ridiculous in oh-so-many ways, but here's a few that show both the arrogance and ignorance of the U.S. intelligence community:

To begin with, is the agency run by an 8 year old? We don't like the way someone else runs their country, so we say they like boys? Or maybe someone had just seen too much Dateline: Predator episodes and figured if Chris Matthews could do it, certainly the CIA could pull it off.

It's also an example of a tried-and-true American method for dealing with people we don't like -- continually try to kill, humiliate, or otherwise discredit them, and then when they speak out against the U.S., act as if it's crazy they could ever have anything against us and they're completely irrational for not doing everything we demand they do. The same thing happened with Castro -- the CIA tried to kill him or overthrow him a good dozen or so times, and then acted shocked, just shocked, that he would denounce the U.S. as a military aggressor.

And finally, it points out how completely tone-deaf the people who are supposed to be experts on international culture are. For while a same sex encounter with a teenage boy would cause incredible controversy in the United States, it really wouldn't cause much of a stir in many Middle East cultures. Shockingly enough, not every place in the world views everything the same way the United States does.

Take for instance the recent DoD study that found that many Pashtuns in Afghanistan have sexual contact with men but don't identify as homosexuals. It has lead to many American commentators concluding those poor Afghans must just be confused. Because after all, any sexual contact with men = homosexual. But similar to studies of American prisons that find men who completely identify as heterosexual having sex with other men while in prison, it is totally possible to have a sexual orientation that is more flexible that totally hetero- or totally homosexual, but that's another post for another day.

But then, what do I know? I mean, the CIA probably has a grainy video of some guy who looks like me doing all sorts of deranged shit...

Why Sarah Palin Is The Most Brilliant Political Mind of Our Era

I don't think it's being too radical or cynical to suggest that today's major politicians are much more about style and image than substance. And in their defense, you really have to be at the highest levels of politics. While you might be able to get away with actually making an argument about policies or governing philosophy in a run for city council, you simply can't do that if you're running for President or a high-profile Senate seat or the like. With the 24-hour news cable shows and the internet and hack partisan attack ads et al waiting to tear apart every word you say, there isn't much room for nuance. Really, there's only space for making bland and banal comments while posing in front of a flag/factory workers/soldiers/school children.

And this is why I think Mz. Palin represents the pinnacle/nadir of modern politicians. She has completely mastered the style without even attempting any of the substance. Whether it's her answering which newspaper she reads with "all of them" or answering the question of which Founding Father™ is her favorite with the same, she clearly realizes what she says is not nearly as important as is looking vaguely attractive, very white, and/or posing with her mentally challenged child.

So when it was discovered that (surprisingly!) she's not a folksy, salt-of-the-earth regular Sally but instead someone who demands multiple SUVs and luxury hotel suites and even bendy straws over regular ones (though I have to agree with her there), this should be damaging to her image, right? No, for in the next speech she delivered after this came out, she mocked it as if it were all a made up smear, saying something to the effect of "oh, look, I've even got one of those bendy straws they say I insist on."

And this is what makes her brilliant -- "they say I insist on." No, "they" don't say that, you say that in a legal contract you signed demanding they be provided every time you give a speech. This is not a random baseless accusation, it is a literal reading of a document you signed your approval of.

But you see, that's substance. And substance does not matter. Style does. And she sure used her folksy, you betcha style to make it look like this very real substance was just another ad hominem attack. And her supporters, who love her style and probably have no idea what her substance is, ate it up. And that is why she is so brilliant.

Of course she didn't address the veracity of the claim the contract demands "children's caretaker must be of Korean ethnicity or higher," but then she can't respond to everything...

The Elephant in Your Taco

One thing that's really hard to explain to undergraduate students is that not only does racism still exist, but that token symbols of cultural integration don't really mean much. For example, just because you listen to rap music it doesn't mean you're not necessarily racist or that you're free to use the black-specific racial slurs that so frequently populate rap albums.

