Sometimes I look at a person (for example, an interviewer) who’s found himself on the wrong side of my conversational onslaught, and as I run on, I pity them. I look at them, sitting there helplessly under the relentless stream of my monologue. Perhaps they’ll soon start bleeding from the ears.

They ought to seize control of the conversation, stand up and wrestle it away from me, take charge. They ought to scream, drop it! Drop the conversation immediately and back slowly away from it! I swear to God, miss, if you launch so much as one more syllable my way, I will leap across this desk and tear your throat out with my teeth!

–

Also, while I’m talking about interviews, polite social behavior, and first impressions in general, have you ever wondered what those overbearing people who, upon being introduced to a total stranger, (a) initiate far more physical contact than is appropriate or desired; and/or (b) launch into a long, self-promoting recitation of everything they’re up to lately as if the person they’ve just met could possibly give half a shit…have you ever wondered, I say, what those people are thinking? Apparently, they’re thinking that they are creating a fantastic impression:

Another common pattern we all go through is the handshake. Why not do it a little differently?  One of my favorites to do in a social setting (especially with someone you just met recently) is to go for the hug instead of the handshake. They will put out their hand. Just stare it for a second as if you are confused and then open you arms wide and say “I think I’d like a hug instead” with a big smile. People will crack up laughing and instantly you have a connection.

Worst. Advice. Ever.

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As mainstream Christianity in the U.S. continues to be ever more triumphantly dominated by those who consider willful ignorance a blessed virtue, it’s nice to see that the Church of England has made a small concession to reality:

“The statement will read: Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practise the old virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope that makes some amends.”

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Finally, you tell ‘em, Patty Judge.

Remainder, on the other hand, is a whole bunch of nothing. I can’t believe I finished it. I got about thirty pages in, and thought, ‘Ah, this is very interesting. I think it’s going to go in one of several directions, and can’t wait to see which.’ Twenty pages further in, I thought, ‘Huh. It hasn’t gone anywhere yet.’ Twenty pages further in, ‘Still in the same place.’ And when I finally finished it, ‘Well. That really was just about that. All the way through.’

Wow, those are some slight reviews. So, here are some cool things this week:

Scientists got blood from stem cells:

Scientists have used embryonic stem cells to generate blood — a feat that could eventually lead to endless supplies of type O-negative blood, a rare blood type prized by doctors for its versatility.

Computer scientists thought of a good way to make use of those text boxes you have to fill out online all the time:

You may be deciphering a word from a decaying old book, helping to transform a historic text into a new digital file.

This entertainer found a way to use cicada shells to adorn herself (via CP). If you’ve never experienced the weird joy that is picking cicada shells off a tree, you should probably do that at some point. When I was a little kid visiting my grandparents in Mississippi, my Granddaddy and I used to pick grocery sackfuls of cicada shells off the trees in the front yard. We had no real object in this harvesting – I don’t know exactly what happened to the sacks full of bug shells, but it’s far more likely my Grandmother threw them out than that she wove them into her hair.

Also, this NY Times article proclaiming that coffee is nothing but good in every possible way, and even overconsumption of coffee works nothing but good effects on your body is the best news possible, and makes me feel utterly vindicated. I’m sure it’s unreliable and probably the studies behind it were funded by giant, evil coffee cartels, but I don’t care. I choose to believe it, because it is what I want to hear. Now all I need is an article saying that a cake-based diet prevents cancer.

I realized that the best way not to be surrounded by obnoxious, loud people in public spaces in New York is to sit near a bunch of quiet people to begin with, rather than go sit off by yourself somewhere.

Here’s how I came to that realization: I bought a sandwich and went to consume it in a pretty, park-like area, and, as usual, went straight for a bench in the most deserted stretch of park. I was halfway through my sandwich when a couple of giggling teenagers came and sat right on top of me, despite the general emptiness of the area, and began to converse, in loud and squealing terms, about their burgeoning sex lives.

My entire life I have whined about how strangers seem to seek me out. I find the close proximity of other people repellent on a visceral level that most people do not feel for their fellow humans, which I realize is a personal shortcoming, but which I cannot help, because it is a kneejerk, gut-level reaction, cultivated in early childhood and continually reinforced by the fact that other people really do consistently suck out loud in every conceivable fashion. And yet, despite my extreme misanthropy, people gravitate towards me like metal filings. I need only install myself in a totally deserted area to make that area the most coveted spot in town. No matter where I am standing – even if it’s next to the only Port-a-Pot in a malarial swamp – five seconds after I have begun standing there, at least ten people will urgently need to stand right where I’m standing, usually with their dogs and babies and cameras and stereos and B.O. and inappropriately loud domestic fights and all.

