Feel free to post whatever you want. Self-linking makes the world go “squeee!”
I don’t think it’s good for feminism that ending sexism is seen as something without direct benefits for men, when…
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I disagree. I do think there are ways that men are hurt by sexism that have no equivalent in your…
Speaking as a man I would never join an organisation that focuses on men's issues. To do so would be…
Why are there no dedicated left orgs like that? In the UK there's the Men and Boys Coalition. In the…
I’ll address the final part of your comment separately. Before I do that, I have some more data to bring…
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Random encounter: 1x Evil Pants
Just in the unlikely event that y’all haven’t already heard about this:
“W,” a philosophy Ph.D., had a tenure-track job offer pulled after an email to the hiring committee.
Lots of interesting opinions on both sides.
g&w:
My question for you about this: did W reject N’s offer?
A lot of the comments talk about whether N rescinded the offer or whether W rejected the offer by making a counteroffer. I see a bit of a middle ground that has been missed: an inquiry about an offer is not a rejection of an offer. W’s e-mail looks like a rejection and counteroffer, but (in very wishy-washy language) it is framed as an inquiry about the offer. If she was inquiring about the offer, N then rescinded.
Where do you come down: rejection or rescission?
-Jut
I don’t have an opinion on the rejection/rescission thing legally, because it’s a distinction without a difference in this case. It really only matters in some very particular fact patterns–for example, if W had sent an immediate followup email saying “never mind, I accept.”
Practically, the party who “pulled out” of the deal was obviously Nazareth, not W. I think it may have been a wise move based on the information that Nazareth knew at the time, and I don’t agree with all of the folks who seem to be implying that W had some sort of right to the job. But I also think the folks who are classifying W’s email as a “rejecting counteroffer” are missing the point.
Heck, I even heard about this. The critiques I read were pretty much unfavorable towards the candidate, and centered on two things:
1) the focus of that particular institution is towards teaching, not research, and she wanted way too much teaching time off – in fact, overall she wanted way too much, period. She could have probably gotten one or two of those, but all of it at once was an unreasonable expectation.
2) e-mail is a really lousy way to negotiate. This is something that should be done face-to-face so as to gauge the reaction of the person you’re negotiating with. If this is that important to you, take the time and spend the money to travel. That way you can run a process of “I want X and Y.” “We can give you X but not Y.” “Well, if I can’t have Y can I have Z instead?”, etc. and see how it’s being received.
Plus, let’s face it – tenure-track academic positions are very hard to come by these days. It’s a buyer’s market, and you would need to be a very special snowflake to get all that.
The whole academic job-search process is weird. I’m applying for jobs this year (I am pretty sure of being offered a renewal of my contract where I currently am, but where I currently am is a great school that’s surrounded by several hundred miles of farmland in every direction, and I’m kind of going crazy here), and one of them gave me instructions on a Monday night for a one-hour talk they expected me to give at an interview on Wednesday. (I declined that one — that was one of several red flags about that job.) A bunch of my friends are also applying this year, and none of us have any clue at all what any of these schools are looking for. When I was applying a few years ago, I sent out 272 applications, which led to three offers, none of which were tenure-track. (One of the offers really expected me to decline — I hadn’t read the job ad carefully enough, and I was way over-qualified for it and they knew it, but figured they’d take a shot at seeing if I’d accept.)
I see it this way: every applicant is usually trying to hide all of their bad parts in an interview. It’s much more difficult for an employer to do so, especially when they’re pretty big–you can find out a lot about working for Nazareth without even letting Nazareth know you’re looking. The reverse isn’t true, though: candidates can (and do) hide a lot of things about themselves, and it’s difficult for employers to grok what a candidate is “really like.”
That is especially true when it comes to things that can’t easily be quantified, can easily be hidden, and can really make a difference. Are they grumpy at meetings? Rude to staff? Will they always drink the last of the coffee and never make any? Do they religiously take every sick day available to them, even if they just have a runny nose? Will they do precisely what is legally required of them but no more? Will they leave in a year for something better? And so on.
Those insights are rare. And those insights are almost impossible to get openly (especially in a bad job market) because the vast majority of candidates will lie in order to get hired. If you tell someone “we are looking for a toilet cleaner who wants to do this for at least two years” then you will unsurprisingly find that all of your applicants just so happen have long term plans in the career of toilet cleaning. And so on.
It sounds like Nazareth’s committee believed–rightly or wrongly–that it had some insight into W which it didn’t have before. And based on their response, the insight was apparently a relative deal-breaker for them. In that respect they probably made a wise decision to move on: it’s always much cheaper to “not hire” than to “fire.”
Were they right? Maybe, maybe not. As I said, it’s basically impossible to know. After all, consider these three scenarios:
1) “W” really wants the job at Nazareth and hopes to stay there for life whether or not she gets any of those requests.
2) “W” doesn’t really want to work there, but is smart enough to seize it while she can, until something better opens up; she’ll actively continue the search elsewhere in the hopes of leaving.
3) “W” is planning to go somewhere else that Nazareth; she is negotiating aggressively in the hopes of getting a great offer to play off of her first choice.
In every one of those scenarios, W’s self-interest requires her to convince Nazareth that she is really truly interested in the particular job they have available. Otherwise they won’t hire her, and/or won’t give her what she wants. But since the answers are basically going to be the same in every instance, simply following up with her by saying “we’re concerned; are you sure you’ll be happy here?” is unlikely to give helpful data.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikd0ZYQoDko&w=640&h=390%5D
Powerful
Ack, link is not formatted well and I can’t find the edit function … Mod to the rescue?
Also, warning for possible triggers wrt male rape.
A comment I posted at another blog about the Nazareth situation: I’m currently on the faculty at an R2 university, but I interviewed at and negotiated job offers with schools ranging from small liberal arts to R1 over the past 4-5 years. Nothing she asked for strikes me as remotely unreasonable to at least ask about, even at a small mainly teaching school, and I’m baffled that Nazareth would withdraw the job offer instead of just saying no to some/all of the requests. The $65,000 salary was probably pretty unrealistic, but certainly not to the point of absurdity; and again, why wouldn’t they just say they couldn’t go that high instead of withdrawing the offer?
I don’t know anything about Nazareth specifically, and maybe the environment there is such that her requests were wildly out of place and she should have known that. But speaking more generally about colleges and universities ranging from teaching-focused to R1, they were absolutely not unreasonable and a very surprising basis for withdrawing the offer.
“She could have probably gotten one or two of those, but all of it at once was an unreasonable expectation.”