But here's another great example of this -- owning a chain of "mexican" restaurants doesn't mean you don't hate Mexican people. Take for example Tony Sutton, chairman of the Minnesota GOP and owner of the Baja Sol chain of faux Mexican food.

While you might think his ownership of a chain of Mexican restaurants might make him somewhat sympathetic to the plight of Mexican peoples, he's actually a major proponent of a 1070-style apartheid law in Minnesota.

Or, as a more cynical observer might put it, not only does he not care about Mexican people, he's actively exploiting (a poor imitation of) their culture to grow wealthy while simultaneously seeking to oppress and disenfranchise them. In other words, despite the fact that he has the trappings of multiculturalism around him, he's still a good ol' fashioned white supremacist.

If you live in the Twin Cities area and want to help point out the hypocrisy/insanity of this fella, those crazy rabble rousers over at SEIU are organizing weekly events at his restaurants to highlight ridiculousness. Come on down and join in the fun!

RIP RJD

In some seriously sad news, legendary metal frontman Ronnie James Dio died this past weekend.

Dio is probably most well known as the guy who replaced Ozzy as the lead singer in Sabbath, but he also had some pretty good albums with Richie Blackmore's Rainbow and his own eponymous band. He received a bit of a late career bump after Tencious D included a tribute to him on their LP and featured him in their movie. He was set to tour with his latest group Heaven and Hell (actually, just him and Sabbath under a new moniker) before he succumbed to cancer.

Dio will leave quite the legacy. His soaring, operatic vocal stylings essentially created a new genre of metal music, and his obsession with medieval weaponry added an element of wizards and dragons that while not necessarily lacking in metal before Dio, certainly brought it into greater prominence. And of course, he is widely credited with being the first person to throw metal horns, popularizing perhaps the most recognizable hand gesture in the world.

For me, Dio's death is on par with the passing of Kirby in terms of losing my childhood heroes. While the poseurs and johnny-come-latelys have been acting like they like Dio now that he became ironically cool, I was a Dio fan of the highest order. In addition to owning all his albums, I was once a proud card carrying member of the Dio fan club. And even though my musical tastes have matured a little past metal, I still go back and dig out the Dio CDs fairly often. And it's no coincidence my metal side project covers not one, but two Dio songs.

Metal has truly lost one of the luminaries of the field. Somewhere in Hell there is most certainly a demon crying...

No Time Today

Don't have time to blog today, but hey, check it out -- Minnesota is the 9th most educated state in the nation!

No indication whatsoever what that is based on, but hey, it's better than nothing.

I Do Not Want To Work Today

From the if-you're-not-reading-it-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you goodness of Hyperbole and a Half
, here's a visual representation of my spring time feelings about work:

Everything is Becoming Automated...

Academic jobs are thought to be somewhat safe in the near future -- sure, tenure is disappearing, class sizes are increasing exponentially, and funding is being cut daily. But despite all of this, you really can't outsource academic teaching and research. You can to some extent (especially with the growing popularity of online courses), but if nothing else than for prestige purposes, universities seem unlikely to completely eliminate traditional academic positions anytime soon.

One of the biggest reasons this is happening is because it's still too dependent on human skills. Unlike a lot of assembly work which has been robbed of most of its need for human intelligence by advanced automation, you still need qualified professors to make a university work.

That is, until now -- the dastardly bastards at the University of Chicago writing program have devised a Write Your Own Academic Sentence algorithm.

For me, it came up with "the ideology of post-capitalist hegemony is always already participating in the reification of the nation-state," which is already a more intelligent sentence than I could write. Maybe the automation process is coming to the academy faster than I thought...

Hello, Would You Like To Give Me Several Thousand Dollars?

So I have this really ambitious dissertation plan. And it's a good plan. Like a really, really good plan. Everything is all set -- I know who I want to talk to, I know what I want to find out, and I know how I'm going to do it all.