I’d always assumed that this was a sort of karmic punishment for my disliking other humans’ close proximity so much – a sort of ‘who the hell do you think you are’ rebuke from the universe. Except that I don’t really believe in any sort of large-scale cosmic justice, so I kept looking for other reasons.

Anyway, back to this weekend, these teenagers were yapping on about their various forays into the wide world of sex, both homo- and hetero-style, and how they sometimes did so with hesitancy and sometimes with great enthusiasm, depending upon the other person involved, the amount of various intoxicants in their systems, and the suitability and romance of the atmosphere. And they were doing that thing where they were actually looking right at me and projecting in my direction while they ostensibly talked to each other. I provided an audience for them, which made the whole thing more interesting to them, I suppose. At some point, something so very ridiculous was lobbed so obviously in my direction that I audibly sighed, rolled my eyes, got up and packed up my sandwich and moved on.

I began looking for another deserted stretch of park, when suddenly, I had the inspiration to sit instead right smack between two older couples who were each murmuring quietly to each other while glaring at everyone passing by.

It was the best decision I ever made! I enjoyed my sandwich in peace and solitude, buffered on both sides by a cranky, old couple that didn’t want to look at me, or for me to overhear word one of their conversations. And it was at this point that I realized why people had always been coming to sit by me: they had been doing it on purpose precisely because I was quietly reading a book! They knew that they would be able to dominate the space, and that my presence would ensure against any louder people coming to sit next to them.

In New York, you never sit in an empty area, because no area is empty for very long. Rather, you pick the least offensive strangers, and then you scooch in right on top of them. That way, you have some control over your fate. I put this new theory into practice over the rest of the weekend, and I have to say, my quality of life has improved by leaps and bounds. I feel less angry, less hassled, happier and more well-inclined towards my fellow man. And I’m beginning to think that perhaps New York is somewhat livable after all, if you just learn how to work with it.

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Speaking of despicable haters, I have really taken note of the passing of Jesse Helms. I think that the worst possible thing that you can do with your life is live it in such a way that, five seconds after you’re in the ground, people everywhere burst forth with celebrations of your death and denunciations of everything you were. Scores of private assholes are despised posthumously by everyone who knew them, but it seems like, if you are going to be an asshole, at least do yourself the courtesy of limiting your own exposure. Because to be a hated asshole on such a very grand scale as the late Senator Helms seems to me to be far, far worse than spending your entire life in your room doing nothing and seeing no one. I really hope that, whatever I do or don’t do in life, I don’t do such a grandly awful job of it as to be remembered as the world now remembers Jesse Helms.

Of course, if I can’t be confident of the purity of my heart saving me from such a fate, at least I can rely on my lethargy and ineffectiveness.

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Related, what does make people so social? Mirror neurons:

Mirror neurons are the only brain cells we know of that seem specialized to code the actions of other people and also our own actions. They are obviously essential brain cells for social interactions. Without them, we would likely be blind to the actions, intentions and emotions of other people. The way mirror neurons likely let us understand others is by providing some kind of inner imitation of the actions of other people, which in turn leads us to “simulate” the intentions and emotions associated with those actions. When I see you smiling, my mirror neurons for smiling fire up, too, initiating a cascade of neural activity that evokes the feeling we typically associate with a smile. I don’t need to make any inference on what you are feeling, I experience immediately and effortlessly (in a milder form, of course) what you are experiencing.

(via 3QD)

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Here in America, even in our public parks, everybody thinks it’s their own, personal bench. Blame it on the Renaissance:

This focus on the individual, and its false equation with democracy, began back in the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought us wonderful innovations, such as perspective painting, scientific observation, and the printing press. But each of these innovations defined and celebrated individuality. Perspective painting celebrates the perspective of an individual on a scene. Scientific method showed how the real observations of an individual promote rational thought. The printing press gave individuals the opportunity to read, alone, and cogitate. Individuals formed perspectives, made observations, and formed opinions.

The individual we think of today was actually born in the Renaissance. The Vesuvian Man, Da Vinci’s great drawing of a man in a perfect square and circle-independent and self-sufficient. This is the Renaissance ideal.

It was the birth of this thinking, individuated person that led to the ethos underlying the Enlightenment. Once we understood ourselves as individuals, we understood ourselves as having rights. The Rights of Man. A right to property. The right to personal freedom.

(via 3QD)

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Briefly:

Kids make their parents miserable.

Noooooooo!!!!! 99% of my diet is soy!!! It was the one thing that was never bad! That’s it, screw it, I’m going back to living on microwave burritos and beer.

This is good stuff to know.

