808 State: "Pacific"
Legal Challenges In Response to G20 Policing in Toronto
Good $TIME_PERIOD, Shakers. The fallout continues to come from the shocking behaviour of Canadian police around the G20 summit in Toronto a couple of weeks ago.
For today, we have good news. A lawyer in Toronto (David Midanik) has put his firm to taking on some of the task of instigating legal challenges around the violations of the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights, and he's looking for help in making the case. He's asking for help from the public with reports of violations of the Charter, media recordings (video, stills, and/or sound), and most especially people willing to testify to their experiences.
Also, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has posted an article explaining the various means by which Charter violations and complaints can be reported (Charter rights which are not, by the way, restricted to Canadians; anyone in Canada is entitled to protection under the Charter).
If you have any other links by which people can file complaints or take action over violation of Charter rights, please drop them in comments.
* Cette article est aussi disponible en français.
Tip of the CaitieCap to Eric L.
NY Times Transphobic, Also, Water Wet, Fire Hot
I don't think this needs a long post. I will point out that the article should carry a trigger warning for transphobic language.
NY Times "Ethicist"* Randy Cohen says that trans people not outing ourselves on the first date with someone is "discreditable".
I say that encouraging trans people to out themselves to strangers is "discreditable", in much the same way that encouraging two-year-olds to play on major highways at rush hour is "discreditable".
I trust Shakers don't need to be told about the murder rate for trans people (and especially trans POC), or how that murder rate is driven by the "panic" defence, or how repellent it is to suggest that it's appropriate to "panic" when confronted by someone's trans-identified past.
Opposing Views has a response here; Dr. Jillian Weiss has a response here.
You can write to Randy Cohen, the alleged "ethicist", at ethicist@nytimes.com. Letters to the Editor of the Times can go to letters@nytimes.com.
* Please note, column author is not an ethicist by definition.
Tip of the CaitieCap to the lovely and talented eastsidekate. :)
Addicted to Love
[Trigger warning for stalking.]
So, I'm reading this article about new research (yay, new research!) which purports to have found that "the brain may treat love as an addiction" after researchers discovered that photographs of people by whom participants were recently dumped triggered increased activity in the same part of the brain "associated with profound cocaine addiction, as well as in a region associated with nicotine addiction."
Having not read the study report, I don't know why the presumption is that the brain treats love like an addiction, rather than that the brain treats cocaine and nicotine addictions like love.
I do know, however, that a headline about people being "addicted to love" is sexier, as they say in the news biz, than a headline about addicts' brains mimicking feelings of romantic love to sustain the addiction.
Anyway, halfway through we do get a boring old caveat from one of the study authors about how even being "addicted to love" doesn't inevitably cause "unhealthy behaviors."
Other issues, such as impulse control, would feed into disruptive actions such as stalking.I'm not sure I've ever heard stalking described in a nicer way than a "disruptive action" done by people who can't handle rejection.
Some people handle rejection better than others, and research should be done to see what differentiates those people, Fisher said.
And to further normalize obsessive behavior, the story then relates an anecdote about 38-year-old Mel Brake of Springfield, Pennsylvania, who has "been saving voice mails from his former girlfriend since their breakup four years ago but didn't feel completely comfortable hearing her voice on them until last week."
The study is about people who got jilted, but Mel did the breaking up.
Mel's story is offered as evidence that love is a lot like addiction. Um.
The story then ends with an anecdote about another dude, which includes this line: "As for the girl who turned him away so long ago, Dailakis doesn't hold any grudge today."
As if, you know, it's normal for a man to "hold a grudge" against a woman who has the unmitigated temerity to decide she doesn't want to be with him.
Yikes.
You know, it's not even like I particularly care about this specific article, but it's just that there are dozens of articles published like this every day, each of them eminently willing to uncritically (or deliberately) reinforce the vast and varied and vicious narratives of the rape culture, normalizing the obsessions and entitlements that underlie sexual violence.
