Boston, Violence, and American Exceptionalism

So we've all had about a day to process the horrific explosions in Boston. Grisly pictures keep coming out, and last I saw an update, there are 3 dead and about 150 wounded, many of whom with missing limbs and other catastrophic injuries. This is a tragedy, no doubt, and of course many are already jumping to racist judgements about who is responsible (though we should all of course remember we have no idea right now who is responsible, not that it excuses such vile racism even if Islamic extremists or North Korean agents are responsible).

But that's not really what this post is about. Well, kind of. Really, this post is about American Exceptionalism, the absurd belief that America is somehow better than all other nations (even when it is demonstrably and empirically not superior) for reason largely unknown (though in most variants of the belief, it's because God has pre-ordained America for greatness). This ridiculous notion is what makes it not wrong to wage a genocidal campaign against the native population, what lets the world's largest stockpiler of, and still only user of, nuclear weapons to throw a hissy fit whenever another nation contemplates building them. And it's the kind of belief that us to ignore an untold number of violent acts committed by our government (though conveniently done so outside of our nation).

It sadly seems as if the exceptionalist ideal is damn hard to escape, even for those who recognize it to be the fallacy it is. For example, take this piece from Salon this morning by David Sirota. It's a fairly standard piece I've seen multiple variations on; essentially the point of the column is that now such random and violent attacks don't seen so unusual or out of the norm, and that's the scary thing -- that in a place like America we could come to accept the inevitability of random, potentially terroristic violence.

Now I'm pretty willing to bet most everything I have that Mr. Sirota does not subscribe to the notion of American exceptionalism, and would probably scoff at the idea that he does. But yet, even in a guy well known for his leftist writings, you still see the exceptionalist narrative pop up. Because if you take the time to read the article, the subtext is really "This kind of thing doesn't happen here." And such an argument only makes sense if there's somewhere where it does happen, where it's usual.

To take it one step further, the implicit comparison is to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other "war torn" nations around the globe. That's where stuff like this is supposed to happen. That's why, say, a huge wave of bombings across Iraq leaving over 50 dead barely gets a mention in the news, while the Boston explosions, which while tragic, have claimed significantly fewer lives but are dominating every news outlet in this nation.

Sure, part of that is because this happened "here" as opposed to "over there" (although what's happening "over there" is directly attributable to the political decisions made "here"). But the bigger reason for the discrepancy is because things like this aren't supposed to happen here. They are supposed to happen over there, to those people. People who, by virtue of where they live, apparently have it coming and therefore are not nearly as worthy of our concern and sympathy as are the good people who did the correct thing by living in God's America.

Turns out violence exists in the world. And it unfortunately turns out that believing you're magically immune for some murky set of reasons about how you're better than everyone else doesn't insulate you from it. This should neither be a surprise nor a cause for hysteria.

It's So Close I Can Taste It...

May 26th, peoples. May 26th...

Check out other AD album covers here.

Teaching Sociology: Privilege Is Often The Little Things (Part something in a never-ending pop-pedagogical series)

My closet, more-or-less

Privilege comes in many forms; there's male privilege, white privilege, straight privilege, the list could go on and on. As a straight, white, middle-class (finally!), Christian male in the United States of America, I benefit from most all of 'em (if it weren't for my giant Semitic nose, I think I'd have them all).

Yet for how ubiquitous it is, it's a tricky concept to teach. Actually, scratch that, because it's so ubiquitous, it's a tricky concept to teach. Mostly because people who have it don't want to acknowledge they have it, and people who don't have it don't want to make a big deal out of it because it makes things really awkward for them when those with privilege throw their privileged hissy fits (which almost inevitably happens).

Privilege operates in some pretty impactful ways in society -- women make 77 cents on the dollar for the same work as men, in an increasing number of states women can't control their own reproductive systems, etc. Those are very big and important issues, and many people much smarter and more eloquent than I have covered them in-depth elsewhere.

But one thing I've found that has helped get the concept across to the skeptical is to save the giant, society-shaping ways privilege operates for a later date and instead focus on the tiny, micro-level ways privilege affects our day-to-day existance.

I was thinking about it this morning as I got dressed to go to campus. Today is a teaching day for me (tuesday/thursday teaching schedule ftw!), so I put on a collared shirt to show students I'm a Serious Academic™. But I really only have about 6 presentable shirts that make it look like I at least tried to put some effort into my appearance. Not wanting to wear the same one repeatedly, I've come up with a tried and true method for varying my dressy wardrobe: I keep all 6 shirts in order in my closet. Each day I need to wear one, I take it from the front of the line, and at the end of the day, put it at the back of the line, assuring I'll wear the other 5 shirts before I wear that one again.

It's an awesome system that both keeps me from looking like the weirdo who wears the same shirt every class and keeps me from having to put any through whatsoever into what I'm wearing.

It's also a system that is pretty much only possible because I'm a man.

It's hopefully no surprise to anyone reading this that women are held to a different and much more extensively proscribed appearance expectations than are their male counterparts. While women are excoriated for not putting enough effort into their appearance, men are criticized for putting too much thought into their appearance (well, not so much criticized as subjected to homophobic taunts, but sic of one, half-dozen of the other). While this is undoubtedly harmful to men who do take pride in the appearance, it works out quite well for the fellas like me.

Most women I know, even the crunchy hippies and angry punx and all other variety of kooky lefties I know, put in a fair amount of time on their appearance. Not necessarily because they want to, but because they know they'll be harshly judged for not doing so. Whereas I am not only not judged harshly for spending a total of 15 seconds getting ready for the day, if anything that makes me even more in line with the gendered expectations for men (not giving a fuck about anything is a high ideal for men).

So all-in-all, not a big, earth-shattering deal by any means, but the fact that I can spend no time on my appearance and rarely if ever get criticized for it (as opposed to being force to spend a great deal of time on my appearance and still likely being criticized for it) is a clear and measurable form of privilege...

Some Famous Lady Died

Sorry for the long break in posts -- international travel, busy time of the semester, etc.

Anyway, as you're hopefully already aware, Margaret Thatcher died yesterday (to be honest, I was pretty surprised to learn that she hadn't died a decade ago). A lot of people have wasted a lot of ink discussing her death and her legacy. And a lot of people had street parties celebrating her death. In poor taste? Maybe, but few people's death inspire street parties that didn't deserve them.