Even on the most hotly contested questions—like whether women have better verbal skills, or are hard-wired for empathy, or have cognitive differences that limit their advancement in math and science—the case for large, innate disparities is messy and, for the most part, underwhelming. This is especially true when it comes to neural and hormonal claims, which tend to be controversial. These writers offer canny caveats about culture and its role in gender difference. But they tend to imply that if a difference has innate roots, it’s likely to be relatively fixed. And that’s not necessarily so. In crucial ways, the mind is malleable. Ultimately, the evangelists aren’t really daring to be politically incorrect. They’re peddling one-sidedness, sprinkled with scientific hyperbole.

And while we’re on the differences between men and women, a nice rant all about orgasms – having them, not having them, faking them and who’s to blame – in response to a totally stupid column by MSNBC’s Brian Alexander:

But the thing that pissed me off the most is how Alexander wants us to look at his “roughly one-third” of straight women always have an orgasm statistic and be impressed by it. Clearly, the language he uses around it tells us that he’s saying WOW! One whole third? What a big number – especially when so many women are sexually defective!

As everyone knows, women love jerks, who, it seems, get laid a lot more. Why might that be?

It’s not always a matter of bad boys wooing vulnerable women into bed and then leaving them; it’s often two people who are both interested in just sex picking each other and calling it a day. Of course, there are no doubt some women who are suckered in by narcissistic jerks; there are also some dudes who are suckered in by narcissistic jerks (just as a Nice Guy). But sex isn’t always a trick men play on women.

What? Women might have different criteria (like looks and availability) for a one-night stand than they do for an actual relationship? No way!

One of the (many) things that really pisses me off is when guys go on about how women don’t like them because they’re too nice. I realize that everybody has to tell themselves something to get over rejection that puts the blame on the rejector and off themselves – women do the same thing (“I’m too intimidating/smart/successful”) – but I hate hearing guys go on about how their whole trouble is they’re just too swell for their own good. You know what? Usually “too nice” really means “unattractive and obnoxious.”

Hey, did you hear anything about these girls who had a pregnancy pact? And then, did you hear about how they actually didn’t?:

In short, the actual news item isn’t TODAY’S TEENS ARE SO IRRESPONSIBLE OMG. Rather, it is PREGNANT WOMEN REALLY WANT TO DO THE BEST THING FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHILDREN, EVEN WHEN THEY THEMSELVES ARE PRACTICALLY CHILDREN, AND IF YOU REMOVE THE STIGMA AND GIVE THEM SOME ACTUAL FUCKING SUPPORT IT HELPS A LOT. But that doesn’t fit in a headline, and it doesn’t give people an opportunity to feel morally superior.

Apparently, the problem is knocked-up teenagers aren’t being mocked and derided sufficiently anymore:

When the same girl shows up at the school clinic for five pregnancy tests in one month, shouldn’t somebody be mocking her for it? In fact, isn’t promoting shame through mockery our civic duty?

(via Feministing)

Just…wow.

More on keeping daughters in line:

“Authorities allege that Rashid killed his daughter because he feared that her resistance to a recently arranged marriage would disgrace the Pakistani-American family.”

Sounds so simple right? He killed her because his “culture” made him. Not because he might be mentally ill or pathological. There is no denying that in basically every culture there is pressure put on women to act a certain way and especially with regard to marriage or the ownership of her sexuality. But the way that “honor” killing is discussed in the media you would think it is some normal cultural phenomena, when it is not. It is a sign of illness, culture gone awry and patriarchy at its most exaggerated.

Speaking of other cultures, here’s a few utterly sickening photo shoots in which black women are used as props for white models. Can we please, please, please just completely be done with the fashion industry now? Please?

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I didn’t mention Michelle Obama once! If you need your fix, Michelle Obama Watch is a new blog entirely devoted to the subject. (via Feministing)

This week’s talks are unlikely to yield much, if any, progress, and could push more Tibetans to the boiling point. But listen to Gandhi again: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.”

Hmmm.  Do you agree with Gandhi’s assertion?  Discuss.

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You don’t see many critics around these days.  Is it because there are no longer non-participatory enthusiasts of the arts?  Or is that a good thing?

Trying to maintain critical distance today is thus a practice in self-alienation. The distance might as well be infinite. The proclamations might as well be made in outer space. So we need another metaphor. If criticism isn’t about distance anymore, maybe it can be about closeness. I’ll tell you what makes sense about closeness right away. In today’s cultural world, a bird’s eye view of the situation doesn’t get you very much. There is nothing to sort out from up there because there is simply too much culture in too much variety. The distance, the desire to categorize and judge, is overwhelmed by the very pluralism it seeks to understand. The only solution is to get down into the mix and participate. You need to grab works of art and hold onto them tightly. Stepping away from them even a little bit is to risk losing touch altogether.