One of these things is not like the others
[Trigger warning for sexual assault]
This morning, the website of my local newspaper has this:
[Caption: A section of a website titled "Entertainment", featuring four stories, the most prominent being "Attorney denies John Stamos had fling with 17-year-old (His accusers conspired to extort $680,000 from the actor)." [Stamos picture!] The three other stories are: "Fewer people are watching late-night talk shows", "In new tape, Mel Gibson allegedly admits hitting ex-girlfriend", and "Swiss reject US extradition request for Roman Polanski."
Note that Gibson "allegedly" admitted to hitting a woman, whereas accusers most definitely conspired to extort money from Stamos.
Don't you go changin', Syracuse Post-Standard. [Maybe you should change.]
Overheard
The guy in line next to me at Subway™ last night: "Throw some of those yellow peppers on there, too. Lots of 'em. I love that nonsense."
Well. This is hugely depressing.
[Trigger warning for Polanski stuff.]
The Quick Vote currently featured on CNN's front page asks: "Do you agree with Switzerland's decision not to extradite Roman Polanski to the U.S.?"
68% no. 32% yes.
Rare Barbary Lion Cubs Born in Pennsylvania Animal Park
Here's some Tuesday Morning Cute for yinz:
Two 1-week-old barbary lion cubs nestled in their blankets.
From KDKA News:
The newest residents of Living Treasures Wild Animal Park in Lawrence County are attracting quite a crowd. Three rare Barbary lion cubs – one male and two females -- were born on July 7th.
Barbary lions, also known as Atlas lions, were once native to the Atlas Mountains on North Africa; but unfortunately that's not the case anymore.
"The reason these cubs are so special," Adam Guiher from Living Treasures explained, "is Barbary Lions actually are extinct in the wild since 1921."
"They were basically hunted to extinction," Guiher added. "They were sought after because they had a big thick mane that was impressive to the hunters and that's just what did them in."
Male Barbary lions are unique because of their rich, dark mane. They can only be found in a handful of zoos around the world.
The new cubs will be hand-raised over the next few weeks. When they're old enough, the folks at Living Treasures will relocate them to a zoo.
The photos on the KDKA site are shot through the glass and so are pretty dark and fuzzy. Here is a clearer picture of a 5-week-old barbary lion cub from Animal Planet:
Question of the Day
What's your favorite beverage?
I'm rather inordinately fond of Trader Joe's Very Green Juice Blend—which looks like green sludge, is made from apple juice, mango puree, pineapple juice, banana puree, kiwi puree, spirulina, chlorella, broccoli, spinach, barley grass, wheat grass, parsley, ginger root, blue green algae, and garlic, and tastes like liquid heaven.
And I'm always happy with a cold glass of ice water, too.
Campeones del Mundo!
Congratulations, Spain!
There is a gorgeous photo gallery of the World Cup celebrations in Spain at El Pais. Here are a few selections:
A victorious throng filling the streets of Madrid last night.
The team rides atop a bus through the streets of Madrid.
Goalkeeper and team captain Iker Casillas offers the World Cup trophy to the infantas Leonor and Sofia.
And, the photo of the day from Marca.com:
The Empire State Building lit up in red and yellow in honor of Spain's World Cup win.
Scary
[Trigger warning for misogyny and sexual assault.]
Shaker Kelly sent me the word cloud of Mel Gibson's latest rant, and it is a very interesting picture indeed. It's NSFW-ish, so I've stuck it below the fold, along with the rest of the post...
[Click to embiggen.]
Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg, who apparently didn't feel like she sufficiently made a jackass of herself defending Polanski's crime as not "rape-rape," has taken up the mantle of defending Gibson, and she's done it in one of the most objectionable ways possible:
Whoopi: I don't like what he did here, but I know Mel and I know he's not a racist... He may be a bonehead... I have had a long friendship with Mel... You can say he's being a bonehead but I can't sit and say that he's a racist having spent time with him in my house with my kids. I can't say it and so I really just need to say that. I don't like what he's done. Make no mistake...