She wasn’t asking for all of them at once. I’m sure she’d have been thrilled if Nazareth agreed to all of them, but it’s pretty clear from the full text of her email that she viewed it as a negotiation process and realized she wasn’t necessarily going to get everything she asked for (from her email, “Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier” and “I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think”).
Another thing about the Nazareth situation is that, as in many fields, women in academia are in general paid less than comparably qualified/experienced/etc. men, and this discrepancy is often explained or justified by saying that men tend to ask for more in negotiations, and those higher negotiated salaries and other perks carry through the rest of their careers. Ignoring for the moment the fact that this discrepancy could easily be remedied outside the negotiation process, what we have here is a woman playing the game the way I’m almost sure she was told to*, and her assertive but still completely reasonable negotiation approach resulted in the offer being withdrawn. I realize this is just one example, but it doesn’t really fit in with the notion that women just need to negotiate better and the salary gap will (at least partially) go away.
*I and essentially everyone in academia I’ve talked to about this was told that the worst the school will do during job negotiations is say no to a request – once you have the offer it’s pretty much there for good as long as you’re willing to agree to their conditions within a specified time frame (which varies a fair bit from school to school). And generally I think that’s true – I’ve only known one person to have an offer put forth and then withdrawn, and he 1) really was making unreasonable requests and dragging the process out forever, and 2) was kind of an asshole about it (and generally).
Some of your drawings, Amp, show up in my nightmares.
Just saying.
Thanks, Marcus! :-)
Sounds reasonable so far.
It’s one thing to encourage a young woman to negotiate – a concept that I’m thoroughly in agreement with …
Hm. Or maybe not so reasonable. I’ve never negotiated a position in academia myself, so I can’t say “yea” or “nay”. But it doesn’t look like Nazareth liked it so much. Advising someone that they both can and should negotiate is a fine idea. But there’s lots of ways to conduct that negotiation. This one sure didn’t work in this particular instance, at least. I personally would have done it face to face, myself. Stuff like this that presents as demanding and maybe even imperious in print can be presented a lot differently with some body language.
It’s a fair question to ask “If a guy did this, would he have gotten the same result?” The old “he’s bold, she’s a bitch” thing and all. I don’t see a ready way of getting an answer to that question, though.
RonF,
I have negotiated a number of positions in academia, and I’ve talked to dozens of other people who have as well (mostly in natural sciences, but also some in social sciences and liberal arts). And based on that experience and knowledge I can assure you they were completely reasonable requests at the vast majority of schools – not that she should reasonably have expected to get them all, but she should reasonably have expected to at least still have a job offer after she made them. Like I said earlier I’m not familiar with Nazareth, and they may be an extreme outlier with regard to these requests, and maybe she should have known that from her interview (maybe it should have been made more clear to her, or maybe she was just oblivious). But they would have to be an extreme outlier for their response to make any sense in negotiations for a tenure track faculty position.
“I personally would have done it face to face, myself.”
This is generally not how things are done in academia. The wealthier and more prestigious schools will pay to bring a candidate back for a second visit for negotiations after an offer is made, but most schools don’t do that. And at that point in their careers many candidates can’t easily afford to pay for such a trip (or potentially multiple trips). These negotiations are very commonly done via email or phone (or I suppose in some cases Skype, etc.).
Yeah, I second everything Lee1 said based on my experience on both sides of the interview process in academia. The requests were not trivial, but they were quite reasonable as a starting position in a negotiation. Of course, the school could have quite fairly said “no” to all of them as its counter-offer; the fact that they chose to withdraw their offer rather than do so is the puzzling element here.
Also, as Lee1 said, face-to-face negotiations are not customary at this level. For senior positions, yes, but at the tenure track entry level, negotiation is almost exclusively done by correspondance or phone. There would be a face-to-face interview before the job is offered, but negotiation is not appropriate at that stage, only after the job offer is made (as it was in this case).
Is social class real? I mean, is it measurable? And if so, how much difference does social class make, anyway?
O.K. Well, if that’s the way things are done then fine. What do you think accounts for this, then? Is there anything specific about this school? Or is it a case of someone reading this and thinking “This person seems like too high-maintenance for us?”
It’s well to teach women that they can and should negotiate. But you must also then teach them that this entails risk ….
I think that may be part of the problem. We don’t know for sure but it seems somewhat unlikely that these positions wouldn’t have been discussed at some point during the interview process. I’m not saying that these requests are inappropriate per se, but it may have been an exercise of bad timing. It also may have been that W demanded things which she had already conceded before or which the interview committee thought were reasonably settled–that often happens but is a dangerous negotiating move.
It doesn’t seem at all puzzling to a lot of people I know who, like me, negotiate for a living. And obviously we will never know what made them do it–nor are we likely to get an entirely truthful response from “W,” given her presumed interest in looking reasonably good through this process. But without speculating on exactly what made them decide to pull the offer it seems pretty clear that there could have easily been some basis for it.
Unless you’re suggesting W. simply made up or altered the text of her email (and a lie that would be so easily disproved seems unlikely), I don’t see how you can claim she “demanded” anything.
Going by the text of the email that has been posted, W. was unambiguously asking to discuss these things, not “demanding” them (her email concluded “I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think”).
To me, the overall tone is demanding. But apparently not to you. In the context of conversation I think my wording was fine–in my experience, it’s quite possible to demand things without ever using the word demand. I’m certainly well aware of what the letter actually says, having read it a few times.
Obviously, people disagree about her tone, just as they disagree about pretty much everything else to do with this whole affair. I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in my interpretation given the lack of data. That said, it’s not as if I tried to summarize her letter without posting a link; since everyone can read it and come to their own widely varied conclusions, I don’t know if a semantics argument would be incredibly useful.
Well, I don’t know for a fact, but based on my experience in the academic job process – and as I’ve said, I’ve been on both sides of it – the interview process normally does not involve much room for a candidate to raise their concerns. It is expected (or at least was always expected in any case I was involved in or that I know of), that the candidate will do exactly what appears to have been done here – wait for a job offer, and then open negotiations.
That may well be true.
The reason I say it is puzzling is because within this specific context -of an academic faculty position – this is an extremely rare occurrence. I don’t doubt that in other job markets the situation may be different, but the only reason this is being discussed so much is because this is something that almost never ever happens.
To be entirely honest, I personally think this letter is asking for too much – if I were negotiating (and indeed, when I negotiated), I would have asked for less. If I was on the hiring committee, I would probably have responded with a flat “No, we can’t do any of that. Let us know if you still want the job”. However, I would not have withdrawn the offer (actually, in the UK, it would probably be illegal for me to do so).