Well, I don’t know.  I can say that the New York theater scene, at any rate, is in desperate need of more objective gatekeepers, and I think a large part of the problem is that anybody who goes to theater here is trying to do theatre here.  I would say more, but I don’t want to burn any bridges.

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Now, here is some criticism I can get behind:

Gladwell dresses up all of his “realizations” in fancy clothes and too much make-up. He gives himself powers that he doesn’t have. He pretends to have sorted things out that he hasn’t sorted out. He imagines a possible control, and pretends that he has achieved that control. All the while telling people, whispering into their ears, precisely the kinds of things they would like to believe. And then (it must, I’m sorry, be said) he goes on wildly lucrative corporate speaking engagements spinning out the same titillating stories combined with his shoddy conclusions. I even kind of hate, I must confess, the way he looks. His hair all scruffed up just so. His cute little suits. It makes the skin crawl.

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Also in popular things that I have an irrational hatred of, Facebook has done away with the singular “they”:

Confronting complaints of ungrammaticality from speakers of English and untranslatability from speakers of other languages, Facebook will now be more in-your-face about choosing a gender identity. If you haven’t filled the information out on your Facebook profile, you’ll now get a prompt asking if you want to be referred to as him or her. But they’re not getting too insistent on sexual dimorphism, since users can still opt out of the gender choice, in response to what Gleit calls “pushback in the past from groups that find the male/female distinction too limiting.”

Folks, I’ve finally joined Facebook.  After adamantly refusing to join, and telling everybody who brought it up to me (repeatedly) that I would never, ever join, and that was final, I’ve gone back on my resolution and set up a profile.  I resent the hell out of it, but I got sick of inviting people to things (my party, an upcoming show), and them being like, ‘Oh, well, I’d love to come – are the details on your Facebook page?’

Fuck all of you, and your stupid social networks.  There damn well better not be yet another must-join new one a month from now, or I’ll…resentfully set up a profile on that one, too.

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The perils of replace-all:

Apparently, if you are bothered by gay people, you like calling them homosexuals, which is clinical and gross sounding, as opposed to “gay” which sounds happy and fun-loving. An impressionable child would surely have much less interest in becoming a “homosexual” (snooze) than a “gay” (woohoo!). So, right-wing news site OneNewsNow.com does a quick replace all on stories from the AP. Guess what, though, sometimes the word “gay” appears in a non-sexual context. Like, say, Tyson Homosexual (née Gay), who just qualified for the Olympics in the 100 meters, or Memphis Grizzlies’ forward Rudy Homosexual (née Gay), who often gets great penetration in the paint.

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The rise of the nerds:

From the late 19th century onward, it was more or less accepted that the ideal purpose of American education and parenting was to produce athletic, popular young men and women, the sort who end up in business, law, or politics. But sometime during the 1980s it began to be a lot harder to dismiss the awkward kids with thick glasses, obsessive interests, and no social skills.  . . . As computers began to play a larger role in business, education, and life in general, the former class presidents were learning that the former class geeks held everyone’s future in their hands. Soon one nerd (Alan Greenspan) was running the economy, another nerd (Al Gore) was running for president, and two unbelievably rich nerds (Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) were changing the ways a lot of us lived and worked.

(via 3QD)

The article focuses heavily on male nerds.  I don’t always get on well with male nerds, as I often find them to be immediately dismissive and condescending toward attractive women.  We were all unpopular in high school, but there are more constructive ways of dealing with it than being a triumphant asshole to anyone who reminds you of those who once rejected you.

Speaking of, when scientists attempt to study humor:

Blindfolded subjects are tickled by experimenters who they are told are machines. The sexual banter in an all-night diner in upstate New York is surreptitiously observed. People study cartoons with pens stuck in their mouths (to contract the facial muscles associated with smiling). An experimenter “accidentally” spills hot tea on herself when a jack-in-the-box erupts nearby. One Boston psychologist, the co-author of a paper entitled “A Threshold Theory of the Humor Response”, published in The Behavior Analyst last spring, understandably felt obliged to state in a footnote that her surname really is “Joker”.

(via A&LD)

And yes, of course, if I thought ahead and always brought a bottle of water from home around with me everywhere, I could avoid this expense. And if I always brought an umbrella, and a light sweater, and Aspirin, and tampons, and Band-Aids and a change of shoes and a novel and an energy bar and a thing of mace, I would always be prepared for every situation, wouldn’t I? But I’m consistently not – I guess it must be because I’m so foolishly attached to overpaying for an attractively packaged commodity that used to be free.