Too right. And note the difference between Goldberg saying Gibson isn't "a racist" and Behar noting his words/actions were anti-Semitic. If the word anti-Semitism is to have any meaning at all, of course Gibson's words were anti-Semitic. And if the word racism is to have any meaning at all, of course Gibson's use of anti-Semitic tropes and racial slurs is racist.
Joy: Do you think he's anti-Semitic?
Whoopi: I think he's an a**hole (covers mouth, audio is silent)
Joy: Somebody says to a police officer, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." That's not anti-Semitic?
Whoopi: Drunks say stupid stuff to people all the time because they're drunk. They're out of control. They are not thinking they are idiotic. That's why I don't like alcohol. I can't say anything about that because I know what people are like when they're drunk. This rant, I don't think he's drunk on this rant...
Joy: A lot of people drink and don't say those things.
But Goldberg is treating racist as something a person either is, or isn't. Instead of acknowledging that the question is not whether we've all got internalized racism, but whether we individually choose to leave it unexamined, she deflects all criticism of Gibson's objectively racist rantings to defend what is an improbable lack of racism even among people who don't go around shouting racist shit, booze or no.
It's a reflexive defensiveness of her friend almost certainly rooted in the emergent narrative that accusations of bias are an equivalent offense to expressions of bias; that is, we are now meant to regard being accused of racism as just as horrible an experience as being targeted by racism. Ultimately, Goldberg is really just trying to argue that Gibson isn't a thoroughly and irredeemably contemptible person.
Which, frankly, seems at best a silly thing to do on behalf of a man who knocked out his former partner's teeth and threatened to kill her.
I used to like Whoopi Goldberg before I knew of her habit of using her platform to defend privileged men who like to hurt women.
[Related Reading: Such a Good Kid. TW for violent homophobia. Actual Headline: "'Racist' claims defuse once powerful word." TW for racism.]
Truly, This Is a Shoe That Does Not Fit!
This electronic photogravure, boldly entitled "woman_man_conflict.jpg", depicts the very soul of Man today. I declare its creator a Great Artist and his work to be the Mona Lisa of our Time!
Image description: a plain white background with a woman's cheetah-print stiletto boot stepping upon a man's black-and-blue silk necktie.
[A Grumbles Exhortation: the contents of this e-missive are entirely inappropriate for Ladies. Please close this web-window now, lest the graceless references herein sear your delicate nerve-terminals quite beyond reclamation.]
Gentlemen! There is a fine high color in my bravely-whiskered cheeks as I dispatch this communication. Friday last, my yeoman Bruce and I were vigorously lubricating our accelerators in preparation for a jaunt to Dix's Dram Shop for the evening antifogmatic when an abrupt e-missive cut short our exertions.
My old friend Major Taint had alerted me to a brazen yet sonorous voice—heretofore unknown to us at Grumbles Manor—whose brave ejaculations invigorate the electronic broadside known, I believe, as The American Scientific Man:
Something has me mildly riled up, a ridiculous little scandal involving the silliest accusations of sexism and secretions. So permit me today a slight diversion from the usual. If you’ve ever wondered why some feminists have earned themselves such a bad name, and are at all curious about how some intriguing new experimental research demonstrates that this negative view of feminism is more than just my personal opinion and in fact runs very deep in the modern psyche, then read on.Such bold prose! As well you know, I am generally no colluder with natural philosophy scriveners. But Dr. Bering writes as though he'd been beside me, vigorously matriculating at the knee of Emmett Q. Crumblecorn himself in the School for Fancy Lads. Tighten your braces, good Gentlemen—read on, indeed!
One afternoon in the ninth grade, between classes, while stealing like some trembling, creeping vine through the hallways of my school and with my ears pricked for gossip and gambit, I was accused of a very terrible thing. An irate African-American boy, in whose sinewy neck I saw the arterial pulsing of tempered rage, told me a rumor that made my heart sink. The news was that on the school bus that very morning, I, Jesse Bering, had happily expelled from my mouth the mother of all racial epithets.What onerous obloquy is this? Young Master Bering, just a trembling vine of a lad with pricked ears, living at the mercy of gossip and gambit and, one would ken, imminent physical threat! Sinewy necks, arterial pulsings! Rage! I quite see, Sir—say no more.