As a somewhat skeptical person I agree that, as so many people have said, this is a very rare occurrence.
And then I think about it for a moment, and think about what that means.
All of the anger against the school is predicated on the basic assumption that the email was the only genesis for pulling the offer. But then I wonder: if we are to accept that this action was totally out of order, then are we supposed to believe that the school (which apparently has no history of this) is really that naive? That the entire Nazareth search committee and associated administration–who presumably know much more than “W” about how this works–went off their rocker and took a wholly-unjustified hissy fit all at the same time?
Maybe. Maybe this is the result of idiots.
Or maybe not.
I wonder whether, if Nazareth were to tell us what really happened and why they really pulled the offer (which they will never do, if they have a good lawyer,) what would they say?
I’m not willing to conclude that “W” did something out of hand because, well, all we have is an email (actually, two.) She doesn’t seem to have done anything especially wrong: at most, she came across as a bit demanding and pushy, which is possibly relevant to hiring in a near-permanent position but is by no means a large character flaw. But I’ve got enough experience with “hearing one side of a story and having it seem really sensible and believable until you hear the other side at which point it seems not so obvious” that I am also stunned by the level of self-righteous outrage, given the lack of information.
33-year employee of 99 Cents Only stores, who had risen through the ranks to vice president of retail operations, says that the company convinced him to relocated from Houston to Los Angeles to be the new vice president for store openings, and then, a day after he started, the company decided they didn’t need a vice president for store openings and fired him. I’d really like to hear the company’s side of this one. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Man-says-dollar-store-tricked-his-family-into-4920648.php
Yeah, I’m interested as well. I suppose I’ll wait for the lawsuit, because I suspect the company’s side probably sounds a lot like this:
“Gotcha!”
I mean, it’s crystal clear that there’s something screwy going on. The guy was their very first employee, for chrissakes. I imagine that this is the company’s attempt to get out of something, or to enforce something–a non-compete, maybe, or something else?
As an example, “company doesn’t want employee to sue them in Texas and they don’t want to pay Texas unemployment So they get him to agree to move to LA, and… hey, whaddya know, now he’s a CA resident. Conveniently he can non longer collect TX unemployment and he doesn’t get to sue then in TX court because he is not a TX resident.” Or something like that.
It certainly sounds like the company is the problem and not the employee, though I could be wrong. But I really can’t guess at the outcome: sometimes people just get screwed, because they put trust in someone and they were wrong. The courts can’t always solve that.
Who needs the Six Million Dollar Man? We’ve got the Seven Million Enrollee Man! Even if we don’t all get Steve Austin’s health plan, we’re a lot closer.
You da Man!
You da Man!
You da Man!
You da Man!
You a mighty good man!
The achievement is even more impressive when you realize that six million, where they were a few weeks ago, is only one-third of seven million.
I’d be interested in finding a link to the actual goal that was expressed at the beginning of this process. Two things to consider:
1) A lot of those people were not uninsured. They had insurance, but Obama’s Lie cancelled their insurance and they were forced to get Obamacare instead.
2) A lot of those people don’t actually have insurance. If you log into the site and put a plan in your shopping basket, HHS claims you’re enrolled. But until an insurance company agrees to write your policy, bills you, and you pay that bill, you’re not insured.
So if the goal was to get 7 million people to mess around in a goverment website and initiate a process that may or may not get them insured, they’ve met their goal. If the goal was to get 7 million uninsured people to get insurance, they have not. I have searched, but damned if I can find the actual quotes from either President Obama or Secretary Sebelius on what exactly the goal was. I don’t consider it a particularly great thing to celebrate that you forced a bunch of people to have to drop their private insurance and sign up for government insurance.
Sebelius quote from June
That was literally the first link I found in my search.
This one, somewhat further down the links, contains a link to an internal HHS memo from September 2013.
Ah, if only! But there is no government insurance here, except for the people who were eligible under the Medicaid expansion, who (AFAICT) are not included in the 7 million. Instead, this is 7 million customers of the private insurance industry.
Hi, I thought this great news would be of interest: http://tamenwrote.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/fbi-clarifies-definition-of-rape/
Ampersand, I think you’ll have to amend this post: https://amptoons.com/blog/2011/10/27/fbi-new-definition-of-rape-still-excludes-envelopment/
http://openborders.info/case/
Handy collection of arguments for open or nearly open immigration.
Also, those pants are terrifying.
Today we celebrate I Was Right Day with the traditional cake that only I like, the crown, stories of all the times I was right with particular emphasis on one selected story and, the most fun part, the handing out of dunce caps.
Happy I Was Right Day, one and all! Celebrate safely and revel in all the times you have been right.
This sounds like something from Seinfeld.
OK, so I read a SciFi story that was lauded on Ampersand’s blog. I found the depicted future society horrifying, the science mediocre, and a number of elements sexist and racist. I saw how it was promoted and discussed, namely that all the attention was on the female to female violence and the consent between females, while the enslavement and murders of males, and sexual child abuse was completely ignored. I expressed my outrage without backing up my impressions. I was told my reading was shallow, and my outrage offensive.
I posted pages upon pages explaining my outrage.
I was (1) banned from the thread and then (2) called an idiot for not seeing that the baby boys are angler-fish (3) made fun for manufacturing offensive backstories.
So I went, and asked some friends to read the story. The friends included two Psychology professors in one of the five most competitive liberal art colleges in the US, one Material Science professor at one of three best Engineering schools in the world, one Baen editor with three NYT bestsellers under her belt, and one SciFi writer and illustrator with multiple awards (OK, mostly as an illustrator) Every single one of them is a SciFi fan, self-identifies as a liberal, and only one of them is male. Two of them allowed me to quote their e-mails and names if I judge it necessary.
Every single one of them saw it as a future human society, catching more hints about it than I had. Everyone saw it as a horror story, and two of them commented on the racism. Everyone agreed on the basics: This is a story about a future human society in which male children have been bio-engineered into parasites, whose psyches are overwritten at birth, and who are used as sex slaves their whole lives, starting shortly after birth.
The above, by itself is not what offended me. What offended me is that when the above story is lauded on this website, what’s important is that “it analyzes serious issues, like female-on-female violence and the meaning of consent.” The enslaved and abused are completely ignored.
Now I want to ask Ampersand.
(1) Have you read the story that is promoted on your blog?
(2) Do you have a different understanding of the society that is being depicted in it?
(3) Do you think that the most important issues are the female on female violence, and the consent between the females?
(4) How do you feel about the way the racial and cultural background of the most positively depicted male parasite are used to characterize it?