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So, the big news lately is the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the D.C. gun ban. I don’t have a passionate opinion one way or the other on gun ownership, but here’s one thing I don’t understand:

I’ve heard champions of Second Amendment rights pose the hypothetical scenario that, if you let the government disarm you, in a few decades, you will have a more totalitarian society, and then it’s only a matter of time before the nightmare dystopia ensues and the governmental hit squads come banging at your door. And you’ll be an unarmed sitting duck. And I get that – I too believe that inevitably, at some point, society as we know it will crumble and we’ll go into some sort of The Road situation. But it seems to me that even if you have a whole bunker of guns, if a bunch of people come armed to your door with intent to take you in, you’re done. It doesn’t matter if you have weapons – unless you also have more people with weapons than they have with weapons, they will win.

I think that the real key to surviving when the infrastructure crumbles is to be small, fast, and not missed by anybody. And to not have anything that anybody might conceivably want. So, while gun control opponents can’t believe everybody’s so placid and docile and moronic as to allow their right-to-bear-arms to be chipped away at without a fight, I rather can’t believe everybody’s so placid and docile and moronic as to be gigantically fat, out of shape and laden with expensive possessions (and small, stumbling, needy children).

Come on, people. Your only chance for surviving in a post-apocalyptic world will be to dart around on the margins and feed at night — and to have nothing you love and nothing you’ll miss. I promise you, if a posse ever comes to my door, I will not be defending my “property.” To hell with my property – I’ll be out the back window and over the border before they can hoof it up the front steps.

Anyway, the world might end before any of this comes to pass:

I can well understand why the Times doesn’t want to give sustained big play to the possibility that the world will end on or around Labor Day. In addition to the civic-minded concern that this might create worldwide panic, there are practical matters of self-interest. If the possibility weren’t realized, as most scientists seem to expect, then the Times would look foolish. If the possibility were realized, it would have no opportunity to collect a Pulitzer, because the Times, the Pulitzer board, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which gives out the award, and every last Times reader would all be obliterated, along with the rest of the planet.

(Plus, too, the North Pole might be free of ice this year:

“From the viewpoint of the science, the North Pole is just another point in the globe, but it does have this symbolic meaning,” Serreze said. “There’s supposed to be ice at the North Pole. The fact that we may not have any by the end of this summer could be quite a symbolic change.”

via FP Passport)

Really, I’m just not as attached to life as we know it as most people seem to be. If I woke up in the world of Wall-E tomorrow, I guess I’d kind of miss the Internet.

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Why a continued American presence in Iraq can’t be compared to West Germany and Japan after WWII:

But setting all those concerns aside there’s one distinction between the case of Germany and Japan and Iraq today that gets far too little mention. It’s not a matter of culture or religion. It is the fact in the aftermath of World War II, both Germany and Japan had been conquered by the United States and her allies in a wars of aggression that Germany and Japan had started. The civilian populations of each country, whatever their war guilt, had experienced shattering levels of violence and privation in the final years of the war. And both countries were immediately faced by nearby hostile powers they feared much more than the United States.

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Public transit: it doesn’t really hit the poor hardest…

In fact . . . poor people do relatively little driving. They differ from middle class and wealthy people in that utility bills take up a very large proportion of their income. Not only should this specific point be remembered, but one should also recall as a general rule of thumb that if you see a large, powerful, well-organized lobby citing the needs of the poor as the rationale for something or other they’re almost certainly full of it.

…and plus, you can get drunk while you ride:

Carl Zimmer and Paul Ehrlich are talking about the need for alternative modes of transportation. He rightly makes the point that there’s a difference between designing a city for cars, and designing a city for people. Also makes the somewhat idiosyncratic point that with transit “you could at least be having a drink on your way home”

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Rob Cockerham at Cockeyed.com plays pranks, usually on various chain stores. Today, he has a new one involving posting clever signs in Home Depot storage sheds:

Despite an ambitious number of signs, I felt my local home depot wasn’t addressing some of the strongest benefits of owning a garden/storage/privacy shed/mini-garage/closet. I decided to make some new signs and try them out!

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Last but not least, I hope some day to make this list.

Cassian Yee at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle extracted immune cells from the patient and found that a small proportion of them, called CD4 T cells, naturally attacked a protein found on nearly three-quarters of the cancer cells. Using cloning techniques, Yee’s team replicated these cells until they had more than 5bn of them. When the cells were injected into the patient they immediately began attacking the cancer. Intriguingly, the patient’s immune system gradually began a wider offensive, attacking all the cancer cells in the body, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Two months later medical scans failed to pick up any signs of cancer in the patient.