The only snag is that I need lots of money to accomplish it. Say, somewhere in the range of 10-20 thousand dollars.

I do not have 10-20 thousand dollars.

So I've been applying to all of these places for money. And it's not like these are easy applications. No one accepts "I'm smart! Trust me!" as reason enough to give someone 5 figures. No, they want lots and lots of details. So you spend like a month and half working on each of these applications.

And then they reject you. And then you are sad. In this case, by "you" I mean "me." I am the one who is rejected and sad.

I have one more organization I'm waiting to hear from. After they reject me I will officially be a guy with a really good plan and nothing else. But at least when I'm a penniless bum turning tricks on the corner to get another bottle of booze to wash away the painful memories of when I thought I was going to do something with my life I'll have a really good plan I can tell people about.

Sigh...

Yet Another Handy Venn Diagram

For those subtle, yet important, distinctions in life:

Happy Getting Drunk and Making Racist Caricatures Day!

Cinco De Mayo is a great example of so many things that are off-kilter about America. We tend to be pretty xenophobic, but are happy to temporarily accept any foreign culture if it means we have an excuse to get drunk on a weekday (see also: St. Patrick's Day).

While many Americans actively harbor hatred for Mexican peoples (see also: the state of Arizona), I think it's safe to say even those Americans that have no active hatred know basically nothing about Mexican people, culture, or society. All this, of course, despite the fact it comprises a tidy 50% of nations that border us.

Go ahead and go to any local bar and/or restaurant tonight where people are "celebrating" and ask any random American what Cinco De Mayo is. They'll likely say it's the Mexican independence day (it isn't) or some sort of important national holiday (it isn't). In fact, it's pretty much only celebrated in the United States.

As such, it becomes a great example of what sociologists call "appropriation," which is essentially when one culture (typically a dominant one) steals the fun parts of another culture while simultaneously disrespecting/ignoring the culture from which they steal (see also: white people and rock and roll). Here in the U.S. we celebrate this "Mexican" holiday not by learning anything about Mexico, talking to any Mexican people, or even attempting to understand the history of the nation.

Instead, we use it as an excuse to get drunk and use incredibly racist caricatures (see graphic above). And then we somehow pretend that being racist and getting drunk is really a way of "paying tribute" to our neighbors to the South that we ignore and know nothing about.

And that sums up our relationship to not only Mexico, but pretty much the entire world. Not that it's going to change my plans of getting "Mexican" food that in no way resembles what people eat in Mexico and having a ludicrously over-sized margarita tonight, but then again, that's my God-given right as an American...

Adding More Fuel to a Pointless Fire

As you may have noticed on this blog, I will from time to time take a break from political rantings and sports chatter to make fun of Wisconsin. Why? Partially because it's so easy, but mostly because as a partisan of my adopted home state of Minnesota, Wisconsonian is by default my natural enemy (though I'm half Wisconsin by birth, which makes for complicated feelings, but hey, we're all complex people aren't we?). These two great states of the frozen North have been locked in a battle since time immemorial to prove that we're real states and not forgotten fly-over country, as the rest of the nation seems to view us. Of course, we both look down our noses at the Dakotas, but hey, even the band nerds can make fun of the special ed kids.

(Disclaimer: I don't endorse or condone the mockery of special education students. They are simply the only people below band nerds in the high school social hierarchy...)

So to add fuel to a completely unnecessary fire, I like to point out flaws in the state of cheese and high-quality paper products, such as their unusually high bar to grocery store ratio. Or their development of a special cheese-slicing laser (because the good folks in Madison have apparently never heard of the knife). Or a yard full of fiberglass statues, which I think is technically the Wisconsin MOMA.

But recently, it's come to my attention that the "Forward" state is home to none other than Stalin's only daughter. Granted, she probably had little to do with the famous purges that allegedly killed up to 20 million Russians, but it is telling that when she wanted to pick a place to run to and hide where no one would ever bother looking, it seems her first choice was Wisconsin...