And Hell, how would you feel about a story in which future humans happened to have fused shut females’ sexual orifices so that sexual activity was easier to control, lobotomized and immobilized pregnant women after impregnation, and modified male penises to inflict painful tearing during sex?
And then someone discussed that story, lauding it for its insight into male friendships and examination of betrayal amongst brothers in arms?
And when someone expressed outrage, the promoter called him an idiot for not knowing that there are species on Earth which exhibit all three of the above mentioned characteristics? (bonus points for doing so after the whiner has referenced posts that explicitly reference the species and has written hundred of words explaining why he believes the society is human as opposed to alien)
Gee, Sebastian, did you prep them? “I read an offensive story and had an argument about it. Wanna read it, too?” Because your interpretation is so totally whacked out and stupid that I do have some trouble believing there are lots of other people coming to it separately.
Angler fish: misandry in action.
Bedbugs: misogyny in action. (why oh why vylar did you write a story about humans being engineered into bedbugs?!?!?! http://giganotosaurus.org/2011/03/01/hero-mother/)
Nature: such a bigoted jerk.
Hi, Sebastian.
As was pretty clearly explained in the other thread, the problem isn’t that you criticized the story, but that you did so in a hyper-antagonistic manner. And now the problem is you continuing to be antagonistic about it, and even worse, refusing to drop the subject. Which seems to indicate that you look at the moderation things we say as stuff to find a way around, rather than stuff to pay attention to.
For that reason, with some regret, I’m asking you not to post on “Alas” anymore. Thanks for your many comments here.
For the record, and for other readers since Dude is gone at this point, I went ahead and asked the author. Author’s intention irrelevant, blah blah, but since he has “less respect for her than scum” based on what he assumes are her intentions, and obvious ones at that, I give you this:
So, one can argue that she did it wrong, I suppose, and left it open to a different interpretation. However, I don’t think one can legitimately argue that “the author or the promoters” of the story are arguing that it would be awesome to mutilate boys intellectually or physically.
And now, I’ll stop. I just figured it was worth throwing out the note.
Someone wrote a story about sexual harassment among anglerfish?
I want to draw folks’ attention to this Kickstarter, for the documentary “Fatitude,” in which I’m interviewed among many other fat-positive people. I’m really excited about how the final product will come out! And, I’m offering a one-hour lunch (if you can join me in the Bay Area) or phone call to talk about Size Acceptance stuff as a reward.
But make sure your name isn’t displayed publicly if you donate to Fattitude. I thought that there wasn’t any way to change whether it was, because they had to have your name in order for you to give them money, but I think I was wrong? Anyway, someone is (or multiple someones are) doxxing both the participants and the financial contributors.
*blink* What? Why? That’s…. What?
I hardly ever agree with doxxing[1] but at least I usually understand the goals the (usually repellent) perpetrators are trying to accomplish. But this one just confuses me; I don’t get the thought process. These people…think “being fat is okay” is a good message? So we must…point out that they have compassion? Because they must be named and shamed for…not making fun of the same people the doxxer does? Am I missing something?
[1] agreed pretty much only in the case of criminal activity
There’s a fascinating fight going on in California on the affirmative action front, exposing some of the obvious underlying issues with certain types of AA.
Basically, California barred affirmative action in college admissions.
The result is that some subgroups of asians (in particular chinese-americans, though the effect is not limited to that group) are classified in some cases as affirmative action recipients –but are also OVERrepresented in certain highly-sought-after positions like “admission to California schools.” In other words, the move AWAY from affirmative action and TOWARDS “race-blind admissions” ended up being a benefit to some asian groups.
Now the black and latino lobbies are trying to implement a return to race-conscious AA in school admissions. They are being opposed by some asian groups–because, as it happens, the over-represented asians will be paying a disproportionate price if the AA is reinstated.
The various parties’ statements indicate some of the broad moral hazards behind AA advocacy.
On the part of the asian lobbying groups, it’s interesting to read their justifications for preserving their eligibility for AA benefits (i.e. diversity hiring) while simultaneously fighting against the reintroduction of AA into the admissions process. On the part of the black and latino groups, it’s fascinating to read their justifications for why the asian groups should basically suck it up and take one for the team, and simultaneously read the reasons why AA to benefit nonwhites is needed.
There is a bill being put forward in Congress to raise the height of the Shasta Dam (in Northern California).
Raising the Shasta Dam may provide as much as 0.5% of what California alfalfa farmers use, and will also drown 40 of the major cultural sites of the Winnemem Wintu. A little extra water is not a good reason to destroy a culture.
The Winnemem Wintu invite anyone who thinks this is a bad idea to write their house representative and ask them to oppose H.R. 4125 and write their senators and ask them to oppose the companion bill Senator Feinstein is expected to introduce authorizing the Shasta Dam expansion.
Registering annoyance here with the choice made by Wes Anderson & Co. in the movie Grand Budapest Hotel. F. Murray Abraham is the older version of the character Zero Moustafa, played by Tony Revolori in the film. Mr. Abraham is much lighter skinned than Mr. Revolori. What’s up with that? Was it really that hard to find an actor with a similar skin tone to be the older version of Zero Moustafa???
I took a little survey about what people have done to try losing weight, and what the outcome was.
I did this because I couldn’t think of a venue which is open to hearing about both good and bad outcomes. I would very much like to see a scientific survey of a sample of the whole population about what people have done and what the results were, but as far as I can tell, this hasn’t been done.
Results of the survey– even with a small survey, I got both people who did themselves a fair amount of damage and people (mostly those who did moderate self-designed low carb dieting) who lost weight without bad side effects.
http://nancylebov.livejournal.com/tag/weight_loss_survey
Unfortunately, the link will return my posts in reverse chronological order. I recommend starting at the bottom.
Harlequin: It’s possible that their main objection is to copyright holders taking down their copies and copies-with-a-bunch-of-crap-inserted of videos on youtube. (Oh look, I inserted some footage of the twin towers! Now it’s “satire”!) I don’t know, neither make a whole lot of sense.
More info on the harassment on a post at Dances With Fat and in a local news video.
By the way, the blog “Paper Cuts and Plastic” in the sidebar appears to have been taken over by a content farm.
Thanks, Hq! I try to put relatively obscure blogs on my sidebar, but those are the same blogs that sometimes let their URL ownership lapse and then…
The USSC has upheld a state’s right to eliminate the consideration of race in college admissions.
