I’ve been listening a lot to the cast album of Urinetown lately, and it’s grown on me. The musical has a sly way of pretending not to understand the stupidity of its cliches, even while it earnestly makes them two steps stupider, which I just find hilarious.
Anyhow, that’s what’s on my mind right now. Please use this thread to post whatever’s on your mind, including links to your own stuff, or to someone else’s, if you’d like.
Redemption Blues presents: Carnival of the Feminists #22!
Blackfolk: Study Shows That Darker-Skinned Blacks Face Increased Discrimination
Which makes hash of the right-wing theory that deficiencies in black culture explain the race wage gap, and discrimination based on skin color has nothing to do with it.
BrownFemiPower: Being Trans, Being Poor
…So the two of us started comparing notes and really getting into the nitty gritty of what it is like to survive and negotiate the welfare and health care industrial complexes as a poor woman of color and a white trans man.
Majikthise: As ARMs Adjust Upward, More Americans Will Lose Their Homes
Many of the option ARMs taken out in 2004 and 2005 are resetting at much higher payment schedules — often to the astonishment of people who thought the low installments were fixed for at least five years. And because home prices have leveled off, borrowers can’t count on rising equity to bail them out. What’s more, steep penalties prevent them from refinancing.
Did I Miss Something: Illness Versus Impairment
Feminist Law Professors: Driving While Female
…Researchers found that sexual misconduct was the most common type of police abuse of citizens, more prevalent than thefts or beatings. That statistic was buried in the records and had to be teased out. In some cases, they found, police demands for sex had been labeled as a form of bribery.
Feministing: In Pakistan, Islamic Fundamentalist Legislators Threaten To Resign If Rape Law Is Reformed
The phrase “good riddance” is such an understatement.
Majikthise: Artist Improves Paris Hilton CDs Before Customers Buy Them
As Lindsay points out, it’s a victimless crime. Even the folks who thought they were buying a Paris Hilton CD, instead got something they can sell for many times what they paid.
Obsidian Wings: Labor Day Post (With Lots Of Graphs!)
UPDATE: Originally, this post contained a state-by-state map allegedly showing rises and falls in median income. I’ve been persuaded by Jane Galt that the map is unreliable, and so I’ve removed it from this post. Thanks to Nobody.Really, who linked to Jane’s post in comments.
Rudd Sound Bites: Peanut Allergies Are Doubling, And No One Knows Why
Shakespeare’s Sister: Critique of Article About “Involuntary Virginity” Among Women
In a rare glimpses of non-hyperbolic reason in the article, a study by two Georgia State University associate professors of sociology is cited, which found that “a big part of sexual development comes from dating as a teenager and that involuntary virginity is a combination of shyness, body-image issues and getting a late start”—a conclusion, by the by, which was drawn after interviews with “34 male and female involuntary virgins.”
Feminist Law Professors: In Most States, It’s Legal For Employers To Discriminate Against Job Candidates For Being Married Or Having Children
I’m sure the so-called “marriage movement” will get right on the case. Suuuuure they will.
Persephone’s Box: What Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Freud, Mill, Rand, And Hitler Have In Common
Reappropriate: Why People Of Color Hate The “What Are You” Question
Mombian: Book Review of Single By Chance, Mothers By Choice
The American family has changed and is changing; we have a choice of either adapting to a changing reality, or fruitlessly trying to mau-mau everyone back into the 1950s. This book, which sounds excellent, is definitely taking the former approach.
Big Queer Blog: Reading This Plot Summary Of An Off-Broadway Play Just Cracked Me Up
Last night I had the fortune to see “Laura’s Bush,” an Off-Off Broadway play that could not be more timely. In the midst of articles and discussions in that exciting intersection of sexuality and politics, this satyricial lesbian farce follows the story of a repressed librarian (played by Hilda Guttormsen) who discovers that Laura Bush (played by Laura Lebleu) has been blinking “Help me” in Morse code, and therefore embarks on a mission to rescue Mrs. Bush.
Feministing: New Study Shows That Elective C-Sections Have Higher Rate Of Infant Death Than Vaginal Childbirth
Maybe this news will finally break American doctors’ addiction to needless Caesarean births.
Workplace Prof Blog: Wanna Reduce The Gender Pay Gap? Get More Women In Upper Management
American women earn substantially more money and narrow the long-standing gender gap in income if other women in their workplaces reach the ranks of senior management, according to a new national study presented here. By contrast, the study found, increasing the number of women managers in junior positions makes no difference to the gender gap — women on average continue to earn about 20 percent less than men.
BeaucoupKevin(dot)com: If Stan Lee Had Written Watchmen
Not everyone is geeky enough to appreciate how brilliant this parody is. But I am.
New Moon: Katie Couric Loses 20 Pounds in 20 Seconds!