Call me Michael Ian Black, Because I Love the 90s!

In today's update on things that are completely unnecessary but sure are fun time wasters, I present to you the Geo Cities-izer, an application that allows you to view any website you want as if it were created by a 13 year old in the year 1996.

For instance, this is what my humble li'l blog would look like as a Geo Cities page (don't forget to turn your sound up for full effect).

This is a great reminder of how quickly the world changes. As the semester wraps up, I've been trying to show my students that pretty much the only constant of the social world is change, and therefore it's not a question of if things will change, but how and why they will.

And you can see it with this humorous but trifling app -- only a little over a decade ago this stuff looked cutting edge and futuristic, and now it's something we laugh heartily at. And that forces us to ask ourselves what we now see as normal or even cutting edge that will soon be laughable.

In any event, check in on this blog in 2025 and we'll see what we're laughing at then...

"Getting Old" or "I Learned Everything I Need To Know From Jeff Feagles"

If I was ever pressed to give my pick for greatest video game of all time, it would take little thought to come to my conclusion: Tecmo Super Bowl, the 1991 release for the NES.

I think it says something that a low-budget football video game coming up on it's 20 anniversary still inspires countless fan sites and a major yearly tournament. But even more than this, it seems no matter where I go, I'll always be able to find at least a dozen guys who have an old Nintendo in their basement with Tecmo at the ready. It's like a default game -- the ownership of a Nintendo implies the ownership of Tecmo.

And I can't even begin to catalogue the thousands of hours I've spent on the 8-bit gridiron, listening to a hypnotic midi soundtrack one note at a time. And sure, it could be slightly unrealistic -- kickoffs spend well over a half minute in the air, a defensive lineman could go from nearly sacking the quarterback to chasing down the team's fastest wide receiver, and my single game rushing record with Barry Sanders is somewhere in the 800 range (though I feel like Barry in his prime might have been able to pull that off).

But even though Tecmo lives on, it's players do not. Several notable players (Derrick Thomas comes to mind) who ruled Tecmo have already passed away, and countless others are already enshrined in Canton.

Yet some stuck around...until today. Jeff Feagles, the NFL's oldest player, looks set to announce his retirement this Friday. Now normally the retirement of an old journeymen punter doesn't cause me to pause and reflect on my life, but this is different. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Feagles was the last Tecmo player to still be playing in the NFL.

And sure, it's amazing (even for a punter) that his career has lasted 20 seasons. And I knew this day was coming eventually. But still, I can't help but feel like part of my childhood died with that announcement. You can't really feel old when the players from a video game you played as a small child were still there on the t.v. every weekend. But now, I might as well be hoping Sode Popinski makes a dramatic return to the world of international prize fighting or accept that I'm getting older...

One Less Thing to Worry About

One of the better little Simpsons moments of all time is when a comet is threatening to destroy all life in Springfield (evacuation being impossible due to a missile knocking out the only bridge out of town). As the panicked residents turn to whatever they can for solace, Flanders of course is in church listening to Rev. Lovejoy explain the comet's wrath:

Lovejoy: Judgement Day is upon us. I warned you the Lord wouldn't stand for your minidresses and Beatle boots. But it's not too late to repent your sins and be embraced by the Almighty...

Flanders: (frantically trying to unzip boots) I've resisted these for thirty-five years. Why did I wear them today?

Well, Flanders and the rest of us need worry no longer, as the Vatican has now officially given the thumbs up to the Beatles (though they remain conspicuously silent on the "bigger than Jesus" debate). While Beatle boots weren't specifically included in the announcement, I think we're safe to assume they're ok by association...

Rejected Fortune Cover

Comic book artist Chris Wares was commissioned to do the cover of Fortune's annual Fortune 500 issue, chronicling the richest of the rich corporations. However, his cover was deemed just a little to satirical/realistic for the folks at Fortune.