Some of the best reporting is on SCOTUSBLOG. Here’s a summary of the issues at the argument phase, in one of their “in plain English” posts**:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/10/counting-the-votes-todays-affirmative-action-argument-in-plain-english/
and here is their post-decision analysis:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/divided-court-upholds-michigans-ban-on-affirmative-action-in-plain-english/#more-208883
** The USSC stuff can be really technical and difficult to follow, even for lawyers, unless we happen to be specialists in the field. Try some NON-in-plain-English Scotusblog posts to see what I mean.
The majority got it right in this one, I think, at least from a legal standpoint.
I generally despise Scalia but his snark is well placed here: Given that the 14th Amendment says “[a state may not] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it is very odd to suggest that the amendment clearly forbids a state from refusing to treat its citizens differently.
As such, Sotomayor’s dissent seems a bit ridiculous–which is odd again, since Sotomayor is usually very on point. First, she concedes that a state CAN make changes that would eliminate race-conscious policies, listing a variety of ways and generally summarizing that “When this Court holds that a [State MAY adopt a race conscious policy,] nothing prevents a majority of a State’s voters from choosing NOT to adopt [it.] Our system of government encourages–and indeed, depends on–that type of democratic action.” (emphasis added)
Makes sense, right?
Except that she then continues to assert, by some strange classification, that amending the state constitution through a state-wide vote is NOT “democratic action.” Which is pretty bizarre, right? A change of law through voter response is about as democratic as it gets–it doesn’t even involve the intervening representatives which are a foundation of the republic.
This makes her argument ridiculous. It would be one thing to assert that the constitution requires AA, or that a state cannot make any changes to race without court approval, or some other logically-consistent basis. But it makes no sense to simultaneously assert that it is perfectly fine to elect (or appoint) school administrators that will refuse to use race… but it is unconstitutional to have a plebiscite and make the identical decision through a state-wide vote.
Reitman v. Mulkey: The California legislature adopts fair housing laws proscribing racial discrimination. In 1964 a citizens’ initiative amends that state constitution to overrule the fair housing laws. The California Supreme Court holds that, while the state had no duty to adopt fair housing laws, repealing them in this manner would constitute state action promoting discrimination – in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection. The USSC affirms.
Washington v. Seattle School District No. 1: School dist. adopts bussing policy to reduce racial segregation. In 1978 citizens pass a state-wide initiative granting kids a right to attend either the public school that is closest or second-closest, but permitting school boards to vary this requirement for pretty much any reason other than racial desegregation. The USSC finds that the initiative violated the Equal Protection Clause by inappropriately segregating considerations of race from all other considerations. And the Court noted that the initiative did not merely repeal the bussing policy, but inappropriately lodged decisionmaking authority over the question at a new and remote level of government.
In addition to what Nobody Really just wrote, I wanted to reply to this statement by G&W, which I think significantly misstates Sotomeyer’s argument.
G&W: With all due respect, you’ve apparently misunderstood Sotomeyer’s argument. The argument you attribute to her is simply not what Sotomeyer wrote.
She talked about a “type of democratic action.” She then went on to say that what the voters did was a different type.
I think the Court was mistaken, and the dissent is correct. There’s an obvious 14th Amendment problem in having racial groups, and only racial groups, set aside and told that if they want to petition for a type of change, they have to amend the constitution, while all other types of groups have much easier and more numerous routes available for democratic change.
borked my comment, drat. Trying again.
It would probably be best to start with the actual text of the purportedly-unconstitutional Michigan law:
This isn’t just related to race (gender is in there as well;)it bars discrimination as well as preferences; and it creates no specific safe harbor for other types of discrimination or action, i.e. it doesn’t say, for example “…the state may freely discriminate on the basis of class and political connections.” Reitman only barred interference (there was no bar for discrimination) and moreover the California court made a presumed-accurate finding of racist intent. Seattle has a carve-our problem.
Most obviously, even Sotomayor doesn’t think that the actual action is impermissible–she says as much when she states that it would be A-OK to do this through the college board elected reps. That’s a stark difference w/r/t to Reitman and Seattle: neither of those courts had that holding.
http://www.compoundchem.com/2014/04/02/a-rough-guide-to-spotting-bad-science/
For your enjoyment
Crystal Moore, apparently fired from her job as police chief because of her sexual orientation is receiving an outpouring of support from her community. Part of the reason the Firefox situation was interesting to talk about was probably the “man bites dog” nature of it–but let’s not forget that Crystal Moore’s situation is much more common. However, it’s heartening that most of her community seems to support her is are trying to reinstate her. (They have also set up a fund to support her while she is unemployed.)
HOLY CRAP.
People like Amp said that it would never happen, that I was just being paranoid. But I knew better. And now it’s happened: The state is telling ministers that they have no discretion over whether or not same-sex marriages get performed in their churches. Violations can result in 45 days in jail.
Join the fight for religious freedom! Take up your cross — and follow!
nobody.really– however, it isn’t that clergy are being required to perform same sex marriages against their will, it’s clergy suing for the permission to perform same sex marriages if they want to.
Yeah, I can’t tell if nobody.really was being tongue-in-cheek (I guess you are…?), but that story is pretty much the opposite of the argument that “if gay marriage is legalized churches will have no choice but to perform gay marriage ceremonies” that some opponents of gay marriage have been using as a scare tactic (with no evidence to support it that I’m aware of). In this case NC has banned gay marriage, and specific clergy simply want the option to perform gay marriages, not a requirement that anyone else do so.
Co-worker came in yesterday showing off her new ankle tattoo. It’s a sock monkey. Okay. Then she explains that it was a cover up. What was it covering up? A poorly done heart with an ex-husband’s name on it. Okay. Then she says she has one more to cover up. A tattoo on her lower back with another ex-husband’s name on it. Oh, and the words, “Sweet, Moist and Delicious.”
While she was getting the sock monkey she also talked to the artist about Sweet, Moist, Delicious/ex-husband(2) getting covered up. He asked her if she’d learned her lesson about tattooing names on herself.
This may be my favorite regrettable tattoo story ever.
This week in HR
I got my favorite doctor’s note ever.
Reason for visit: Facial Injury. Was punched in face last night.
Clergy should be able to perform any manner of rite they want in their churches as long as it doesn’t involve torturing animals – but that doesn’t mean that those rites should have any legal force.
Does the N.C. law forbid a clergyperson from holding a Holy Matrimony ceremony in their church for a same-sex couple? Or does it simply forbid them from then filing a marriage certificate for the couple that states that they are legally married? If the former then I’d say they have a 1st Amendment right to tell the State of North Carolina to go pound sand. If the latter, then I’d say that the plaintiffs have no case.