I really don't have anything terribly erudite to add to the conversation. Anyone who's spent more than a minute reading this blog could pretty accurately predict how I feel about her politics, and though I subscribe to the notion that death doesn't make one immune from criticism (here's Gleen Greenwald explaining the point beautifully in regards to Christopher Hitchen's death), I don't have any particularly meaningful or witty put downs too add to the chorus.

Though I will repeat that there have been reports of dozens of street parties across Britain (and more scattered across Europe and the States), and again note that regardless of the particulars, you have to be a pretty shitty person for so many people to be so overjoyed at news of your death.

Really though, I think nothing sums up the wretchedness of Thatcher more than the fact that "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" shot up to number 27 on the UK iTunes chart within a day.

Again, maybe tasteless, but pretty damn telling...

Remember, she said Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.
You know, because he didn't agree with fucking Apartheid.
Anyway, here's her and Reagan with devil horns. Also, this is a kick-ass album.

10 Years And A Million Dead And I Didn't Even Get A Lousy T-Shirt

So today marks the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. There's been a lot written about it today, some of which has been really good, but I'm assuming anyone reading this has already seen most of the good stuff. The saddest/funniest, though, would be this collection of cheerleading quotes from media and Bush administration officials in the first few months after the war when everything was going to be roses, "flowers and sweets*," and sunshine everywhere.

Of course, none of that happened. Basically every prediction the Left had for the war came out correct, a fact I pointed out over 8 years ago, and in fact, these arguments have only become more correct over those intervening years (quagmire, anyone?).

But just because we were right that the war was a terrible idea, would be meet with fierce resistance, and would not accomplish anything, doesn't make this a time to gloat. You know, because of those million or so dead people.

I'd normally go on a rant about how fucked up the run-up to war was, and how obvious it was the Bush administration was blatantly lying to get the war they wanted. But I won't, both because that has gone from accusation to widely-accepted fact, but mostly because I now know far too many Iraqis and Americans who have lost loved ones to that fucking lie.

Rather, I think it's best to leave it to uncle Kurt, who wrote one of the best passages on how I feel about remembering such military campaigns. You should really go read the whole of Cat's Cradle for the full speech (and because it'll be one of the best books you've ever read), but the relevant part is this:

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.” 

Today I really feel like rolling in the mud and grunting like a pig...



*Funny story about that phrase -- remember how Cheney and Rumsfeld used it repeatedly to sell the war? That many Iraqis had assured them they would be greeted with "flowers and sweets?" Well, after spending a god deal of time in Iraq, I've learned this is actually a common Iraqi saying that's basically like saying "it was nice to meet you." One of the main justifications for this whole fucking bullshit war was that Bush administration officials couldn't tell the difference between a nicety and a policy statement. That about sums up the whole thing for me.

When The Germans Are More Thoughtful Than You, You Got Yourself A Problem

To paraphrase Community: "All this time, we thought the Germans were the Germans, but it turns out we're the Germans."

So background: both America and the Axis of WWII have committed genocides. America has actually committed two, but let's just focus on the one we're more "proud" of. And I use the term pride there intentionally, because I'm talking about slavery and the continued "pride" of certain segments of society in the Confederacy.

These two cases give us a very interesting contrast on how to respond to your country doing something really, really fucked up. The former Axis nations, for instance, have pretty much banned all things associated with the Nazi/Mussolini regimes, outside of historical education. For instance, there was a midfielder in Greece recently given a lifetime ban from the Greek futbol association for throwing up a Heil Hitler salute after scoring a goal.

This is a debatable punishment in its extent (though I for one have no problem with it), but it's at least a clear rejoinder to folks who express Nazi ideology. And that clear rejoinder is this: "Hey asshole, we tried that and it went really, really fucking wrong. Knock that shit off." It seems as if the former fascist genocidal nations have realized that genocide is something to be remorseful about. Seems simple enough.

Now contrast that with how America remembers one of our genocides (we just ignore/erase from history the other one). In plenty of places, school children are taught there was never really a genocide and that the South and North were fighting over how big the Federal government should be. We have plenty of people who still fly the flag of the genocidal regime under the aegis of "pride." Fuck, the state fucking capitol in South Carolina still flies the Confederate flag. What's the message here? Well, it sure looks like it's "Remorse? Fuck you, we ain't remorseful about genocide. in fact, we're fucking proud of it."

Now this is the point where a Confederate genocide defender will say the South was about much more than slavery, and while slavery was maybe regretful, there's still so much to celebrate.

Fuck you, if you're trying to make that argument.

Because let's apply that logic to Germany. Sure, the whole Holocaust thing was bad, but there was so much to celebrate in Nazi Germany. After all, it's not celebrating the Holocaust, it's merely taking pride in the past! That's why we still fly the flag of the Third Reich over the capitol building; it has nothing to do with racism and how dare you imply that!

Sound pretty horrible? Good, you've passed the test of being a human being. If you think it's unfair to compare the two cases, my condolences, for you've failed the test of being a human being.

Baseball Jurisprudence Strikes Again!

Previously I brought you the very important story of the judiciary officially recognizing the Twins and Sox as rivals. But now comes news of a baseball-related legal settlement that warms my heart even more: the Yankees had to take to court to defend the fact that they are, indeed, baseball's evil empire.

The gist of the story is that some guy tried to start a website called something like "Baseball's Evil Empire" and the Yankees sued for copyright infringement, arguing that in relation to baseball, there is no one more evil or more like a terrible, oppressive empire. In fact, in the judges' ruling they explicitly noted "the record shows that there is only one Evil Empire in baseball and it is the New York Yankees."

I mean...damn. Not content with purchasing championships, ruining the free agency market for the vast majority of other teams, being arrogant assholes, having some of the most corrupt (and mob-affiliated!) owners in the league. Nope. The Yankees will not be happy until they own literally everything even vaguely baseball-related, even if it's an insult leveled against them.

Bringing Criminals To Trial? What A Novel Idea!

Just a quick post at the end of the work week -- at her first Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, Elizabeth Warren had a simple question: when's the last time a Wall Street banker had to face trial?

Unsurprisingly, the answer was a stammering "Um...sometime...I'm sure we've...uh...I'll have to get back to you."