A look at the hi-res version lets you see why: while CEOs shower themselves with money and dance atop their corporate conglomerate, houses are underwater, people line up at the Milton Friedman check advance, and our neighbors to the South toil away in a shop labeled "Fabricia de Exploitacion."

This is the first I've heard of Mr. Wares so I'm not really sure what else he's done, but I am sure he's got some pretty hefty cojones to submit this to Fortune in the first place...

Another Lazy Blog Post

When things start to pile up, they really start to pile up. And unfortunately, blogging is on the very bottom of said pile. But I have not forgotten you, dear readers, for I give you this:

Hot on the heels of instant rimshot, may I humbly present to you A Button For Any Occasion!

Need the theme song to Benny Hill? Got it! Need an evil laugh? Got it! Need someone else's voice to tell a coworker to fuck off? Got it!

Be careful about clicking on that link, though, as it is guaranteed you will spend at least the next 15 minutes of your life pushing buttons to hear funny sounds. Of course, there are worse things to do with your time, but I just wanted to warn you.

Lite Blogging: Half the Calories, Yet Full Flavor

Been too busy to blog lately, but here's some neat-o stuff I've stumbled upon:

--The 10 scariest charts of the recession.

-It turns out the rich didn't fair so badly, but the rest of us got screwed. I'll give you a minute to pick your monocle up out of your morning tea, as it no doubt dropped from your eye as you gasped in shock at that amazing discovery.

--A big-ass meteor went over Iowa.

-Continuing the theme of cool shit only happening in Iowa once I've left, a crazy meteor/government suppressed UFO craft lit up the night sky in one of the craziest things I've ever seen recorded on video.

--This blog that is a lot better than mine.

-This lady illustrating life, grammar, and taco-selling ideas with mac paint. If I were clever and a girl, I'd like to think that would be me.

Disturbing Graphic of the Day

Can't figure out how to embed it, so I'll just have to link to it, though trust me, it's worth your two minutes.

The good folks over at Flowing Data have a time-lapsed map of the growth of Wal-Marts in the U.S.

Watch it and be thoroughly creeped out. It's like the opening sequence of a low-budget Micahel Crichton movie, as this horrible virus takes over the nation...

400 Top Earners In U.S. Getting Taxed Less Than You

I'm a bit late to the game in commenting on this, but recent tax maneuvering and whatnot has led to the fact that the richest 400 Americans pay less in taxes (in terms of percentage) than you do.

This is a really important point in understanding how inequality in America is reproduced. In teaching my Intro students about economic class last week, I asked them what they thought lead to wealth. One student said it had to be hard work, because "no one just finds a big sack of money and becomes rich."

And while yes, very few people literally stumble onto a bag of money, most wealthy Americans stumble into a bag of money called inheritance. In fact, the single greatest predictor of whether or not you are wealthy is whether or not your parents were wealthy. Not how hard you worked, not how smart you are, but how much money your parents left you. And it's far easier for the wealthy to leave money to their children, because they barely have to pay taxes on their vast fortunes.

And how do they get such big money in the first place? Again, rarely through skill or hard work. They get it because tax law so heavily favors them. For example, 2 out of 3 major corporations paid no taxes last year. Which not only means that you and I have to shoulder the tax burden these companies are unfairly let out of, it also means the top executives of those companies have more money with which to reward themselves for screwing us all over. Money which they then leave to their kids.

Wash, rinse, repeat. And there you have inter-generational class inequality...

Ok, So This Is Rather Disturbing

Over at wikileaks, they've released probably the most disturbing footage to come out of the war thus far. If you click on the link, you can watch the video, from a U.S. military helicopter, of soldiers opening fire on some Reuters reporters and then later the people who come to pick up the dead bodies, including two young children.

There's not a lot I can add to it, other than to tell you to watch it immediately. For some more insight, Glenn Greenwald points out how this sort of thing is disturbingly common. You can form your own opinion from there...