And then, our Dr. Bering must face fresh indignities, this time at the lashing tongue of a suffragette!
My opinion of lady doctors is no secret, yet I assure you I am the picture of masculine objectivity as I recount this outrage: a lady doctor, one Emily Nagoski, accused our trembling vine of one of the most reviled and stringently punished crimes known to Man: a distaste for the corporeal expression of The Feminine. Dr. Bering recounted a natural philosophy experiment—whose outlines are far too coarse for me to relate here—and observed that the scientists, Baker and Bellis, must surely have "stomachs of steel". I see nothing in that jaunty phrase with which to disagree, but our lady doctor is unable to leave a hard-working man in peace:
Apparently collecting ejaculate requires no particular digestive toughness, but ejaculate in cervical mucus requires industrial strength gastric abilities. Should we conclude that Dr. Bering himself has felt nauseated by the fluids of any female sex partners he may have had? Indeed, the blatant, unapologetic, flinching gynophobia made me wonder if he’s gay, which it turns out he is, but that doesn’t make it okay for him to discuss female fluids as physically disgusting.First, allow me to admit that I can conceive of no worthy purpose for which a natural philosopher should absquatulate with the intimate humors of an individual, much less those of a Lady. I cannot countenance such slobberchopsity! Men of Science should limit themselves to the increase of our national defenses and to the important questions of medicine, such as the utility of bladderwort tincture as a panacea for Ocular Monocle-Spasm. Thus, I verily suspect that these men Baker and Bellis are soaplocks and bunko artists. But I digress! My purpose is to expose a craven assault upon a blameless natural philosophy scrivener.
I confess to confusion at Mrs. Nagoski's comment that a manly distaste for feminine humors suggests that Dr. Bering is "gay". After a bracing ride in the airship, Bruce and I feel quite gay—giddy, even—yet I am no more appalled than usual at the thought of such feminine unspeakables as those which confronted brave Baker and Bellis. Still, the lady doctor has seen fit to apologize, though she does not retract her grave charge of "gynophobia".
Thus, this hollering harridan left the good Dr. Bering no choice but to defend himself. Indeed, any Man who quavered like a base poltroon before the forked tongue of this suffragette would soon find his whiskers doused by my hand with a quartern of Geneva! (Pardon my righteous spleen, gentle Readers, but as the Ladies are not present, I feel I can speak freely.) Dr. Bering is far more measured than I:
...the sad truth is that these are precisely the same people who for decades have been undermining important, intellectually informed scientific debates by scaring male (and female) researchers into submission while screaming misogyny—most often at curious, promising young evolutionary psychologists who haven’t even the slightest tremor of a sexist agendaEven now, the thought of spittle-flecked Suffragettes swells my manly organ of thought with ire at the utter destruction wrought by the frail sex upon curious and promising young natural philosophers.
It is a rare occasion upon which I can be inveigled into consensus with a Frenchman (even one with an incomparably noble whiskulature), but Gustave LeBon was quite right: a woman with a man’s education is indeed a dangerous chimera1. The good Mrs. Grumbles, by contrast, is quite unconcerned with matters of men; she is content to mount her stallion Andre of an afternoon, then return home, the picture of satisfaction. She sits beside me now, her cheeks quite flushed as she mends my puce silk waistcoat.
As for the puling palaver of our lady doctor and her ilk, I have no doubt that the wise Dr. LeBon would have left these suffragettes at the mercies of police back when they were clamoring for the vote we so graciously granted to them. The great evolutionary biologist E.D. Cope asserted that men who make common cause with suffragettes are "effeminate and long-haired"2—would that his sage observation had been heeded in time.