While the full answer to why this happens in somewhat complex, the short answer is that we have two criminal justice systems; one for the poor, in which increasingly harsh laws are justified as the only response capable of stemming criminality, and one for the rich, in which token fines and regulatory discussions suddenly become the preferred method.

But really, the easiest way to see these two tracks in operation is to look at two crimes, both of which can have incredibly destructive effects on individuals and communities: drug use and all possible forms of crime on Wall Street (and the larger financial industry). 

Drug use, the crime available to (though not at all exclusive to) the poor, generates an incredibly harsh response. In the year 2011 alone, an estimated 1, 513, 251 people were arrested for drug-related crimes. And maybe this seems appropriate to you; after all, drugs are bad and harmful and can destroy entire communities, so they need a big response.

But let's contrast that with all financial crimes. Unless you have been living in a cave on mars with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, you may recall how shady financial practices over the last few years kind of tanked the American economy (and really, most of the world economy), putting millions out of work, erasing the retirement funds of millions, and leading to all sorts of horrible problems too myriad to list here. And how many people were arrested for financial crimes in 2011? Well, it's hard to say, because the data are not kept in the same way. However, according to the FBI, there were  241 convictions and 726 potentially criminal cases pending an outcome. So, roughly 1,000 criminal cases were pursued. Expanding back a few years with the same data, the entire financial collapse of America resulted in less than 10,000 criminal cases being pursued in the financial sector (though of course pursued does not mean any criminal charges or even arrests came of it).

So by even the most generous of definitions, there were well over 151 times as many people arrested for drug charges in one year than there were cases even pursued against the financial industry over a 7 year span. And again, as bad as drug use may be, I don't recall it tanking the entire world's economy.

So why the discrepancy? Well, again, there are a fair number of factors involved, but the biggest one would be that one of these crimes is the kind that can be committed by poor people and one is the kind that can only be committed by the wealthy...

Woah,You Guys! It Tuns Out College Athletics May Not Be The Pure, Scholarly Endeavor We Imagine It To Be

A recent study from the Delta Cost Project reveals a shocking truth only known to those with eyes who have been paying a minimal amount of attention: Universities spend way more money on athletics than is justified.

Though big-revenue sports like collegiate football and basketball like to justify their existence by claiming to bring money into the institution (something the Knight Commission has conclusively and repeatedly demonstrated that this only true for the top 5-10 earners in football, and even fewer basketball programs), even if this was true, the disparities are still pretty insane.

For instance, in the football-crazed SEC, the average school spends a whopping median of $163, 931 per athlete. For those who are too far removed from their high school stats class, median means half of all spending is higher than this number, half below. I'll let you take a wild guess as to which side is populated by the football team and which by the women's rowing team.

Not only is this expenditure insane in-and-of-itself, it also represents 12.2 times as much money as these Universities spend on their students. You know, the people who are supposedly the reason the University exists in the first place.

What makes this even sadder is that the median spending on athletes vs the general student body is still over 3:1 in the FCS schools (formerly the I-AA). Because the other justification always given for this runaway spending is that a successful football/basketball program brings more students to the university. And maybe (and that's a strong maybe) this is true for the storied and legendary programs like Alabama or Notre Dame, but no one, and I mean no one, can even begin to make that claim for FCS schools. As someone who attended one, I can note that of the approximately 12,000 students at the University I attended for undergrad, a full 10-20 of them may have been fans of the school team.

And, of course, this is to say nothing of how all this money is spent without a single cent of it going to the athletes themselves. But this is America, and building multi-billion dollar institutions on the back of free labor provided by a mostly-Black workforce is one of our proudest national traditions...

I've Become Everything I Hate

Pictured: Me

I've written before about how I'm ambivalent about giving money to public radio (tl;dr: they say they're ad free, but they have ads all the time, just read by the DJs rather than voice actors). But on the other hand, I've listened to The Current fairly regularly for the better part of 8 years now, and never once contributed anything (other than my ears for the ads they read on air, which is technically paying for it, since that's the entire purpose of radio ads).

Mostly I resolved the situation by remembering I was a broke grad student, and as much as I like the Current, they have plenty of money and I had basically none. So it made the decision easier.

But now that I'm gone away from the Twin Cities, I've been spending a lot of time listening online, both because all the radio stations here suck immensely, and because I'm home sick.

So I became a public radio supporter for the first time in my life. I get a neat-o t-shirt for my troubles (hey! this shirt only costs $120!), and the warm feeling of the self-satisfied liberal...

Bordieu and Cold Ears

So I haven't blogged in a long time, which is extra funny considering all the time I waste on the internet pretending to work. Maybe it's because when I'm online I'm trying to avoid work and writing is too close to work for comfort. Who knows?

Or maybe it's just one of the many growing pains of moving halfway across the country to start a new job in a town in which I knew literally no one before moving here. It's been a lot more adjustment than I initially thought it would be; I've been in similar situations before (moving away to a new town where I know no one), but it's always been different. Moving to grad school I ended up somewhere new with no friends, but I was also surrounded daily by people in my age range who were in the same situation I was. Or when I moved to Iraq, I really knew no one, but I had counted on feeling weird and alone, and besides, it was just temporary anyway.

But this move was a whole new bag of worms. And one of the biggest changes has been adjusting to a new habitus I find myself in. Coined by (or at least developed by, I'm not going to bother to check) the French sociologist Pierre Bordieu, habitus essentially refers your life world; the things you implicitly understand and are used to, like language, general social customs, how to comport yourself in the various situations in which you find yourself, etc. Of course, that's a gross over-simplification, but basically (I think) the idea.

Not too surprisingly, folks south of the ol' Mason-Dixon line occupy a fairly different habitus than I was used to in Minnesota. And while this manifests itself in a variety of ways, one of the most obvious in reaction to the weather. For instance, a good 2 inches of snow seems to completely shut this city down (I get it, there's a bunch of steep, windy mountain roads, but come on, people...).

But my own reaction to the weather here has been just as ridiculous as the local's is to me. Because for some reason I can't get it through my head that the cold here is just as cold as it is back home. Part of it is that I'm now technically in the South. So even though I'm only about 15 miles from the Pennsylvania border, mentally I just can't shake the feeling that it doesn't get cold in the South. And to be fair, it doesn't get nearly as cold; as friends back home are whining about negative 50 windchills, the lowest it's gotten here in the low teens.