Happy Easter!

From the always incomparable Indexed:

What Crimes Are Crimes?

One thing I always tell my students is that laws exist only in so far as we enforce them -- pretty much everyone breaks the law everyday, simply because we have made so very much illegal. Oh, you protest you did no such thing? You didn't speed? You didn't park illegally for just a moment? You didn't listen to pirated music? You didn't engage is a consensual sex act that is prohibited (and here in MN if it was anything but good ol'missionary, you did)?

Anyway, the point is, not everyone is being arrested, even though we're all breaking the law. This is because we have limited resources and have to choose which of our laws we strenuously enforce and which we more or less ignore. And for a variety of reasons, both historical and contemporary, we tend to enforce those laws broken by the poor and ignore those laws broken by the wealthy.

For example, employers are legally required to provide a safe workforce for their employees and have a bevy of safety laws they are supposed to follow. One really obvious and necessary law is that they must provide proof of the safety of the workplace to any employee who asks, so the employee can decide if they'd like to work there or find somewhere else to work that doesn't endanger their lives.

But what happens if a lowly worker dares to ask to see a safety report? Well, if you're a window washer in Minneapolis, it means you get locked out of your job. That's right, locked out of your job as someone who dangles thirty stories above the ground on some flimsy ropes just for asking if the ropes will hold you up or let you fall to your death like 3 of your coworkers did in the past year.

And yet, this employer is not facing any legal sanctions, and their executives will definitely not be dragged out of their house at gun point in the middle of the night. Even though they are blatantly and publicly breaking multiple laws. As such, even though there are all sorts of laws about workplace safety, those laws don't exist in reality because they are rarely (if ever) enforced.

Yet, these people aren't even the biggest criminals in the news. A group of researchers at Brook Haven National Laboratory have broken the laws of physics. Though of course those laws are enforced by God, so maybe they will actually be punished...

Why You Shouldn't Predict The Future...

It's always bad practice to predict the future. After all, there are pretty much unlimited possibilities as to what could happen and your prediction is only one of those multitudes. Ergo, it's a good chance you'll not only not happened to have picked the one of all possible futures correctly, but even likely you'll be hilariously wrong.

Nowhere does this seem to be more true than with technology. You either say it will be able to do everything we could ever dream of and you look like an anachronistic fool, or you say it will never become anything and you look like a Luddite troglodyte.

Take, for example, this Newsweek article from 1995 explaining why this newfangled "internet" will never become anything. Here's my favorite chunks of wisdom from someone who we can't forget was paid good money to come up with this stuff:

How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.

You're totally right -- no one will ever purchase or read things over the internet, and there will most assuredly not be a crisis in the newspaper industry in little over a decade from the time this piece is written. Not to mention laptops will certainly never be so thin as to have their weight measured in ounces. Or how about this nugget:

Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

This one's even better -- it's a good thing we never figured out how to send money over the internet, or else those malls sure would be in trouble. And if there's one thing I think whenever I'm online, it's "man, this sure would be a better experience if some minimum-wage idiot were asking me if I was looking for anything in particular rather than just letting me shop in peace."

So please learn your lesson from this, kids. Predicting the future almost always makes you look like an idiot. Especially if you discount something that will become one of the most integral aspects of our lives within 5 years of your article being published...

I'm Going Record Shopping Today

Just got done with a phone interview for a fellowship I really want to get (mostly because it will involve receiving $12,000 pretty much no strings attached) and am in a good mood. And I'm working not 1, not 2, but 3 separate jobs this semester because I grow ever so slightly tired of poverty.

So now I have spending money and will hopefully soon have lots of living money, so I am going record shopping. Because what is the point of saving money if you don't foolishly waste it?

What albums will I buy? Lord only knows -- I have a list about two pages long of albums I want to buy when I have money. Can I now afford two pages worth of albums? No, I cannot. But I can afford 3-5 of them, so harsh decisions will need to be made.

