Please feel free to post what you want, when you want it. Self-linking is cool.
I’m currently traveling to Ithaca, New York, and I’ll be in New York for the next ten days, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be around “Alas.” I’ll try to check in, though.
(And oh, hey, if you’re in NYC and interested in joining me for lunch on Sunday the 13th, please drop me an email.)
I’ve linked to Brian Dettmer’s jaw-dropping “book surgery” artwork before, but he’s done some new work since then:
“Using knives, tweezers and surgical tools, Brian Dettmer carves one page at a time. Nothing inside the out-of-date encyclopedias, medical journals, illustration books, or dictionaries is relocated or implanted, only removed.” Check out the whole gallery. Also, Sullivan picks out a good quote about how the internet helps the non-social-networking artist spread his work.
- I love this quote from Emily Nagoski:
No one asked your permission to put toxic thoughts about your body in your head. No one waited until you could give informed consent and then said, “I’d like to tell you what’s wrong with your body; would that be okay with you?” No one said, “Would it be all right if I say how broken and ugly and inadequate you are?” No one stopped to find out if it was okay before they told you all the made-up, fictional reasons you should feel bad about yourself. They just knew they could make a profit if you hated yourself.
- Walker’s Budget Plan is a Three-Part Roadmap for Conservative State Governance Hey, remember when tea partiers said they were against huge new laws with all sorts of secret things hidden in them being shoved through the legislature very quickly? They were just kidding about that. As long as the new law allows Republicans to sell off public property to their cronies with no bidding or oversight, cuts medical care for the poor, and destroys unions, they’re all for it.
- The “Precariat,” the New Working Class » Sociological Images
- International Comparisons of Equality and Prosperity » Sociological Images
- On Bad Critiques of Rape Prevelance Studies (Part II)
- How low can your health care go?
- This is a very rare thing for me to say, but I agree with Justice Alito’s dissent. (The case involves protesters picketing the funeral of a non-public figure.)
- What is the health-care reform that Republicans actually want?“>Republicans have no ideas at all for providing health care — at least, none that they’re willing to try and put into practice. They’re not against the ACA: They’re against Americans having affordable health care coverage, period.
- What you need to know about state pension systems
- Fat Jokes and the Elephant in the Room
- Race, Racism and Online Housing: What the Research Tells Us :: racismreview.com
- The Last Breakfast, a sculptural masterpiece for cereal-lovers…
I guess that’s all I have time for today. Have a good rest of weekend, everyone!
CDC and AAP are drafting new recommendations on circumcision that will probably be pro-circ.
I have to disagree with you, Amp, about the Westboro case.
I’m reading comments, but mostly I agree with them so far. The one that puts it most succintly – “You protect the odious, or anyone somebody desires to silence will be described as odious. This is about as basic as it gets. The Court made the right call, and shame on Alito.”
Re #11 (race and housing)
It appears to be based on a faulty understanding of what the law is. As the site states:
Not true.
Discrimination in personal roommate choice is 100% legal in all states and 100% legal under federal law. If you feel like renting a room in your shared apartment, you are perfectly entitled to only rent it to tall, conventionally attractive, skinny, hetero, cis, white, rich, christian, childless, single men who have no disabilities, who were born in Washington D.C., and who attended an Ivy League school.
You can’t generally discriminate if you’re a landlord (though even there you can discriminate in some situations, i.e. you share a 2 family with your prospective tenant.) But the shared rules are very different.
What the law usually prevents–and what has come up here–is the ADVERTISING of discriminatory rules. So while you don’t have to share a room with anyone you don’t like (even if your dislikes are rooted in racism, sexism, and/or bigotry) you can’t announce it to the world. You can announce it to your prospective tenants when you meet them, though. Odd but true.
That is because in theory, if people are allowed to advertise discrimination, it serves to set a playing field in which more discrimination will prosper.
Those rules get trickier in the context of a site which only exists to select shared roommates, because all types of discrimination are legal in a shared roommate context. To the degree that you allow the posts, you’re allowing evidence of discrimination. To the degree that you ban them, you’re making it more difficult for prospective tenants: if someone won’t rent to you because you’re a ____, and they hate you, it’s probably more pleasant to know that before you meet or call them. And it’s certainly more difficult if you only have time to call 4 people on your break, and 3 of them turn out not to want to rent to you.