Now this time of year in Minnesota, the low teens are relatively warm, as opposed to the coldest it ever gets. But, you know, temperatures in the low teens are still objectively cold to human beings. But I can't get out of the habit of looking at the weather, seeing a high for the day of 20 and thinking some variation of "dang, that's pretty warm for February."

Which in and of itself is not really a big deal, but means I almost always forget to grab a hat or mittens or any of the kind of cold weather gear you should probably wear when it's that cold. Because in Minneapolis, I would have already been wearing hat and gloves every day for weeks at this point, so I would just be doing it out of habit. But for most of my first two weeks here, it was often so warm I didn't even need a jacket. So when the rare cold day does come, somehow it doesn't register as something I should worry about, and then I find myself walking home from campus freezing my ass off wondering why I didn't feel the need for a hat or gloves.

So why I don't I feel the need for cold-weather gear? Well, it's obviously partly because I'm an idiot who has very little ability to plan for the future. But it's also because I'm still operating on a habitus developed over 30 years of living in freezing climates. And since habitus is not something that changes over night, I'll probably be making the same mistake repeatedly this winter.

At least it give me something to look forward to, I guess -- maybe by next winter I'll have figured out that cold weather feels the same in Morgantown as it does in Minneapolis. Maybe...

No Seconds: Death Row Prisoner's Last Meals

Here's an interesting way to while away some time -- peruse the last meals of famous convicted murderers. Henry Hargreaves has made a project out of recreating the last meals as he imagined they may have gone down (while the contents of the meal are public record, no photos exist). It ranges from interesting to chilling; as Hargreaves himself points out, there is an incredible sadness in the way the majority of these are comfort foods. Though for Victor Feguer (convicted of kidnapping and murder), the final meal was simply a single olive with the pit in it.

It's also fascinating to learn that there's something considered a "traditional last meal" if the person in question doesn't have any special requests. It's steak and eggs and the traditional accouterments that go with them. This raises a whole host of questions about how this became the default meal, but five minutes on google turned up nothing.

Anyway, go look at it. My favorite of all is the one above, and not only because I used to live down the street from where he (and Michelle Bachmann!) had once lived. I like it for the brand loyalty; Gacy was a longtime employee of KFC, and on his way out, he stuck with the company. You just can't get brand loyalty like that anymore...

I Thought That Sounded Familiar

To me, the most fun thing about studying history is that far from being an esoteric study of things that happened in the past, it's usually pretty illuminating in regards to current events. Often something that doesn't make much sense on its cover becomes much more clear when looking at its historical antecedents.

Take, for example, the current debate regarding gun control. Or, more specifically, the argument from the pro-gun side regarding the second amendment and the federal government's ability (or lack thereof) to enact restrictions on the ability to own firearms.

Folks who are very pro-gun will often make some sort of argument about how the Second Amendment guarantees their right to possess more-or-less any gun they see fit. Often, gun control advocates will respond that the pro-gun folks aren't really so concerned about constitutional issues as they are afraid that scary black or brown people are going to steal all their stuff and sex up their women. More and more, in following these discussions, I've noticed the pro-gun side responding that it has nothing to do with race or irrational fears of super predators, but instead is much more about the role of the federal government vis-a-vis individual rights and the rights of states to enact their own regulations (or again, lack thereof).

As I've heard and read more and more people making this type of argument, it began to sound really familiar to me. Oh no, no. This is about race or my desire to own as many weapons as a small dictatorship, it's about an over-reaching federal government that is trying to take away my rights and the rights of local government. This argument sounds suspiciously similar to one that was used about 150 or so years ago by people of a particular region to argue in defense of a peculiar institution.

In fact, it's still used by apologists today. Oh no, no. The civil war wasn't about slavery per se, that just happened to be the issue at hand. It was really about people fed up with an over-reaching federal government that was intent on taking away their individual rights (to own people as property) and subverting the rights of states to make their own laws (regarding the owning of people as property).

Of course, the parentheticals aren't actually spoken; they're just helpful reminders I inserted to help us remember that the individual and states rights being argued over centered on whether a person was allowed to legally own another person as property. You see, for many of us, that's kind of hard issue to gloss over; as much as there may have genuinely been fears of over-reaching federal power, it was obviously much more about the fear that the federal government might take away the ability to subjugate black people and might even (gasp!) force through their legal equality.

But ok, says the skeptic, you can draw those parallels, but that doesn't make gun advocates racists. Well, no, not in and of itself it doesn't. But when you look at the history of how the Second Amendment came to be, and in particular why it took on the specific language it did, the parallel becomes much harder to ignore.

Originally, the Second Amendment spoke of a well-regulated militia being necessary for a free country. But this irked Southern law makers, who were afraid that the federal government asserting control over all forms of State armed forces (state in the larger sense of political body, not state in the sense of the 50 we have), would mean the federal government would be in charge of slave patrols, the public forces charged with enforcing the hideous slave codes (who also, fun fact, after emancipation were directly converted into police forces in many places. That's how most Southern police departments were formed. And we wonder why there continues to be racial imbalances in our criminal justice system....).

So the amendment was re-written to focus on the right of states to keep a well-regulated militia. Read the linked article for the full history, but it basically all boils down to slavery; Southerners in most places were well outnumbered by slaves, and knew full well the only thing keeping them from being slaughtered in an uprising was their superiority of arms. If the federal government limited their ability to stockpile arms, there was little to nothing to stop the slave population from, you know, taking some practical steps to no longer be human property.

And there we come full circle; the very origins of the Second Amendment were white people being afraid that black people might attack them, given how shitty white people were treating black people. And now, white people vociferously argue for their gun rights, because they're afraid the black people they still don't treat very well might take the opportunity of white people being unarmed to take some practical steps to no longer be second class citizens.

Think about it -- when white people die from gun violence, the solution from the NRA and other extremely pro-gun people is that we should arm ourselves to protect ourselves (if they'd only have had guns in Sandy Hook elementary!). But when black people die from gun violence, there's nary a peep. As a popular twitter post put it, I don't recall gun advocates saying young black men should arm themselves in response to the Trayvon Martin shooting.