The CBS publicity department did some photo-retouching. Because the fact that women who aren’t model-thin exist is a deep dark secret that must never be given away.
Majikthise: The Case Against Nutpicking
Lately, the established media have acquired the nasty habit of nutpicking. I’m sorry to say it’s a vice they probably picked up from us bloggers. Nutpicking is when critics attempt to discredit a blogger by selectively citing the most extreme or offensive comments on that blogger’s site.
YouTube: 1970s Batgirl Was So Cool
Curtsy: Feministing.
The Angry Black Woman has a new URL. Update those blogrolls!
UK Metro: The Growing Squirrel Menace
The Metro is the only paper that’s covering this story (note the list of links to other squirrel menace stories, at the bottom of this story). But why do the squirrels hate us so?
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where the mottos fly like bullets. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]
Which makes hash of the right-wing theory that deficiencies in black culture explain the race wage gap, and discrimination based on skin color has nothing to do with it.
That doesn’t follow. This study demonstrates that at least some people discriminate on the basis of skin color. That doesn’t mean that discrimination based on skin color is a primary component of the race wage gap, or that alternate explanations for the gap may not be more robustly supported.
Majikthise: As ARMs Adjust Upward, More Americans Will Lose Their Homes
The most diligent home buyers asked enough questions to know that option ARMs can be fraught with risk.
Actually, you didn’t have to be too damn diligent at all to figure out that the lender could jack up the interest rate on these things to a point where you couldn’t afford to continue the payments.
But others, caught up in real estate mania, ignored or failed to appreciate the risk.
“Caught up in real estate mania”? What the hell is that? Is that anything like “She said no, but I couldn’t control myself”? Anybody knows that if you are going to sign your life away on a loan that’s more than you make in a year – or 5 years – you better read the fine print. If you don’t, it’s your mistake and you are responsible for the consequences.
Democrats should emphasize that, should they regain power, the federal government would work with the States to punish lenders who violate existing due diligence standards for lending.
So should the Republicans, the Libertarians, any independents, etc. I don’t see a partisan issue here.
The Democrats should also pledge to establish a fund to assist mortgage owners who were victimized by unethical lending practices.
If someone is a victim because they were the subject of an illegal act, then I can favor this. OTOH, if someone is on the short end of the stick because they didn’t exercise due diligence themselves, I don’t see why I (who did read the fine print when I re-mortgated my house) should both pay more for my mortgage up front AND pay to support someone else who didn’t. In any case, this fund should be funded by the illegally-acting lending corporations, not the taxpayers.
I was excited to see the study discussed on Blackfolk, but I am left to wonder how representative a group of psychology undergraduates might be of a group of older adult managers and executives. Is there no room to hope that more exposure (and/or self-awareness) might temper the biases of a 19-year-old?
Reappropriate: Why People Of Color Hate The “What Are You” Question
I wonder if — if this is a problem, which some of her commenters disagree with — the issue isn’t with racism, but with h0w people learned small talk as a child/teenager.
I was always taught that there were two kinds of smalltalk:
1. The Bad Kind: Talk about yourself for a long time, and bore your conversation partner.
2. The Good Kind: Find something out about them, and ask them about it, because most people like talking about themselves rather than hearing about you.
When you meet someone, often all you know is what they look like and what they are wearing, so if you’re not going to ask where they bought that new sweater, an easy thing to grab on to is “So, what race are you?” It’s not really racism — it’s insufficiently developed small talk skills.
Which goes part of the way toward explaining this totally bizarre interaction I had on the playground last weekend, which might have gone better if somebody asked “What Are You?”
Her (a white-looking woman): Is one of those girls your daughter?
Me (a white-looking guy): Yes, that one over there.
Her: Mine’s over there on the swings. What’s your daughter’s name?
Me: [I tell her my daughter’s non-white ethnically-other name]
Her: Yes. It’s a shame there’s so much racism in this town.
Me: Um, yes. It is.
My best guess in that she spend the next half hour under the false impression that I was from India, but since you never actually asked “What Are You”, there was never a good time to explain.
Regarding Obsidian Wings: Labor Day Post (With Lots Of Graphs!)
First, there is debate about the merits of the Detroit Free Press map purporting to show the extent of the decline in median household income in each state. See http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009439.html
Second, the study comparing the degree of income mobility in various developed nations requires context. Imagine that two poor Dutch families start with identical earnings. One stayed in Holland; the other moved to the US for three generations, and then returned. They each saw their income improve according to the average rate of income *improvement* in their respective countries. After three generations, which family would have the higher income?
The study doesn’t actually provide enough information to answer that question.
1. The study focuses on change in income across generations, not whether that change is up or down. Thus, if all nations had an equal propensity to see the children of the poor grow rich, but the US had a lower propensity to see the children of the rich grow poor, then the US would be deemed to have “lower mobility.” Would that be such a bad thing?