I wrote a rambling critique of a few articles and a video on the topic of “pre-adult” men who won’t grow up here.
In the middle of every silver lining is a big black cloud.
Re: #11, a friend of mine who is applying for jobs was recently asked to send a video application.
She observed how much this helps streamline the discrimination process – now you don’t even have to make guesses based on someone’s name, or be surprised when they show up for the interview and turn out to be black, older, fat, or have an accent.
I believe she was planning to use a lot of simple animation for hers.
Might be a bit old, but…
Eight Ways Twilight is Better Than Real Life
I ask, Is “Confident” The Male Analog To “Thin”?
(And you might want to check out the amusing ‘cat lady’ video I included with The Cat Lady Myth & The Distortions Of Language.)
Jewish student sues UC Berkeley for not protecting her
Elusis, I wonder what the company would do upon discovering that she had an actress play her in the video reading her words as a script.
RonF, good question. I have a sneaking feeling they’d cry deception.
And it of course raises a question of why someone should have to hire an actor to play you if you are not at the top of the privilege pyramid in order to get a job.
Common mistakes of left-wing economists.
Common mistakes of right-wing economists.
Nobody post anything interesting today, I’m on a terrible deadline and just cannot get distracted.
Welcome to the corporate-ocracy, courtesy of disaster capitalism. My stomach hurts.
This.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MhYyAa0VnyY
Made me cry the first and second times I watched it. Young people are beautiful and astonishing.
My god, Elusis, that clip was sickening. I had no idea.
Requiring a video is gross. And FWIW, possibly illegal: requiring a video for most jobs would be considered at least partial evidence of discrimination, so if your friend is in a protected class and doesn’t get the job she should contact an employment lawyer.
There are some exceptions, of course–this may be one of them–but it’s hard to tell from your post.
Elusis, I was wondering if the requirement was simply that she send in a video, or if it specifically called out that she send in a video of herself.
A Double Shock to Liberal Professors
Ron – I don’t know what she was asked for. A video interview, is how she put it. I am picturing stuff like people submit for reality TV shows, only more professional, probably wanting her to demonstrate “creativity” and “tech savvyness.” While being able to assess her for “fit” at the company aka “is she like us” which is of course code for a whole bunch of race, gender, age, and body size stuff.
Just been following the earthquake/tsunami news and been praying for friends and the other folks in Sendai, which is my city’s Sister City and in the surrounding towns where over 20,000 people are missing. I had to stop watching the tsunami footage after a while as I have friends who live on the coast and the structures they have there are mostly wood. I’ve been there and was very impressed with the city and its people not to mention those in the neighboring villages.
My city’s meeting today on aid and hopefully everyone can put their heads together and come up with a plan that can do some good. The L.A. USAR team (a primary responder in international crises) and supplies left the nearby reserve air base on Saturday but Sendai and the areas around it are unreachable and out of food and potable water and nearly out of fuel. There’s some electricity in parts of the city including City Hall which is a shelter now. Hundreds of thousands just in that area have been displaced. Most of the surrounding villages have been flattened. Sendai’s surrounding area has a large elderly population as more young people go to urban areas and many of them have been displaced or are missing.
The nearby nuclear power plant is on first stage alert but so far no signs of meltdown unlike a couple other plants. Thousands dead, and many already washed up on shore, most won’t be recovered. A bullet train that was approaching Sendai at the time of the tsunami (which arrived within 15-20 minutes of the 8.9 quake) disappeared (along with other trains).
Though the story of the elderly man being rescued on his roof miles out to sea, amazing…
This is a fairly content-light post, but Amp, I just wanted to say it was an awesome lunch, and to introduce myself online.
Hey [Barry/Amp/Sir/Madam]! How’s the rest of your NYC sojourn been?
Hi, Erl! Nice to see you here.
The rest of my NYC sojourn was quite nice, thanks — I just got back to Portland a couple of hours ago. But the lunch was definitely the highlight of the trip!