Drilled through the links and read what to me-not-a-lawyer appear to be the relevant parts of the complaint. It would appear that the N.C. law prohibits holding a marriage ceremony for any couple – homosexual or heterosexual – if they do not present a valid marriage license, as well as banning homosexual marriage outright. I think the latter is valid but the former is not under the First Amendment. If a priest wants to proclaim in a religious ceremony that two people are married in the sight of God and in the opinion of him/herself and their congregation then it’s none of the State’s business, as long as said clergy does not then attempt to defraud the State by submitting to it a marriage certificate for a couple (or group) that does not meet the State’s definition of people who can legally be married to each other.
Does anyone have an issue with someone having a sizable investment and a lot of cash taken away from them because a very unpopular opinion expressed in private was illegally recorded and then revealed to the world?
I think that what he said was disgusting. And I understand that this is not a First Amendment issue, because the State is not taking action against him. I would have no problem for boycotts, advertisers dropping sponsorships, protests, etc. if this had been some fashion of racist opinion that this man had offered in a public forum. But for even private parties to visit consequences such as these on the basis of a recording of a private conversation done without the knowledge of one of the people being recorded with malice aforethought on the part of the person doing the recording seems highly unethical to me and just wrong.
I thought there was a thing called a “right to privacy” that someone had found in the Constitution once. What exactly does that mean?
Ron,
The image of the NBA is very important wrt how much money they make. There’s a reason that Stern worked hard on cleaning up their image (as far as the desired, white, audience is concerned). Forthright racism is no longer good for the NBA’s image. Stern doesn’t own the Clippers outright and on his own. He has a franchise with the NBA and what he does effects the income of the other 29 owners. So it’s not like taking Microsoft from Bill Gates or Chik-Fil-A from those awful people.
Also, Sterling has a long track record of disastrous ownership that did nothing to increase the value of the Clippers or add to the NBA’s revenue (until he lucked into Blake Griffin and Chris Paul – but that’s 3 years out of 34).
But, no. He shouldn’t be banned from the business because of this audio tape. He should’ve been banned from the NBA years and years ago because of his history of discrimination against minorities and his disastrous stewardship of the franchise. For 33 years the other owners have been able to avoid publicity surrounding Sterling’s many less than sterling attributes. Had this tape not blown up in the media, Sterling might have gone another 33 years of racist, franchise moribunding ownership. Unfortunately for him, his racism (and, subsequently, his decades long history of racism) is getting a lot of publicity. That’s the worst thing to happen to the NBA since a game-fixing ref got a lot of publicity. So he’s out.
He should’ve been out 20 years ago – the NBA should’ve emulated what MLB did with Marge Schott.
RonF: For some reason, I vaguely associated you with libertarianism. Was I wrong? Because your condoning NC’s ban on gay marriage strikes me as being decidedly unlibertarian.
Hell yeah.
And I really want to meet the parents who named their kids Sweet, Moist, and Delicious.
I once had a student come to class with a newly-inked tattoo on his forearm, in pretty big letters, from elbow to wrist: “PERSERVERENCE”. I spent a whole class period looking at it quizzically every time I was facing the class, thinking to myself, “That’s not how that’s spelled … is it? That doesn’t look right. But surely he looked it up before getting it put on his arm…” Then I looked it up that night, just to be sure. I asked him about it the next day, and he muttered, “I know. Leave me alone.” A few weeks later, he got the word “CHRIST” added to it, making a cross shape, using the extra R. It didn’t really help.
It doesn’t seem to have bothered the NAACP – they’ve given him multiple awards. If all this has been as public as you say (which I’m not challenging) what does that say about the NAACP?
But that’s beside the point. I’m not advocating for this guy specifically. I want to get an understanding of whether there’s a line here, and if so what is it? Are all personal conversations fair game to be recorded – illegally, at that – and then publicized? Can anyone’s employer or any investment group decide that any opinion that you have expressed and then had exposed in such a fashion is too controversial or offensive for their marketing image and fire you or force you to give up any office or ownership share you may have of that company? And force you to pay millions of dollars to them?
Is there a limit to this? Sure, it’s illegal – but that doesn’t seem to matter, and the person who broke the law may well not have sufficient resources that you can recover enough damages from them.
Then Sterling is a bad example for your question, Ron.
RonF, it’s not clear the recording was illegal, according to this ESPN story:
Are you saying Sterling refused permission to be recorded during that call? What’s your source for that?
O.K. That’s news to me. If Sterling knew that he was being recorded then I withdraw my objection.
I know it’s been quite a while since we last discussed it but there is obviously no anti-semitism in the USA.
Actually, I’d be more interested in what these racist newspapers are, on what basis he believes them racist and what “wants them thrown off campus” means.
In that case you can just read his several entries about it on his blog, including the one that came first and is being badly reported on. It should take no more than 5 minutes to find and read those posts.
Oh, what the hell. I’ll even give you a tip. In the search box at the top right corner of the page I linked to, type “northstar” and then click on the little magnifying glass icon just to the right of that search box.
I also highly recommend the comment at #32 by bibliophile20 in the linked post.
At work, we just ended our lease on a postage meter and got a new one from a different company. Old postage meter company sent me a link to a survey about them and I, ever the dutiful customer, filled it out for them. Here’s what I wrote in the section for comments or suggestions:
After that, I went and looked for reviews of Neopost. Looks like my experience was typical.
This provokes a number of existential questions. For example, how many implants can I have before I have to acknowledge I’m a robot? What would Steve Austin do? Or Ironman? If I can no longer pass through the standard metal detector at the airport, have I crossed the line?
And while we’re at it, how much spam would I have had to send over a lifetime before I would have to acknowledge that I *am* a spammer?
I’d like to say that spamming is just something I *do,* not who I *am.* And, as I announced at my 12-step program, I’m happy to say that I’ve been spam-free for months now. But I also know that I’m only one e-mail away from falling back into the abyss. Thus, I start every meeting with “Hello, I’m [nobody.really], and I *am* a spammer.”
Hence, my conflict over clicking the little box with every post here. I feel so dirty — but I can’t help myself! And here I go again: *Click!*
I wrote this blog posting addressing the double standard behind ageism and sexism with pairing actors on a popular TV show.
http://portcharleschronicles.blogspot.com/2014/05/when-soaps-write-couples-outside-box.html
I’m enjoying this far too much.