(via TMN)

And even better, turns out that Bobby Jindal, a possible McCain VP choice, can cure skin cancer with his mind:

Jindal claims that the rite freed his friend Susan of the demon and may even have cured her skin cancer.

I guess I can stop bothering with sunscreen altogether.

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I’m sorry, I know I touched on this before, but I just have to say it again with more emphasis, because damn near every article I’m looking at today is based around some informal or vague ‘polls’ of voters talking about whether or not they’ll vote for who, and why, and what lost them, and these statements are taken as fact, and I just want to exclaim one more time for the people in the back that people’s answers to any questions posed to them ever are completely meaningless. People LIE. All the time. And not just to other people, but to themselves.

Especially when it comes to voting preferences – most people don’t want to think of themselves as straight ticket voters. They want to think they take each candidate on the strength of that candidate’s platform. But really, who over the age of 23 truly does an honest, fresh reevaluation of their entire world view with each election? Come on. You think what you think for the reasons you think it. I’m not saying that no one ever changes their mind over time (I’ve done a 180 since college, politics-wise), but you certainly can’t just wipe your brain every four years.

When someone says, ‘I don’t like McCain/Obama because [insert vague and personal objection],’ I think they almost always mean ‘I don’t like McCain/Obama because I’m liberal/conservative, but I don’t know how to cram my entire political perspective into a single thought.’ Or, ‘I haven’t thought much about this, but I don’t want to sound stupid in front of myself.’ Or, ‘I freaking hate uppity black guys, but I’ll be damned if I’ll admit that to myself, because I’d rather believe I’m a fair, cool-headed guy who just thinks there’s something shady about that Obama fellow.’

When someone says, ‘I’m voting for McCain, because I think Hillary got a raw deal,’ what they might really mean is, ‘Of course, I’ve never actually made it to the polling station in my entire life, but this year I’m determined to vote, and when I get there, that’s what I’m going to do, unless I change my mind again, or stay out late the night before.’

I sometimes tell strangers that I’m a diplomat. (Psst – I’m totally not a diplomat!!)

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And here’s an opinion about the many people who ‘just don’t like that wife of his‘:

The Right seems to think that every educated and financially successful Black American (and/or woman, for that matter) should simply walk around thanking White folks, and saying “What, me worry?”

People’s extreme dislike of Michelle Obama has really floored me. I mean, the woman has done everything right – she’s successful in her career, active in her community, she’s smart, she’s confident, she’s a committed wife and mother with a strong marriage, she’s attractive and she made her own money…and yet somehow, it’s still not good enough.

I guess because what she’s supposed to say is: ‘I achieved, and so everybody else can, too, if they’ll just sack up and stop whining.’

And instead, she says: ‘I achieved, but that doesn’t mean that other people in my situation aren’t severely and unfairly hindered by disadvantages and prejudice.’

Which is anti-American.

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God, I’m an opinionated little bugger today, aren’t I? Maybe because I’m 27 now, and thus know it all.

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If the world is indeed made of math, there go all my chances of ever understanding any of it:

According to Tegmark, “there is only mathematics; that is all that exists.” In his theory, the mathematical universe hypothesis, he updates quantum physics and cosmology with the concept of many parallel universes inhabiting multiple levels of space and time. By posing his hypothesis at the crossroads of philosophy and physics, Tegmark is harking back to the ancient Greeks with the oldest of the old questions: What is real?

Also, this:

European researchers said on Monday they discovered a batch of three “super-Earths” orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.

(both via TMN)

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The perfect way to bite it? Laughing at one of your own jokes:

Chrysippus (280-207BC), Perhaps the greatest of the Stoics. . . . after an ass had eaten his figs, he cried out to an old woman, “Now give the ass a drink of pure wine to wash down the figs”. Thereupon, he laughed so heartily that he died.

(via Unfogged)

But not this year! This year I’m throwing a party, along with my two roommates and my friend Sara (whose actual birthday is Saturday). It’s this Saturday at my apartment, and if you live in the NYC area and know me, but this is the first you’re hearing about the party, you should contact me for directions. We haven’t really done any prep work yet, so I don’t know exactly what you’ll be in for if you come; however, I did wake up this morning to discover that a large piece of sound equipment was rolled into the living room sometime after I went to bed last night, so, you know.

Today being my actual birthday, I went to Rice to Riches on my way home last night (which, if you are not aware, is a place on Spring Street that sells nothing but flavors of rice pudding), and purchased a small tureen of pecan pie rice pudding, which I’ve just consumed as my birthday breakfast. So, the day is off to a rip-roaring start! (Actually, to be honest, it was way too much pudding, and I feel more than a little nauseous, but I’m sure that will subside.)