But back to the science! Dr. Bering supports his delineation of these hectoring harpies irrefutably with scientifical data. To wit: the IAT, an ingenious little Babbage-engine-based examination invented (to my chagrin) by those hornswogglers up at Harvard:
So implicit bias is said to be evidenced by faster reaction times when stereotype-consistent words are paired with a marginalized social group (e.g., black-lazy) relative to other groups (e.g., white-lazy), and slower reaction times to pairings of positive words with the marginalized group (e.g., black-intelligent) relative to the comparison group (e.g., white-intelligent). The idea is that, when asked to match positive concepts to words describing marginalized outgroup members, participants’ latency of response captures a dragging of their cognitive heels because they’re working against the grain of their inner bigot.Pertinent findings indeed, Sir. See what a reputation these suffragettes have duly earned! By Dr. Bering’s line of ratiocination, all such implicitly espoused negativities—laziness, &c. —are the just wages of various groups’ chosen behaviors. Let that be a lesson to all who would be socially undesirable!
So guess what happened in Jenen’s IAT study when college-aged men and women were asked to match the category “feminist” with either positive or negative words? The most pertinent findings were that the participants were significantly slower to associate positive words (“happy,” “joy,” “peace,” “wonderful”) with the feminist than they were negative words (“awful,” “evil,” “nasty,” “terrible”).
In sum, I was fairly roused to a standing ovation as Bering unfurled his proud body of work in defense against this womanish assault.
So don’t call me a misogynist, because that shoe just doesn’t fit. As the ladies at Jezebel know very well, I had much to say about the evolution of female bitchery and verbal aggression—because it’s fascinating. But in prior blog posts[...]I’ve also talked at length about the wanting aesthetics of the human penis...Yes, fascinating, and may I doff the lid of my mustache wax tin to your even-handedness!
In closing, Gentlemen, I quite concur with Dr. Bering: foolish feminist—be careful!
_________
1A desire to give [women] the same education, and as a consequence, to propose the same goals for them, is a dangerous chimera...The day when, misunderstanding the inferior occupations which nature has given her, women leave the home and take part in our battles; on this day a social revolution will begin, and everything that maintains the sacred ties of the family will disappear.-- LeBon, Gustave, 1879, Recherches anatomiques et mathématiques sur le lois de variation du volume de cerveau et sur leurs relations avec l'intelligence. Revue d'Anthropologie 2nd series, volume 2, pp. 27-104
2Cope, E.D. 1890, Two perils of the Indo-European. The Open Court 3: 2052-2054 and 2070-2071
Both of these sources are quoted by Stephen Jay Gould inThe Mismeasure of Man, p. 105 of the 1981 edition. Please forgive the sullying of my hands with pages penned by an unrepentant Marxist; I confiscated the book from my niece Eugenie's reticule and have yet to burn it.
[Previous Grumblings: Benjamin H. Grumbles, Progress: Dagnabbit!, A Day in the Life of Benjamin H. Grumbles, What in the Sam Hill Are You Rascals Thinking?, Friday Cat Blogging, Damnable Milkshakery, Grumbles' Gashouse, Dash It All, McCain Is Off His Trolley, I Say, Somebody Bet on the Bob-Tailed Nag, Grumbles Writes Letters, Hosiery Is No Laughing Matter, Fear Not, Shakesvillians!, Bunsen's Balderdash!, Taint a Good Man, A Hearty Yawp of Well Wishes, The Grandest Male Organ, Bully for Science!, A Grumbles Extolment!]
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Actual Headline
Is Being Childfree By Choice Selfish?
Short answer: Fuck off.
Longer answer: That's a trick question to which there's no good answer. And the reason it's a trick question is because "selfish," the way it is being used there (and in most discussions of whether being deliberately childless is "selfish") does not merely mean "prioritizing oneself and one's interests," but is loaded with ten metric fucktons of societal expectation that every human being has a duty to reproduce, coupled with the commonly-held belief that the deliberately childless are breaking some sort of natural law that commands every adult human prioritize procreation over pursuits that outsiders may deem inappropriately self-indulgent, and the intractable commonly-drawn inference that those who don't reproduce (when they can) are tacitly standing in silent condemnation of the choice of those who do, and the weird right that many people assert to have to judge others' choices and proclaim it "selfish" if anyone prefers to prioritize their own lives over the lives of imaginary children they don't want to have.