(From another thread:)
Richard Jeffrey Newman, I have not come across that book. I have, however, read a fair amount of other academic/gynocentric feminist literature, and the general reaction I’ve had was that of being lectured to by someone who greatly exaggerates their own understanding of and empathy towards men and their experiences. (Classic examples: Barbara Ehrenreich’s Hearts of Men and Allan Johnston’s The Gender Knot.) So I’m not jumping up and down at the opportunity to subject myself to similar such monologues, as a general rule. (FTR, it’s entirely possible that reading Manhood in the Making would be a different experience. Maybe it’s filled with falsifiable assertions, clear and operationalized concepts, thoughtful respect for intelligent critics of feminism, and fueled with an unambiguous acknowledgement that men are fully human and that their feelings and vulnerabilities are just as important as women’s.)
I am, however, greatly interested in mutually respectful dialog, so I’d be more than happy to invest my time and money in reading the book if you’ll agree to do a series of one-on-one posts with me discussing it.
I wanted to post these in the Why, After Jerry Sandusky and the Boy Scouts, is No One Asking “Why Boys?” comment thread, but I guess it is closed, as there is no ‘Leave a Reply’ set of fields. Here are some links I’ve come across recently on the subject of male victims and survivors of sexual assault and rape:
+ A short (2.5 min) video on YouTube, the story is heavily based on the writer/performer’s own experience*. (Content Note / Trigger Warning: discussion of a female teacher raping a male student.) Why Rape Is Sincerely Hilarious.
* it doesn’t say this in the description box for the video, but the friend who showed this to me knows the performer and stated that this was the case
+ When Men Are Raped: A new study reveals that men are often the victims of sexual assault, and women are often the perpetrators, from Slate magazine. (Content Note / Trigger Warning: the article includes a graphic description of childhood sexual assault; the passage is in a block quote in the article, following the third paragraph.) From the article:
+ The Hard Truth About Girl-on-Guy Rape: When a guy is “made to penetrate” a female, is it rape? Long-suffering male victims are turning to Reddit to break their silence, from the website Vocativ. (Content Note / Trigger Warning: multiple graphic descriptions of sexual assault and rape, and the aftermath.) I have a few reservations about the article, mostly around how it positions the experiences of female victims and survivors of sexual assault and rape; Grace discusses the general problem more eloquently than I ever could in this comment of hers on the “Why Boys” post.
Of note as well is that I didn’t come across any of these pieces in my usual feminist and/or survivor-oriented haunts on the internet. The first and third were posted on facebook, by different friends of mine (neither of whom I’d ever heard mention sexual assault issues previously); and the second was the top post on the popular r/sex subreddit (it has just over 440 000 subscribers) for several days.
No one has mentioned here that Mandolin has just won a Nebula Award for “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love.” So I thought I would. Congratulations!
I just saw that, nm.
Congratulations, Mandolin!
Not exactly related to the global warming discussion in another thread:
UN Report on Magical Realism Warns of Increased Incidences of Women’s Tears Flooding the Entire World
Just for the record, I think this is a stupid move.
Cub Scouts goes from essentially 6 or so (kindergarten) to 10.5 or 11, about 1/2 way through 6th grade. Boy Scouts goes from then to age 18 – a bright-line cutoff at your 18th birthday. Venturing – co-ed – goes from “completion of 8th grade” or 14 years old until one’s 21st birthday. An 18-year-old male could be registered as an adult in Boy Scouts (e.g., Assistant Scoutmaster) and simultaneously as a youth in Venturing. One was also considered a youth until you were 21 in the Order of the Arrow, the BSA’s honor camper society that provides service and leadership opportunities, although you had to be registered either as a Boy Scout or a (male) Venturer to be in the OA.
No more. Now Venturers > 17.999 must register as adults, even though they will be treated in all other phases of the program (eligibility for awards, leadership positions, etc.) as a youth. Because, gay, I figure.
They are FUCKING THIS UP ROYAL. This just kicks the can down the road. How many Venturers will they lose on this basis? These fools need to break out their sleeping bags and hit the trail with some unit-serving Scouters and their Scouts. I can only guess that far too many of them don’t even own a sleeping bag. Scouting has got to survive in spite of these guys, because it’s sure not surviving because of them.
I has the sads.
Sorry, just a little LOL Cats lingo there.
But I am taking this advantage of the Open Thread to whine a little in the hopes that I shall find a little commiseration.
Recently on Facebook I found a childhood friend (whom I shall refer to as Mister F) I have not seen or spoken with in over thirty years. You know the friends in the movie “Stand by Me?” We were that kind of friends. Anyway, as the years went by I gradually grew from a not-really-thinking-about-such-things-default-conservative to the fairly liberal guy I am now (I still retain a streak of an anti-authoritarian libertarian in me).
Mister F, it seems, has gone in a very different direction over the years. It was not long after I started reading his posts that it became obvious that Mister F is very concerned about THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH AMERICA.
What are the THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH AMERICA? Well, they are (in order, as far as I can determine):
Jews
Black People
Homosexuals (particularly “hairy legged lesbians”)
Feminists (particularly “hairy legged feminists”)
Muslims
Atheists (and their God hating “evil-utionist” agenda)
Scientists (also evil-utionists, plus they promote a hoax called global warming)
All of these people and more fall under a category of people called “LIE!BRALS.”
Sad sigh. This is not a person I can relate to. This is not a person I really want to relate to. I’m going to de-friend him but I need to work up my courage a little first. Despite my shock and anger I’m also feeling a little sad about it – a sense of loss. It feels like a death in the family if ya know what I mean. I guess I just need to mourn a little first.
If the loss of an old friend is the price of self respect, then so be it . . . but it still sucks.
**Commence commiseration**
Don’t feel too bad, Marcus. I have (had) a friend who has become a paid troll (and sometimes author) for br**tb*rt.com and associated businesses. He now spends his fb time trolling other friends’ comment threads for fun and profit. I blocked him quite a while ago but I can still puzzle out his comments from the responses. On the plus side, his motivation can be put down to pure selfishness.
These things happen.
I had to unfriend a former teacher of mine, when her conservative ranting just got to be too much. I stayed friends with her longer than I probably should have, because I knew she was old and lonely, but I finally gave up when she posted something that I knew was factually wrong, and I posted a link to the correct information, and she said that she’d known me most of my life and expected better from me, and that I’d been brainwashed by Obama. Then I unfriended her, and then she started sending me messages about how I was a terrible person and she never would have thought that I’d end up like that. I eventually blocked her from sending me messages after she started bringing up some personal stuff that had happened to me a year earlier and telling me how it was all my fault because I was lazy and cruel. Then after I blocked her, she started trying to enlist a bunch of my other friends into the whole thing. Oh, and then she tried contacting my mother.