Because when the NRA and its ilk speak of guns for everyone, they don't actually mean guns for everyone. They mean guns for white people, just like their forefathers did when they wrote the Second Amendment.

You Sir, Are A Bad Person

It turns out Rick Scott, governor of Florida and part-time Lex Luthor body double, adopted a rescue dog for his re-election campaign and returned it as soon as the campaign was over.

Look, I get it -- politics are all about spectacle and whatnot. I know that just because a politician rolls up the sleeves on their immaculately-pressed "work" shirt, it doesn't mean they suddenly understand what it's like to have a real job. I get that when they kiss a baby for a photo op they don't genuinely love that baby. I'm a pretty naive fella, but not that naive.

But this is just...man, whenever I think I'm so cynical that nothing can surprise or anger me, shit like this happens. Although I'm a dog lover and probably dote just a little too much on my pooch, I've never been one for the crazy animal rights people. I eat meat, I'm fine with work animals, etc.

But where I will sign on with that stuff is here -- a dog is not a fucking prop for your campaign. They're actually living creatures with emotions and fears and needs and all the other shit that comes with higher-mammilian life. Of all the shitty political grandstanding that goes on constantly, somehow this just feels that much more over the line than the rest of it.

Though I'll go ahead and make the call here so I can say I did it first: when Scott eventually tries to run for president, don't be too surprised if all of a sudden he has a few new, extremely photogenic children. But don't worry; his campaign will have no realistic shot, so those kids will be back to the orphanage in two, three months, tops.

Remembering Kirby, the Hero and the Monster

31 years ago this very day, the Minnesota Twins used the third overall pick in the January draft to take some chubby kid out of Chicago named Kirby Puckett.

As anyone who lives near the state of Minnesota or ever watches baseball already knows, Kirby became the face of a Twins franchise that would win its first (and so far only) two World Series championships in a 5 year span.

Puckett was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, one of the greats of all time, and someone who played the game with such a childlike enthusiasm that you couldn't help but love him. Of course, it was only much later that we would learn he was also a repeated wife abuser who made his former wife fear for her life on numerous occasions, as well as someone who would go on to face repeated charges of sexual harassment before his untimely death.

Those are two undisputed facts about Kirby that are pretty hard to reconcile. For someone like me who grew up idolizing him, it's hard to imagine him as anything other than the round, lovable, enthusiastic ball player he came across as. But as a feminist repulsed by domestic violence and sexual assault, it's hard not to view him as a unrepentant monster who used his fame to shield his many crimes.

It's a contradiction I feel we're facing more these days, as an exponentially-expanding media presence and social media growth bring far more to light than was the case not so long ago. Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, widely regarded as heroes and exemplars of the virtue of sport, if they played today would likely be regarded as an alcoholic malcontent and racist hot head, respectively. But it still leaves the question -- how do you judge someone's professional career against the horrible things they did in their personal lives?

I don't know that it's a question with an easy answer, but the peace I've made with it is to never separate the two. Kirby repeatedly beating his wife doesn't mean he wasn't a great ballplayer and incredibly fun to watch, just as his great ball playing doesn't mean he wasn't also an abusive husband.

It reminds me greatly of how the current crop of Hall of Fame voters are struggling to deal with the steroids era. The best solution I've seen for guys like Bonds and Clemens, who in addition to being obvious cheaters were also clearly some of the best to ever play the game, is to let them into the HOF, but note their obvious and/or admitted steroid use as part of the story of their career.

So I guess that's more-or-less how I'll try to remember and talk about Puck; he was the greatest Twin of all time, and a guy who regularly beat his wife. One of those makes him a hero, the other makes him a monster...

If I Were Gay and He Weren't Married, Ryan North Would Totally Be My Husband

As any regular reader of this blog (or anyone who knows me) knows, I don't care for most stuff. I find the world and the majority of its inhabitants really stupid. It's probably pretty telling that the only long-term relationship I've ever been able to maintain has been with my dog. Though to be fair, she's smarter  and more likable than 90% of people I've ever met.

But the few things I like, I have a tendency to become obsessed with. I'm sure most people do this to some extent, but given that I have a very...odd would be the police way to put it, I guess...view of the world, whenever I find someone who shares that twisted version of reality, I stick with them. Because it's not too often someone like me meets another person who generally sees the world in the same way.

Anyway, this is all a rambling way of saying I fucking love Dinosaur Comics. It's witty, funny, too smart by a half, and as sardonic as a mid-period Dylan album. It's the kind of comedy that makes me laugh and yet be somewhat bitter, because it's exactly the kind of stuff I would write if I were, you know, funny or clever at all.

I suggest you bookmark it, read it daily, and send some cash moneys that guy's way (I'm led to believe being an internet comic is not a very financially-rewarding career choice). Anyway, today's strip was especially hilarious/meaningful to me:

If I were to describe my perfect woman, it would be exactly as T-Rex describes her: great at science, makeouts, hijinks, and heists. Failing that, I'd settle for a polypous creature in a crown of weeping faces, provided of course, she's wearing the barely-there bikini.

Regardless, as we speak, I'm sending my open girlfriend-position notice to the Perfect Woman Finishing School, so I should have a lady friend by the end of the week...

Purchase ALL THE THINGS!

Ok, not quite this. But it feels like it.

(As a quick warning, I'm tired as shit right now from moving and all the catch-up work I've been trying to do in between hauling boxes. So this may be extra rambly and nonsensical. I mean even more so than usual.)

So I'm a big fancy-pants professor now. Like my name is on the door and everything. It's a lot to adjust to in many ways, not the least of which is moving from what is unquestionably the greatest city in the world to a town that may or may not be ok.

I've only been here for 4 days and have done basically nothing but unpack, so in many ways it hasn't really hit me yet, the many role adjustments I'm making in the transition from graduate student to assistant professor.

The one way it has hit me like a ton of bricks, though, is in the wallet (in both the literal and figurative sense -- my wallet actually is more full than it has ever been at any previous point in time). Sparring you my life history, I grew up in a working-class family. We were never hurting for money (at least as far as I could tell), but we were far from living in luxury. Though I'm sure a substantial portion of it could be attributed to my parent's...ahem...thriftiness, we never had many nice things growing up. Used cars, small t.v., technology acquired only many years after its first introduction, etc. Again, pretty standard working-class experience, if such things existed anymore, buoyed by the Clinton economies of the 90s.