The problem with the question is that "selfish" in these discussions usually means: You're not doing with your life what I think you should be doing with it!
So, yes, it's selfish—if you mean my living my life the way I want to live it.
And no, it's not selfish—if you mean failing to live my life the way you want me to live it.
That this is considered a subject worthy of public debate rather unavoidably suggests it is the latter.
In which case, I refer back to my short answer.
[H/T to Shaker mschicklet.]
Interesting Calculations
[Trigger warning for sexual assault, violence, and virulent misogyny and racism.]
As you may have the misfortune to recall, last week, a recording of a phone conversation between Mel Gibson and his former partner, Oksana Grigorieva, with whom he has a baby daughter, was made public, and, in that recording, Gibson is heard telling Grigorieva, "You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n****rs, it will be your fault, and using the anti-Latin@ immigrant slur "wetback."
This week, a second recording—and much longer, at 8 minutes—has been made public, in which Gibson admits beating Grigorieva while she held their baby in her arms, telling her she deserved it, and threatens to kill her, among other breathtaking ugliness, peppered with vile misogyny.
All of which is background for this Reuters story in which it is reported that Gibson has been dropped as a client by the William Morris agency. Ya know, not because he's a dangerously violent misogynist, but because all that racism makes it hard to sell tickets.
When William Morris Endeavor dropped Mel Gibson as a client last week, sources at the agency cited the star's misconduct as the reason.This calculation is patently absurd: Plenty of (white male) celebrities who have engaged in public racism have been given multiple chances. They do their penance by keeping their heads down and staying out of view for awhile, and then—poof!—Imus has his own show again, and—voila!—Michael Richards has his old role back on the Curb Your Enthusiasm Seinfeld non-reunion, and he's lambasting his racist tirade to boot, har har. The countdown clock is already ticking down the minutes until we can celebrate the career resurgence of Jesse James. And of course, we've been down this road with Mel Gibson before, too. Et cetera.
Its revulsion may be genuine, but the decision also was based on the bottom line, a calculation that Gibson no longer has real monetary value to the agency.
"There's nothing to do for Mel Gibson at the moment," a William Morris source said. "No one will touch him with a 10-foot pole. He'll make his own movies, but you don't commission those anyway."
Hollywood has routinely overlooked reprehensible, even illegal behavior when there's money to be made. And observers -- including a studio chief and an insider at William Morris -- said the industry might even have gotten past Gibson's alleged assault on his former girlfriend. (Consider Charlie Sheen.)
But the repeated allegations of bigoted comments have left his relationship with the public in tatters, and that's a deal-breaker. With tapes surfacing in which Gibson apparently used unforgivable language when referring to African-Americans and Latinos, he has antagonized two groups that are disproportionately represented in movie audiences.
It's a nice (where "nice" equals "transparently mendacious") bit of PR to say that Gibson has been dropped because William Morris cares oh-so-deeply about (male) black and Latin@ ticketholders, but the truth comes down to this single line: "Gibson no longer has real monetary value to the agency." If there were a penny left to be earned, his agent would still be taking his calls. That's the only principle, such as it is, that matters.
And what I find interesting, ahem, about the calculation of this PR maneuver is that William Morris' "anonymous insider" didn't even feel obliged to throw a sop to women. In fact, they threw a sop to misogynists: "Hey, if it was only the misogynist epithets and death threats and domestic violence, maybe we could overlook this whole thing, just like we did for Charlie Sheen. But our hands are tied."
By those sensitive brown people.
The whole thing is essentially a stunt to reassure white racist misogynist men, men like Mel Gibson, that William Morris will support them as long as they're cash cows.
So, go ahead, Russell Crowe—throw that phone! Go ahead, Christian Bale—have that indulgent tirade on set! Go ahead, Kiefer Sutherland—jump into ALL the Christmas trees!
We got you.
Hollywood liberalism blah blah.
If you lived here, you'd be white by now
Deities be praised, CNNMoney has just released its annual summary of the "Best Places to Live" in the United States!