2. Do we value seeing the standard of living of poor families improve to the greatest extent, or do we value improvement as a percentage of average earnings? I understand the study to measure the latter, not the former. In other words, even if the standard of living of American poor families were improving faster than the standard of living of any other nation’s poor families, the US might seem to have “low mobility” because the standard of living of its rich families was growing even faster.
Note also that the study focuses on deviations from AVERAGE income, not from MEDIAN income, meaning that the results may be influenced by changes in both extreme wealth and extreme poverty. The extreme wealth of the US skews results that reflect average income.
None of this demonstrates that US poor families ARE better off than European ones; I merely note that the study doesn’t demonstrate the converse.
So basically, marital status or having children are not prohibited grounds for discrimination. But it cuts both ways. The headline could equally be ‘In Most States, It’s Legal For Employers To Discriminate Against Job Candidates For Being Single Or Not Having Children‘. I’m not sure you could make either of these prohibited grounds for discrimination without catching insurance and benefit schemes that cover spouses, employer funded childcare, and similar things in the net.
Heh, I saw “nutpicking” right as I was also looking at the “growing squirrel menace” title. maybe there IS something sinister going on…
Glad to see you found (maybe a while ago and I just didn’t notice) Big Queer; good peeps, good schtuffs.
I still haven’t heard or seen Urinetown. Have you seen Avenue Q? How’s it compare?
Thanks for all the links, Amp.
The “after” picture of Katie Couric is horrifying. What did they do to her face?! The retouchers made her look like a space alien.
Re: ARMs
Some unscrupulous lenders put the hard sell on ARMs because an accounting technicality allowed them to report the full amount of the payment, even when the mortgage holder paid a lot less.
Worse, a lot of brokers got “incentives” read: “kickbacks” to move ARMs over other mortgage products.
Finally, a lot of people didn’t realize that the adjustability wasn’t in the hands of their bank, but rather in the hands of a profit-driven hedge fund that sets fees and interest rates to favor its own bottom line. I think a lot of people thought that their banks were in charge of the interest rates and fees, and were therefore more trusting. Furthermore, the banks may have failed their due diligence by failing to take into account the fact that the third parties who control the ARMs could raise the rates precipitously.
No, it doesn’t mean either of those things. It does, however, mean that those right-wingers, such as June O’Neil, who have suggested that racial discrimination is practically nonexistent, are mistaken.
Are race and skin tone the same thing?
Robert, I think what “race” means depends on who you’re talking to, what or who you’re talking about, the day of the week, the phase of the moon, what you had for breakfast that morning, and the color of underwear the person next door is wearing.
I mean, I can never tell. Honestly, I think most people use “race” to mean some mix of skin color and ethnicity. I think the world would be a better place if people who mean “skin color” said “skin color,” and when they mean “ethnicity,” they said “ethnicity.”
Actually, I take that back. “Ethnicity” can be a pretty vague word too, can’t it? It might be used to refer to the region a particular person is from, but it is also used to talk about where their ancestors are from.
Hrm. Seems like the kind of thing it would be very hard to measure in any scientific fashion, then.
Well, if we’re talking about the skin color discrimination study, it’s not a study on “race,” it’s specifically about hiring discrimination based on differing tones of skin amongst people with black African ancestry.
My main beef is that people use “race” to categorize white vs. black skin color (never mind that there’s a wide range, many people can be identified as one or the other, and the categories are obviously mutually exclusive), and simultaneously have other categories for “hispanic” and “asian” people, which are about someone’s ancestry, not their skin tone.
In the last 5 generations leading up to me, there are a couple of Africans, an American Indian, British, Germans, Irish and Scots. So, what race am I? If you ask anyone who knows me who doesn’t know any of the above, they’d say “white”. But is my race something inherent, or is it what other people perceive?
Wait – last 4 generations.
RonF, that’s precisely my point. So based on your ancestors, you could be called (if you’re a U.S. citizen, anyway) “african-american,” at least as much as others who use that label, right? Or were those African ancestors of yours white? I gather that “african-american” is only supposed to apply to people with black (well, dark-skinned) African ancestors.
I think a lot of people these days – at least in the U.S., I know little about demographics in other nations – are “mutts,” genetically speaking. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I don’t know my full lineage, but something like 80% of my ancestors in the last few generations have been from germanic stock. I’ve always self-identified as “white” or “caucasian,” but I’m thinking maybe it’s time to start checking “other” and filling in “german.” Just to be spiteful, of course. ;)
Or were those African ancestors of yours white?
In the Bermudan parish registry listing my great-grandparents’ and great-great-grandparents’ marriages the women involved were listed as “colored”.
I gather that “african-american” is only supposed to apply to people with black (well, dark-skinned) African ancestors.
I seem to recall a controversy a couple of years ago when a white South African came to the U.S. and identified themselves as “African-American”. I don’t recall any details, though.