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On to feminism!!

You’ve probably already heard about this, but according to Fox News, all black women are angry black women:

Cal Thomas: I want to pick up on something that Jane said about the angry black woman. Look at the image of angry black women on television. Politically you have Maxine Waters of California, liberal Democrat. She’s always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthia McKinney, another angry black woman. And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They’re usually angry about something. They’ve had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting. They are angry at Bush. So you don’t really have a profile of non-angry black women.

(via Feministing)

Speaking of Fox News pissing everyone off, Salon explains why this was so bad (for those who actually need an explanation of why this is offensive):

“Stop Picking on Obama’s Baby Mama!” Those were the words running on the bottom of Fox News’ screen Wednesday, during a discussion about right-wing attacks against Michelle Obama’s patriotism between anchor Megyn Kelly and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. . . . Though of course it does rhyme, and there’s the innocuous Tina Fey allusion, Fox News’ attempted subliminal ghettoization of Michelle Obama is still quite clear.

Undoubtedly, you’ve also heard a lot about all these angry, alienated white women who will now be voting for McCain out of sheer spite. I don’t personally know any women who fit this profile, but the media assures me that they’re everywhere. I like Bitch Ph.D.’s post on the topic:

. . . yes, I think that the women saying “I’m staying home” are overreacting. But I also think that the men saying “you selfish feminists, how dare you” are *also* overreacting–to the expression of female anger, disappointment, autonomy. . .And yes, the reality of party politics means that in this election, women who care about women’s rights . . . should *of course* vote for Obama, because McCain is opposed to to all these things. And maybe some of the feminist outrage is indeed an expression of white entitlement and/or class entitlement–since, after all, representation at the top is more of an immediate issue for professional women than it is for working-class women. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate expression of anger against sexism as well.

Speaking of McCain:

. . . John McCain canceled a Texas fundraiser to be given by Clayton Williams after it was revealed that Williams, during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas, compared rape to the weather: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” After canceling the fundraiser, McCain’s campaign said that they would be keeping the money raised by Williams – more than $300,000.

Related, FP’s list of the worst places in the world to be a woman. (via Economic Woman)

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Here’s a fascinating article on moral psychology, and how it does and does not differ across different cultures. Included in the article are the “Trolley Problems,” which I heard a year ago (on an episode of Radio Lab as replayed on an episode of This American Life), and used as a conversation starter all summer long:

. . . Hauser and his lab have collected judgments about Trolley Problems from thousands of people in more than a hundred countries, representing a broad range of ages and religious and educational backgrounds. The results reveal an impressive consensus. . . . even in this enormous sample and even for complicated borderline cases, participants’ responses could not be predicted by their age, sex, religion, or educational background. Women’s choices in the scenarios overall were indistinguishable from men’s, Jews’ from Muslims’ or Catholics’, teenagers’ from their parents’ or grandparents’. . . . Also interestingly, Hauser, Mikhail, and their colleagues found that while the “moral instinct” was apparently universal, people’s subsequent justifications were not; instead, they were highly variable and often confused.

(via A&LD)

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Finally, following up on the Obama campaign’s rumor-dispelling site I linked to yesterday, see also this:

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Faced with a new crop of deceptive online smears, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ratcheted up his online counteroffensive Thursday with a new site aimed at debunking the latest web and e-mail rumors about him and his wife. The site, called Fight the Smears, launched listing four claims against Obama. It counters each with a rundown of the facts, in some cases accompanied by supporting video footage.

That’s great and all, but in my opinion, these types of rumors are only believed by people who are already convinced against a candidate, and really, these people would be against the candidate regardless of all this nonsense. I don’t really feel that this type of stuff does as much harm as everyone’s convinced it does – when voters are asked why they dislike Obama, and they say, for example, ‘he’s a Muslim,’ they may or may not really believe that, but even if they knew it wasn’t true, they still wouldn’t be for him.

Or maybe I’m underestimating the power of such talk – at any rate, it’s very annoying to hear people parroting baseless claims, and I’m glad Obama is committed to dispelling rumors about himself, unlike some past candidates.

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall has this to say about the McCain campaign’s accusations of Obama’s fp naivety:

. . . on the topic of using Jim Woolsey as your presidential surrogate to call your competitor “delusional” and “naive”, I’d almost forgotten Woolsey’s freelance James Bond mission to England back in 2001 to prove the crackpot theory of Laurie Mylroie who came up with the idea that Saddam wasn’t just behind the 9/11 attacks but was actually behind the original attack on the Twin Towers back in 1993.