Not to generalize, but IMO, some of the Minneapolis suburbs that made the top 100 are a tad bit more conservative than many of those that didn't make the list. Even if I could afford it, I'd prefer not to live in some of those cities. But then I'm a queer lefty, so I don't usually read Money.
I did have a bit of fun over lunch. Would you believe that the top 10 cities are, according to the 2000 US census, a wee bit whiter than the US as a whole?
Here are some numbers* (and a Google Doc!):
White [sic, American**]: 84.3 (top 10) versus 75.1 (2000 US census)
Black or African American: 3.9 versus 12.3
Asian [sic, American]: 8.4 versus 3.6
Hispanic or Latino [sic, American] of any race: 6.8 versus 12.5
We could spend years talking about the ways that race correlates with measurements of standard of living, as well as what the related causes and effects are (e.g., I'm going to go out on a limb and say that government agencies tend not to prioritize funding for communities with large minority populations). In any case, the under representation of black people in the top 10 cities is striking.
I'm pretty sure that CNNMoney didn't actually use whiteness as a measurement of livability. I'm also pretty sure that CNNMoney didn't use diversity as a measure of livability. Based on my experience as a queer person, I'm more inclined to want to live in a place where folks like myself are reasonably common. Among other things, higher densities of folks like me, IME, loosely correlate with my being treated like a human being. While I'm not saying that racism is the same as homo/bi/queer/transphobia, I will say that the lily white suburb I lived in for a while displayed its share of racism.
I really, really dislike lists like this one. Part of the problem, is that the list is targeted towards a certain population. The statistics the list-makers examine specific data, and present very specific findings. Fine. All research does this. However, when the media starts presenting the results as applicable to all people (you should move to Eden Prairie, MN, you'll love it!), I see a massive problem.
--
*Thrown together over lunch, so yes... there are all sorts of things that I might have done differently. I'm interested in this "best small cities" business... how that might effect the CNNMoney's methodology, my null hypothesis, and perhaps most importantly, why CNNMoney decided that small cities are teh awesome.
**Edited in an attempt to address census race-fail, see comments
Quote of the Day
"[Losing the weight I gained during my second pregnancy] was by far the hardest thing I have ever done—but I really was seeing results so it motivated me to just work through it. Every woman can make time—every woman—and you can do it with your baby in the room There've been countless times where I've worked out with my kids crawling around all over the place. You just make it work, and if it's important to you, it'll be important to them."—Gwyneth Paltrow, continuing her crusade to be known as the most clueless, privileged, weight-obsessed asshole on the planet.
[Previously.]
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Flush-Mount Maplewood Vent Covers, which go great with Lissie's Vents.
Recommended Reading:
Michelle: UK Says Gay Asylum Seekers Can Come Out of the Closet
Tim: Black Power's Gonna Get You Sucka: Right-Wing Paranoia and the Rhetoric of Modern Racism
Tami: Dispatches From Nappyville: I Don't Have "Good" Hair
Andy: Tom Colicchio to Ride on Bear Float in L.A. Gay Pride Parade
Living ~400lbs: Wonder if Michelle Obama reads the New York Times
And Happy Blogiversary to Veronica!
Leave your links in comments...
Daily Dose o' Cute
It is our pleasure to introduce to you the newest addition at Chez Cowboy. We picked up this retired racer yesterday at an adoption drive in South Jersey. Liss and Iain have been extremely helpful in trying to find a name to replace his racing name of Stay Away Joe (aka Joe-Joe), and his current working name is Alfie, which is short for Lord Alfred Greyhound of the Baskervilles.
Alfie is 4 and a half, and is fully recovered from having broken his leg on the track. As part of that rehabilitation, he participated in a prison program where inmates have the opportunity to train and take care of retired racers. We had our eye on him when his smile was posted on the rescue website. Once we met him and hung around with him for a while, it was clear that he was the one for us.
The first night went very well and we successfully got through his first introduction of the evil stairs. Rest assured there will be more pics to come. :)
New cousin for Dudz!