And as with all my actions, I turn to Mother Church to make my decision for me. Recently, the Vatican released their list of top rock albums, and in addition to existing (which alone is cool enough), is surprisingly not that bad. How many albums will I purchase this afternoon that carry the explicit approval of the Vatican? Stay tuned...

The Biopic We've All Been Waiting For...

Weird, the Weird Al Story. Sure, it doesn't technically exist...yet...but it's worth your 2 minutes and 48 seconds, I can assure you that.

"Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" from Aaron Paul

Mid Majors and White Privilege (Part VI in a Never Ending Series)

And with that stone-cold shot, Prince Ali takes down the overall number one seed in the NCAA tourney. Yet my beloved Panthers still get little love (outside of Iowa, where the bandwagon is getting pretty full). And it strikes me that the plight of the mid-major school is a good analogy for white privilege.

White privilege is the concept that because of the US racial hierarchy, all white people have some form of privilege (a lot more enters into it, like class and gender, but still, all white people experience it to some degree). Mostly it comes through "invisible" practices, such as being able to choose any home you want to buy instead of being steered toward certain locations. Or having your mistakes more easily forgiven. But here's how it applies to tourney basketball...

The Big East is one of the most privileged conferences in college basketball. And much like white people in America, much of that privilege is unearned. It's not that the Big East doesn't have hard working teams or any good teams, because they do, it's simply that their teams are often given more credit than they deserve. And much like white privilege, this is (usually) not an explicit process. For example, this year, half of the teams from the Big East got into the tournament (an unusually high number for any conference), which has proved to be a mistake, as the Big East so far is struggling to keep a .500 record in the tourney, with many of their top teams having already taken a quick exit. I'd be willing to bet none of the selection committee put them in simply because they're from the Big East. But the Big East schools do play near the major media outlets and have far more games on television than a mid-major like UNI, which is on TV once a year, if that. As such, when a Big East team has a bad game, the media folks that rank them will see it and put it in context. Maybe their star was sick, maybe the refs missed some calls, maybe they were just unlucky, etc. But when UNI loses, they only see the box score, and say "well, they must not be for real."

Similarly, when the Big East does poorly, like they're doing this year, it's dismissed as a one time aberration. Sports media say the Big East is having a down year, and you know next year they'll get an inflated number of tourney bids. In the same way, failures of whites are generally chalked up to personal flaws or extenuating circumstances, not a reflection of the incapability of the entire race. However, when the Missouri Valley Conference has a bad showing in the tourney, it's instead offered up as proof they don't belong, and the next year they will get only the automatic qualifier in, much the same way the failures of minorities are often attributed to the entire racial category.

And this same process happens with whites in many fields. Take employment, for example. We know from Devah Pager's outstanding audit studies that a white person with a criminal record is more likely to be offered a job than an equally qualified black applicant without a criminal record. And again, much like in the tourney selection process, I bet very few employers are explicitly being racist. Rather, they themselves are probably white, so when they see a white person with flaws, they can understand and rationalize them. But when they see a black person, who has already been stereotyped as a criminal, any perceived problem is assumed to define the person. Just like a team like UNI -- which is already assumed to be unable to compete with the major conference teams -- when they lose, it's not because they had an off night or the officiating was bad, it's seen as the inevitable conclusion for such a team.

And when teams like this do win, they're almost always seen as the exception that proves the rule. With all the talk of UNI's "luck" no one seems to notice the stellar defense they played or solid game-planning. And when (if?) they lose to a major team at some point in the tourney, it won't be an upset, but rather proof they can't really hang with the big teams, despite the fact they just dominated the consensus number one team.