After college (which I assume to be a poverty experience for all but the most wealthy, right?), I spent a year doing social work, and then went to grad school. The most money I made any year in my twenties was when I made a little over $20,000 on the first-year fellowship I got for grad school. But my average income for the decade hovered between $14,000-16,000/year. The last few years of my graduate training got especially lean, as I largely self-funded my dissertation and then tried, with marginal success, to finish up before I ran out of money.

Anyway, point being, I've never really been able to buy stuff on a whim. Pretty much every non-essentials purchase I've ever made in my life has required consciously saving for some period of time. Even little luxuries, like eating out, for the vast majority of my adult life have had to been carefully allocated. I'm not complaining about it; I'm glad my folks raised me not to have much interest in accumulating crap. I'm just pointing out that the little crap I have coveted has always been somewhat hard to come by, and it's obviously been much more so the case since I left the nest.

I should also point out that I'm not making a ton of money right now; this is all relative. But I am making over three times as much as I was previously, so I feel like C. Montgomery Burns.

And I've been reminded of this constantly since I received my first paycheck roughly 5 days ago. For instance, this afternoon I was reading a review of an interesting sounding book (specifically this one, in case you're curious what I qualify as "interesting sounding") and I did what I always do when reading about something I think I might like -- I made a note of it to ask for it for a holiday or to buy it someday if I have extra money sitting around burning a hole in my pocket. And then I realized, fuck that shit, I have extra money right now. I can just go straight ahead and drop $20 on a new book! What's that? Another $5 for shipping? Who cares, for I have entered the hallow halls of the wealthy!

Or today, when I was walking home from campus around noon, I was thinking it would be nice to just eat out so I didn't have to cook this afternoon. And then I realized I could! At a place that even serves real food! I sat down at a mother fucking cloth napkin restaurant for lunch today. Me! On a monday! I left an egregiously large tip, too, because $10 means nothing to this new titan of industry!

And as amusing as all this is (and it will take a loooong time for the novelty of having a real income to wear off), it blows me away a bit to think I'll never again have to worry about money in the ways I used to. Sure, someday I'll probably have a mortgage, and I'll worry about money then. And when I want to retire, I'm sure I'll worry about money then. If I'm trying to put kids through college, some unforeseen situation, etc.

I get that I'll worry about money again in my life, but never in the shitty ways I was forced to for the better part of the last decade. Never again will the worry be about rent versus basic nutritional needs, dog's medicine versus being able to have any discretionary spending money for the next few weeks. They'll be all kinds of new and horrible worries I'm sure, but right now, they feel like there's no way they could be as fundamentally soul-crushing as the money worries of riding the poverty line.

And that to me seems like a basic summation of bourgeois living -- oh, you'll still have plenty of worries, but they won't be nearly as terrifying.

How To Stay Young

According to the late, great Satchel Paige (via):

"Avoid running at all times" is a life lesson I have taken to heart. Now I'll be young all my days!

There's A Lot of Crazy Stuff on That Internet

Apparently, these are the 66 internet-based things you should have seen this year.

It's like a cheat sheet for being able to keep up with sitcoms three years from now when they get to this. It doesn't include Grumpy Cat, which means it's not really an exhaustive list, though...

Guns, Guns, Guns

So I'm going to stop writing about gun control for a while, because it seems to be getting covered pretty well from every angle in the broader national discussion and I have little of substance to add right now.

That being said, fuck Wayne LaPierre and the entire leadership of the NRA. Whenever there mass shootings happen (which are a disturbingly regular occurrence, it seems), the most rage-induicing moments (besides the actual crimes themselves) are always the NRA responses. I'm reminded of the bit from Bowling for Columbine wherein Marilyn Manson discusses how he cancelled a scheduled concert in Colorado shortly after the Columbine shootings out of respect. Although his music likely had little impact on the shootings, he knew that was a popular opinion with some, and given the perception (correct or not), he used some tact and compassion and decided it would be best to remove himself from the situation. All in all, a pretty classy move from a shock rocker.

The NRA, of course, was not so subtle or caring in their response. Instead, a few days later, they held a major rally in Colorado, talking about how they would re-double their efforts to make sure there were no new gun regulations passed. Regardless of how you feel about the possibility or desirability about gun control, that's a pretty dickish move. I think most people would say you might want to give enough time for the multiple shooting victims to be buried before you set up shop in their backyard to talk about how awesome guns are.

I mean, think about that for a minute -- Marilyn Manson responds to a tragedy with far more grace and class than you do. Does that not make you stop for a second and think about what an asshole you are?

If you are an executive of the NRA, it does not. By now, I'm sure you've seen some of LaPierre's incredibly tone-deaf commentary on what happened, but I wanted to share this one because it so succinctly takes him down with just the right amount of snark. From the incomparable Sean O'Neal of the AV Club:

"Here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows violence against its own people, through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse," said LaPierre, head of the powerful lobby that uses outlandish political donations and threats to ensure the continued flourishing of an industry that sells things to people whose sole design is to maim and kill, and which have been used repeatedly to sow violence against other people.

"Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away," LaPierre said while directing attention away from any discussion of meaningful change on gun policy and toward demonizing the media instead, with no trace of irony. As he spoke, the next gun-related atrocity arose in Pennsylvania.

Go read the whole thing. And then make sure to buy yourself some cyanide-tipped, armor-piercing bullets and an AR-15 capable of firing hundreds of them per minute. You know, for hunting.

Sigh...Something, Something Gun Control

Well, I'm guessing we all agree killing a bunch of children is wrong, so let's leave it at that.

Grumpy cat says: "Hey, let's stop killing each other!"

I Am a Doctor and You Are (Probably) Not

The suckers I was able to con into giving me a degree

According to the 2010 census, a mere 10.6% of the adult population over the age of 25 has a graduate or professional degree. Figuring out the percentage of those that have a doctorate involves too much math for right now, but suffice it to say, when you remove the master's degrees and whatnot from that number, the percentage of those with a doctorate has to be in the mid-to-low single digits. Point being, it's not something that many people do, relatively speaking, but now I have done it.

As Dad would say, that and a buck will get you a cup of coffee.