Related, here is a very long and detailed post on the various theories for why the South went Republican in the ’60s:

We thus know that a significant number of white voters in the South would desert the national Democratic Party—even for a Republican, as they did in 1964—if it wavered in its commitment to white supremacy. . . . But wait, now. Along come some political scientists to tell us this Republican racism is a bit of a side show, that the real story of the GOP’s new southern eminence has to do with the emergence, at long last, of a New South, ushered (ironically) into being by Democratic programs of New Deal and wartime mobilization.

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More on why Amtrak sucks so much, (and why it’s still around):

The American passenger rail-once a model around the globe-is now something of an oddball novelty, a political boondoggle to some, a colossal transit failure to others. The author James Howard Kunstler likes to say that American trains “would be the laughing stock of Bulgaria.” . . . Since its ill-fated formation as a quasi-public, for-profit corporation in 1971, Amtrak has seen only meager growth and loses billions of dollars annually.

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Ten reasons the CA DoH should leave genetic testing companies alone:

When some overprotective Luddites from the California Department of Health Services sent cease-and-desist letters to thirteen genetic testing companies, they proved that someone in their office must have single nucleotide polymorphism that causes poor judgment. Interfering with the nascent industry is not a good idea for a plethora of reasons.

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I really think Japan might be paradise on Earth. White noise machines in public restroom stalls to cover any noises you might be making; government-mandated thinness tests; sushi; seppuku; Hello Kitty…and now, you can actually SWIM IN POOLS OF COFFEE (OR WINE)???? Check out these photos, and tell me you’re not dying to go.

So why are these structures so fascinating? We’d hazard that they represent a convenient synthesis of several elements missing from modern life, and that their survival – even if it is only in virtual form – as ruined carcasses allows our memories and imaginations to hold on to a strong narrative from the past. There’s not a lot of mystery in architecture anymore . . . Both empty buildings and blogs present themselves as vessels for exploration, neatly compartamentalised, reducing life into a series of boxes. Whereas one is the ultimate wunderkammer of curious afflictions, aspirations, delusions and illusions – phantoms of the mind – the other uses the physical object (or at least its pictorial representation) as the landscape to traverse. These giant, empty brick labyrinths function as useful places to keep the dark parts of our mind.

Okay, sure.

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What’s the story on the recovery of the ozone layer? Here’s an excerpt from a ScienceNow article on 3 Quarks Daily:

Once greeted as good news, the recovery of the ozone layer is increasingly seen as a mixed blessing. In April, researchers found that a healing ozone hole could amplify global warming by trapping more heat in the atmosphere (ScienceNOW, 24 April). And in tomorrow’s issue of Science, climatologists report that ozone recovery could disrupt wind patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, potentially leading to a warming of Antarctica. The findings suggest that actions taken by humans to protect the planet from the harmful effects of solar radiation could accelerate climate change on the frozen continent.

But on the ScienceNow site, the article has since been replaced with this:

The recovery of the ozone layer is considered essential for the health of the planet’s living creatures, but new research suggests it could also assist in the fight against global warming. In the 13 June issue of Science, climatologists report that ozone recovery could restore wind patterns in the Southern Hemisphere that have blown out of kilter due to ozone depletion and the buildup of greenhouse gases.

Will it save us or kill us??? I HAVE TO KNOW!

(Actually, I don’t care.)

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Can you identify languages you don’t actually speak when you hear others speaking them? This was one of the auditory categories at trivia night at Pete’s Candy Store a long time ago, and it was harder than I thought it would be. I can identify Italian, since I took it in college (and nothing else sounds just like it), and of course French, and usually Chinese (although I can’t id the dialect). But otherwise, I can’t usually pinpoint a language with confidence. Korean is toughest, apparently:

It’s plausible that people can recognize languages that they don’t know, and there have even been some experimental tests. Thus Y.K. Muthusamy et al., “Perceptual Benchmarks for Automatic Language Identification”, ICASSP 1994, found that native English speakers, given a short training session with 9 languages, were able to identify samples with durations of 1, 2, 4 and 6 seconds at rates of 20.7%, 37.4%, 45.8% and 49.7%. This is not terrific performance, but it is still better than chance (which would be 11.1%). Some languages were harder than others – thus subjects recognized Korean correctly only 13.5% of the time in the first quarter of the experiment, and despite feedback after each trial, this only increase to 16.7% in the last quarter of the experiment.

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Did you know that “all my eye and Betty Martin” is an old-fashioned British slang expression meaning, “Nonsense!”? I didn’t, but I plan to start saying it all the freaking time, and I suggest you all do the same.