Finally, it's also a good example of why we need programs like affirmative action, or as the NYTimes put it, more UNIs and less Minnesotas (another under-qualified major conference team given a tourney position). Many in college basketball argue that the winners of mid-major conference tournaments shouldn't get an automatic bid, as it takes away a spot from a more qualified team, just like opponents of Affirmative Action claim it takes jobs away from qualified whites. But this again is a great example of how that's not the case -- rather than taking spots from qualified whites (or major conference teams), it gives a chance to qualified teams who otherwise would not have gotten their shot. And more often than not, those who benefit from finally getting an equal chance usually prove their worth, whether it be through being a productive employee, award-winning scholar, or taking down the consensus number one seed in the NCAA tournament.

You see? Everything can be explained with sociology...Go Panthers!

The United Countries of Baseball

With opening day fast approaching, another great one from Strange Maps:

Sounds Like Sconnies All Right

Via my new favorite time wasting blog Strange Maps:



The concentration of bars vs. grocery stores. You might notice that Wisconsin is the only state in which nearly every region has more bars than grocery stores. If you've ever been there or seen the types of people coming from there, this map makes a lot sense...

You Mean the Wealthy and Powerful May Not Have My Best Interests in Mind?!?

My old man often comments that a lot of Republican blowhards, from Bush to Limbaugh and everywhere in between, probably don't even believe the crazy shit they constantly spout. Rather, they've found something that works in getting them money and/or power, and hey, why give up the goose if it's laying you golden eggs.

And while that makes intuitive sense, it's kind of hard to prove. Except now there's some good evidence that he may just be right -- at a hotel hosting a RNC $2,500 per person fund raising event, someone accidentally left behind a power point explaining conservative fundraising tactics.

The power point breaks donors down into two categories: small donors, who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear,” “extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “reactionary.” The other category is major donors, who instead practice “Calculated Giving,” with motivations such as “peer to peer pressure,” “access,” and “ego-driven” giving that can easily be tapped into with access to political “tchotchkes.”

Republicans have spent all of the past day pretending they have never heard of this and have no idea where it came from (it was apparently a magical and mystical RNC fundraiser that no one involved with the RNC had ever heard of or knew anything about), but I think it does a pretty good job of showing what the Republican party really thinks about all those "real" Americans they work so hard to represent...

I Was Never a Wiener Winner

On the heels of today's depressing news that Joe Nathan is probably out for the year with a torn ligament, at least we know which hot dog will be featured at the new Target field this year.

Hormel has been dropped, and while this sadly means there will be no more dollar dog nights and I will officially ever be in the Hormel row of fame or be a wiener winner, at least the Twins are going back to tradition with Schweigerts, makers of the original Twins Dog at the old Met.

The original Twins dog will be accompanied by the Twins Big Dog, the Dugout Dog, and the unfortunately named Dinger Dog. Having recently secured tickets to the opening series, I think I'm going to have to try them all and report back. Can they beat the Dome Dog? I don't know, but I'm willing to do the leg work to find out...

Funny, You Wouldn't Think a Federal Criminal Would Be a Liar

Remember conservative activist James O'Keefe? The one who keeps violating federal law like it's going out of style? And remember how I mentioned in a previous post that a good number of people have been looking at his infamous ACORN pimp videos and noticed how heavily edited they are?

Well, it turns out these folks are finding out quite a few things. For instance, he was not wearing the ridiculous outfit when he went into ACRON offices. And not only was he not dressed like a (rich white's kid's poorly conceived version of a) pimp, he also introduced himself as a young law student, not a pimp. In fact, it's become pretty clear that few, if any, of the ACORN employees identified as wrongdoers even knew he was attempting to pose as a pimp when they were helping him.

Of course, this doesn't mean the New York Times will admit they were wrong to trumpet this story as fact, even though it's been clear from the get-go that these videos were pretty shady. But then, that's pretty standard conservative operating procedure -- put an outlandish lie out there, knowing it will be accepted as fact until it's proved a complete lie, which won't matter, because the retraction will either never come or be buried so far back in the paper no one will know there was ever a retraction. Then, simply bide your time trying not to get arrested for attempting to bug the office of United States Senator...