This is also the reason for the continued radio silence on the ol' blog, as it turns out they don't just hand these degrees out, but instead expect you to do a fair amount of actual work. And a shitload of pointless paperwork, but that's a post for another day. But now that it's all done, it feels more anticlimactic than anything. After all, nothing has really changed; I still have the same work to do, the same class to teach, the same syllabi to prep for spring, the same research to keep up with, etc. All that really changes is that I get to call myself "Doctor" now (though don't get me wrong, that's pretty fucking awesome and the novelty of it has definitely not worn off yet).

That being said, it is a relief. Maybe I'll be a bit more jazzed about the whole thing once I don't feel so damn exhausted. As you can see in the pic there, my distance-running advisor gifted me his finisher's medal from the 2012 TC marathon (as well as the sweet game-worn Twinkies hat also in the pic). As Chris explained, all dissertations are like marathons, but it may have been especially the case with a project like mine, which definitely took a little bit more legwork than the average study.

I feel like the marathon analogy is a pretty apt summation of the dissertation process, and getting the medal was easily the best part of the defense. I feel like every doctoral defense should end with a medal; it feels way more official (I may or may not have continued wearing the medal long into the night of drinking that followed). Sure, I may personally not be able to run more than a mile or so, but I sure felt like I earned it.

So anyway, there's really no point to this post beyond bragging about having finally accomplished some sort of goal in my life and explaining why I haven't been blogging.

But if there's any point, it's that, while again maybe this will all feel a bit more momentous when I've caught up on my sleep and don't have piles of tests to grade, I will say it is cool to have finished if for no other reason than having achieved something relatively rare-ish. Even if my life completely crashes and burns from here on out and I never accomplish anything ever again, at least I can say I'm a doctor.

It'll still take a buck or so to get that cup of coffee, though.

So There Was Like An Election And Stuff

I had to wait in line for like 20 minutes. What is this, communist Russia?!?

So that one guy who wants to bomb his way through the Middle East, block the prosecution of the financial elites who crashed our entire economy, and be allowed to kill any American citizen without judicial review so long as he, and he alone, labels them a threat beat the other guy who also wants to do those things but isn't very charming about it all.

But really, whether you think there's a huge difference between Obama and Romney, think there's enough difference to matter, or think there's really no difference, I would argue the president alone is rarely responsible for much, so it largely doesn't matter. There's a long line of literature detailing the much more central role of social movements, corporate lobbying, organized labor pressure, etc. in creating social policy (here's where citations would go if I were energetic enough to give a fuck right now).

And since this election had long been a forgone conclusion to anyone who followed the science instead of the bullshit horse race news, it was rendered even less exciting than usual. But as always, there are good ol' state ballot initiative to keeps us entertained!

Here in Minnesota, we successfully defeated both a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only for good, nice Christians who own more than 3 guns (something like that) AND an initiative to force voter ID on us. Both of those initiatives were stupid for reasons too numerous to count and which have already been well explained elsewhere.

So I'll just say "hey, way to not be a bunch of giant fucking assholes, people of Minnesota."

But truly the most interesting initiatives to pass were those legalizing marijuana in both Washington and Colorado. I mean, it's not every day states pass laws in direct opposition to long-standing federal law on the subject. Plus, you know, duuuuuuuuuuuuuude legal pot n' shit. Munchies, bad movies, and one more thing.

Sorry. If I understand everything I've read about it so far, it's legally required to make an incredibly tired joke about stoners every time you mention this.

Again, the reasons in favor of legalization should be pretty obvious regardless of whether you approve of its use or not. And since this is yet another subject countless other people have written about far better than I, I'll just hit the probably highlights of legalization:

--Billions saved in criminal justice expenditures
--A dramatic reduction in the racial disparities in our prison system
--It's largely a harmless drug, meaning the government has no legitimate reason to ban it
--It's at least far less dangerous to public health than alcohol and cigarettes
--The millions (or billions, depending on which projections you believe) in tax revenue
--The loss of a major funding stream for violent drug cartels operating near our Southern border
--So many other obvious logical reason I'm too tired to list right now

As always, the usual disclaimer that I in no way endorse pot use. It's just that I also don't endorse absurd laws that cost us billions of dollars and ruin millions of lives for no particular purpose.

But of course, this is most interesting to me as a criminologist. This raises all sorts of criminal justice issues, the most interesting of which will be how federal authorities react to something which is now legal by state law but still very much illegal by federal law. Especially in Washington, where one current proposal of how to regulate marijuana would be to restrict its sale to liquor stores. But the liquor stores there are state run, meaning state employees and a large variety of state operations would be committing felonies every day.

And while Obama has claimed he would tell the DEA to ignore medical marijuana, there have been several raids on dispensaries during his presidency, so he's not exactly pro-ganja (a tad hypocritical, considering his previous stance on the issue). And besides, medical weed is one thing; I have a feeling the feds may not look as kindly on states more or less thumbing their noses at them.

Yet in one aspect of this that we can all agree on: legalization drove a panicked Fox news anchor to ask "What's to keep somebody from getting all potted up on weed and getting behind the wheel?"

What we can agree on is that "getting all potted up" may be the funniest thing said in the entire election cycle, as well as a phrase that needs to enter the national lexicon post haste.

Sometimes it's the most controversial decisions that bring us all together...

All Quiet on the Blog Front

Sorry about the extreme lack of posts lately. I've finally hit the time where I need to actually finish my degree and get the hell outta Dodge, so I've been busy with actual work and stuff. Which leaves little time for frivolities like blogging. Or socializing. Or basic hygiene.

But hey, that's what I signed up for, right?

Anyway, while procrastinating a bit this morning, I came across this interesting article arguing why the renewed emphasis on getting more college students into the STEM fields is misguided.

There's a lot of interesting stuff to the argument, but what was most interesting was how the author shows that one of the most misguided aspects behind this push to increase STEM (science, tech, engineering, and mathematics, for those following along at home) majors is that they are more necessary to our economy (debatable) and that they themselves are the more financially sound option (empirically not true).

It turns out that mid-career, someone who majored in biology can expect to make around 13 grand less a year than their counterparts who majored in political science. Hell, they can expect to make around 4 grand less a year than film major. Film majors!

Granted, the main argument is that liberal arts education provides a great deal of the harder to quantify skills (interpersonal communication, critical thinking, analytical reasoning) that are increasingly in demand in our brave new economy and all sorts of deep insights.