My best friend from Elementary school – who remained good friends with me through the end of high school – has become a right-wing libertarian, as I found out when we friended each other on Facebook a couple of years ago. We almost immediately got into a political argument about something or other (the minimum wage?), and I argued in my usual polite-but-overly-insistent way. Then he blocked me!
I have a couple of friends who profess political and social attitudes that are, shall we say, contrary to mine. We have maintained contact on Facebook and debate the issues of the day. But there’s liberal politics and then there’s “Conservatives are soulless greedy corporatists that hate America”, “Conservatives are racist”, “They only oppose Obama because he’s black”, “Conservatives are anti-immigrant”, “Conservatives hate poor people” and other such stuff. They don’t do that. And so we’re able to communicate and occasionally find common ground. I understand your reluctance, but if this person is railing about blacks and Jews and all I think that you are going to have to face the issue that your friend is no longer who he was back in the day and there’s no basis for a relationship anymore.
Well the deed is done. I unfriended him. I can (and do) get along with some conservatives no problem. The anti-authoritarian in mean even understands where they are coming from in some of their views (whad’ya mean I can’t smoke in here?!) but I draw the line at the use of racial epithets and other nasty words that demonstrate a bigoted hatred.
In the end I knew what I was going to do I just needed to moan a little first. It was just such a major letdown after the feeling of excitement that I had reconnected with an old friend.
I do admit to to finding his fear of leg hair on women hilarious, though.
Ah well . . . thanks everyone and I hope all have a fun weekend.
I draw the line at the use of racial epithets and other nasty words that demonstrate a bigoted hatred.
Indeed. Conservative thought in America encompasses the concepts of a Federalized government limited to specific spheres as spelled out in the Constitution, individual responsibility, et. al. But hate and bigotry is just that and is not part and parcel of any particular political philosophy. No party has any more claim to it or stain from it than another.
My father-in-law and I did NOT get along. At. All. Much to the vocal criticism of my wife. But one fine night when my wife was not at home he came by (not entirely unusual). He got agitated at a news story and started shouting out racial epithets. I told him that I would not allow that kind of language in front of the kids and he’d have to leave. I can forgive his incredulous look considering the kind of language he HAD heard me use in front of the kids and refused to believe that I meant it. I held firm and he left in high dudgeon. He later called up my wife and started in on her about my behavior. She started in with the usual reaction she had towards me when she got such calls – until she heard WHY I had done what I did. At that point she stopped dead, said to her father “Dad – that’s the way it is. You can’t use that kind of language in front of the kids. Period.” and hung up. And said nothing to me on the matter afterwards except “I’m fine with that.”. He laid off the bigotry in front of the kids from then on.
Hate and bigotry are taught. But not in my house, and not in front of me if I can possibly avoid it.
Misogyny kills.
http://bellejar.ca/2014/05/24/elliot-rodger-and-men-who-hate-women/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301671/-Elliot-Roger-Gunman-in-California-Mass-Shooting-was-influenced-by-the-Men-s-Rights-Movement
http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/05/24/video-allegedly-from-mass-killer-in-santa-barbara-if-i-cant-have-you-girls-ill-destroy-you-trigger-warning/
One of my male students recently expressed his surprise and dismay that so many of his female clients had experienced battering and/or nearly been killed in a moment of rage by their partners. I told him “congratulations on your road to Damascus moment. Now consider what this means for your female partner, in terms of her relationship with you.” He was horrified.
And before the “he was mentally ill” excuse chorus starts:
Mental illness and its manifestations are not de-coupled from culture. The way mental illness manifests is heavily INFLUENCED by culture.
Some cultural differences are also apparent in the kind of delusions that occur in schizophrenia patients. Often, the delusions tend to reflect the predominant themes and values of a person’s culture. For example, in Ireland, where religious piety is highly valued, patients with schizophrenia often have delusions of sainthood. In industrially advanced countries like America, patients’ delusions tend to focus on sinister uses of technology and surveillance. Patients may report that they are being spied on by their televisions or that they are being X-rayed when they walk down the street. In Japan, a country that prizes honor and social conformity, delusions often revolve around slander or the fear of being humiliated publicly. In Nigeria, where mental illness is believed to be caused by evil spirits, delusions may take the form of witches or ancestral ghosts. (Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode3/cultures/)
“We know the manifestation of mental illness is affected by cultural factors,” Dr. Swartz said. “One’s cultural context does effect people’s thinking and particularly their delusions. It gives some content and shape to their delusions. While we don know whether there was a specific relationship between the political climate that he was exposed to and his thinking, it’s a reasonable line of inquiry to explore.” (Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/mental_illness_expert_we_shoul.html)
Karen DeCrow, Last NOW President to Support Shared Parenting, Dies (National Parents Organization)
I’m sad DeCrow has died. But I wouldn’t recommend Ballgame’s link, which (typically) is to an anti-feminist editorial which sees DeCrow’s contribution solely in terms of how useful she was to divorced fathers.
It’s certainly true that DeCrow was a proponent of shared parenting, including the “rebuttable presumption of shared parenting” legislation. But that was hardly her only concern, and far from the only thing that makes her life significant.
A couple of better links:
Karen DeCrow dies at 76; former NOW president led push for ERA and pay equity – The Washington Post
Karen DeCrow made a lifelong case for a more just and equitable society (Editorial) | syracuse.com
Karen DeCrow’s long career – here are five highlights | syracuse.com
A link to some of DeCrow’s recent newspaper columns.
In the next Open Thread (whenever that might be–I hope you’re busy earning money!) you should really include some links to that fascinating Occidental case.
Short version: Boy and Girl had a drunken encounter which includes intercourse, the quality of which is hotly disputed. Girl accuses boy of rape. College expels boy. Boy sues college.
What makes this one so VERY interesting is (a) the many write-ups; (b) the extremely in-depth evidence; and (c) the resulting ability to compare everyone’s perspectives.
As an example, the parties exchanged multiple texts before and after the encounter. It’s interesting to read them… but it’s even more interesting if you read the other stuff first.
I know you don’t normally link much to FIRE, and I think that their article is annoyingly biased. But they do have a policy of putting out all the evidence for view and they’re a convenient source for this one.
It is also an interesting case w/r/t the whole “what if they’re both drunk?” question. And, also, an interesting “so, do those DOE negotiations really make a difference?” datapoint.
Go. Read. Prepare for some interesting reading. Were it me, I’d save the texts for last.
Charge Evaluation Worksheet (prepared by prosecutor)
Investigative report, with all interviews (by third party investigation firm)
Text messages between the two parties
FIRE’s latest article on the case (one of many articles; contains links, including links to the complaint filed by the accused boy)
Occidental’s Sexual Incapacitation Standards