But I cannot get over the wage disparity. The trope of broke-ass liberal arts major who is flipping burgers with their useless degree is so old and hoary to have blown past simple cliche decades ago. And yet, like so many widely-held cultural beliefs, it just ain't true.

Anyway, interesting food for thought. But now I have to get back to work. Those crazy palatial liberal arts mansions don't just buy themselves, you know...

But...But...But...We're In A Financial Crisis, Right?

Anytime anyone in a position of claims a "financial crisis" as the reason they're doing something, it's generally safe to assume they're full of shit. Or, if not completely full of shit, at least covering for some other priorities that aren't quite as palatable.

Take, for instance, the University of Minnesota.

Sorry, class sizes are going to have to increase. We're in a financial crisis.

Sorry, tuition's going to go up yet again. We're in a financial crisis.

Sorry, we can't recognize a union. We're in a financial crisis.

Sorry, we have to hire part-time adjuncts instead of actual faculty. We're in a financial crisis.

Oh, we need to pay out $800,000 to avoid playing a football team that might make out football team not look very good? No worries. Here's your money.

Conservative Hypocrisy and Social Science

Social sciences are something most conservatives don't like. Well, mostly they ignore them and all of the conclusions reached, probably because the scientific evidence is inconvenient to their worldview. Fair enough. We all do that to some extent. Though conservatives tend to go a bit further when actually discussing the social sciences, arguing either they should be defunded and discontinued, they're just bastions of liberal brainwashing, or they don't count as actual science because they can't be used to build missiles and the only point of science is to find better ways to kill people.

Put simply, most conservatives, and especially conservative politicians, are not big fans of the social sciences.

But what kills me about the conservative hatred of the social sciences is the rank hypocrisy of it. It reaches a level of "virulently anti-gay politician caught with meth-dealing gay prostitute" hypocrisy that conservatives don't have an exclusive claim to, but sure seem to have perfected.

You see, the conservative hatred of social sciences is actually quite akin to the conservative hatred of evolution -- they say they hate it, but they use it all the time when it actually applies to them. For example, I'm assuming most all of them are up-to-date on their vaccinations. But if you've ever been vaccinated, you believe in evolution (at least as it applies to your health). Because diseases change and mutate (dare I say, evolve?) and so too do the vaccinations and various drugs used to combat them. So if you truly didn't believe in evolution, you'd have to reject most of modern medical science.

But, you know, if you were to do that, it might actually effect you personally, so you just hypocritically ignore that.

Well, their attitude toward the social sciences is the exact same. If you've got the time, go read this awesome deadspin piece on how Frank Lutz, the top Republican innovator of social science, is helping the NHL owners attempt to control the story surrounding their lockout of players. Or read this piece about how Romney is using the ol' "dog whistle" racist terms conservative strategists long ago discovered had the power to let you make racist statements with enough plausible deniability built into them that you can claim you're not racist when people call you out about it.

The piece on Lutz is really the most informative, as it's such a great example of how conservatives claim to hate the social sciences, but will gladly spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on social scientific research if it will benefit them personally. In fact, the greatest irony of this is that conservative spin-masters like Lutz (muthafucka coined the term "death panels" so you know he's good) are not only using the social sciences, but innovating them in countless (albeit highly problematic) ways. Lutz and his counterparts more-or-less invented the concept of focus-group testing specific words and phrases to radically reshape public opinion, especially when conservatives need to sell the public on something they don't want.

And that's really the dictionary definition of hypocrisy -- saying something is horrible and backward and should be done away with, while privately using it yourself, because you know it works.

tl;dr: Conservatives are really hypocritical about this thing I care about and that's annoying.

How To Build Yourself An Enemy

You may have heard a few weeks ago about how some idiot made a crappy movie on youtube that insulted the prophet Muhammed. And then in reaction to that, a bunch of people in Libya rioted, attacked an embassy, and killed several people.

All over a crappy youtube movie. What savages.

Except that narrative is utter and complete bullshit.

You see, if you pay attention to the date the attacks occurred, you might notice a date of some import. September 11th, to be exact. You know, a day which has been used a justification for the on-going slaughter of now in the millions of people in the Middle East. It's been used to justify killing people in Iraq (not at all responsible for the 9/11 attacks), Pakistan (not at all responsible for the 9/11 attacks), Syria (not at al responsible for the 9/11 attacks), Libya (not at al responsible for the 9/11 attacks), and  Afghanistan (marginally responsible for the 9/11 attacks at best).

Do you notice a theme there? Now suppose you lived in one of those nations. Do you think that maybe you might be a little upset over how the 9/11 attacks are being used as justification to murder and terrorize you, your family, your friends, and your countrymen? Especially since, you know, neither you, anyone you know, or even your government was in any way responsible for those attacks.

But this is a narrative that doesn't work in America. Because to understand this version of events (you know, the actual version of events), you have to be willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, the United States is in the wrong here. You'd have to admit that maybe, just maybe, people are right to be upset about seeing their families murdered and terrorized for no reason.

But this is something we absolutely cannot acknowledge in America, because America is right about everything ever all the time. So instead we desperately search for a why? Why could anyone be mad at us, the lovable dictator of the world?!? Everyone loves someone who constantly tells them do what to do and threatens to kill them (or actually does) for no particular reason, right? Right?!?

So we search for some proximal cause, no matter how ridiculous it is. So instead of being upset over the decade plus of terror, death, and destruction wrought by the war on terror, these savage idiots are upset over a movie.

Ha! What backward savages! They have no real complaints, they're just all blood-thirsty murderers who can't be reasoned with! 

Thus even people who normally don't care for murder or war will throw up their hands and say "what can you do? We need to fight them, because if they're insane enough to kill people over a movie, obviously they're too insane to be reasoned with."

Now, granted, the Obama administration has finally come clear, somewhat admitting they made up the whole story. But it doesn't matter, because the narrative is already out there, and we all know how effective back-page retractions are at pushing a good narrative out of the public imagination...

So, in case you missed it, a nice reminder that We're the good guys who have peace and reason on our side and are regrettably sometimes drawn into fighting because ignorant savages can't be reason with. They, on the other hand, are such ignorant savages that they kill people over an internet movie. Good riddance.