What I’m Reading, May 9, 2014

Posted on May 9, 2014 by wellsdc

Philipp Clüver [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Barbarians in Oklahoma, Charles Pierce, Esquire, April 30, 2014 (h/t PZ Myers)

I am saying this quite deliberately. The state of Oklahoma committed an act of fucking barbarism last night. It did so under the color of law, which makes every citizen of that benighted state complicit in the act of fucking barbarism. The governor of that state, a pink balloon named Mary Fallin, is a fucking barbarian. A state legislator named Mike Christian is a fucking barbarian, for reasons we will get to in a moment. Every politician in that benighted state belongs in a fucking cage this morning.

(Emphasis in original.)

Andrew Wakefield: Attracting antivaccine cranks like moths to a flame since 1998, Orac, Respectful Insolence, May 7, 2014

Andrew Wakefield, like many antivaccinationists, doesn’t like being called an “antivaccinationist” or “antivaccine.” This becomes evident in a part of the interview where Billy D [Billy DeMoss] asks Wakefield if there are any vaccines that are effective; i.e., if there are any vacines that “work.” It’s clear that Billy D wants Wakefield to say that vaccines don’t work. He doesn’t say that—exactly. He does, however, equivocate. Instead of saying whether vaccines work or not, he does say that vaccines result in the production of antibodies against the organisms for which they are designed, after which he questions whether antibodies actually lead to immunity and pulls out the antivaccine trope of questioning how long the immunity from vaccines lasts. He even goes so far as to claim that the mumps vaccine is not needed, that it doesn’t work, and that mumps is a “trivial disease,” which it is not. (If you develop deafness from mumps, to you it’s not a trivial disease.”

Rick Santorum: Georgia Law ‘Creates An Opportunity’ For Gun Owners To Police Airports, David, Crooks and Liars, April 27, 2014 Continue reading →

Just Because You Think the Second Amendment Says You Can, It Still Doesn’t Mean You Should

Posted on May 7, 2014 by wellsdc

By Lucio Eastman (Free State Project - PorcFest 2009 - Open Carry) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons You might have a Second Amendment right to carry a gun into a restaurant, but others also have the right to call the police on you. I certainly have the right to state my opinion that you are a jackass. The following happened in Fort Worth

Let’s all take a moment to pity Open Carry Texas. The armed freaks who enjoy parading around terrorizing the public because they can are once again playing up their victim status after frightening the staff of a restaurant so badly that employees locked themselves in a freezer to protect themselves.

Thursday night, the “peaceful” and “non-threatening” group barged into a Jack in the Box with their usual heavy armaments, striking fear into the staff.

On multiple occasions in the past couple of years, I have heard people explain the difference between carrying a rifle in a manner in which it cannot be easily fired, as though this somehow makes it better that someone decided to stroll down the street with his definitely-not-for-hunting rifle (and I say “he” because it seems like it’s always a “he.”)

What is never explained is why I should trust the guy standing there with an arm cannon that is not in a firing position, simply because at that precise moment he isn’t holding it in a way that it could be fired. I know it doesn’t take long to move it into such a position—it wouldn’t be very useful otherwise—and that makes it impossible to tell the difference between a “good guy with a gun” and a “bad guy.” Continue reading →

What I’m Reading, April 28, 2014

Posted on April 28, 2014 by wellsdc

klsgfx [Public domain, CC0 1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)], via Openclipart Please, Please, Please: Do Not Make Your Kid The Center Of Your Universe, Cassie Murdoch, Jezebel, July 6, 2012

It’s impossible to say for sure that intensive parenting leads to depression and stress and being dissatisfied, but the links don’t really make sense if you flip them around. It’s also not clear whether intensive parenting has any great impact on the children, but Liss concludes that anything that makes moms depressed probably doesn’t benefit children in the long run. Plus, anecdotally some of us have observed that making your child the center of the universe tends to result in rather obnoxious offspring.

Justice Sotomayor accuses colleagues of thinking they can ‘wish away’ racial inequality, Robyn Pennacchia, Death and Taxes, April 23, 2014

Just yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the people of Michigan had the right, via mob rule, to ban the practice of Affirmative Action at state institutions such as the University of Michigan. It wasn’t a good ruling. Ever since the state voted to ban it, minority enrollment has declined significantly. Which is not surprising, because when you ignore unearned privileged and advantages, it’s hardly shocking when the priviledg and advantaged pull ahead. Obviously the person who starts the race in the middle of a marathon is going to have a better chance at winning.

Continue reading →

Puppycide and Other Problems

Posted on April 28, 2014 by wellsdc

Austin police officers shot and killed another dog last week. They described the dog as a pit bull, because of course. They also say that dashboard camera footage supports their version of the story—”that the officers had no choice but to respond that way to this dog that was charging at them,” and that “they didn’t have time to have a plan B to draw their Tasers or draw their pepper spray this is a matter of seconds”—although the family adamantly disputes their account:

[Alicia] Guerrero says when the family member holding on to the dog let go, officers shot the animal in the head. She says the dog was retreating to the house when it was shot a second time, ultimately dying on the front stoop.

Continue reading →

“Hello M’Lady,” the App that Lets Nice Guys™ Know How They Look to the Rest of the World

Posted on April 23, 2014 by wellsdc

I was once a Nice Guy™. I got past it. Here’s a sketch from Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer that might help explain a few things to people still struggling with Nice Guy™ism.

(In case the video doesn’t embed, it should be available here or here.)

If the message you get from this sketch is that women are ungrateful and will insensitively use you for the tasks they don’t want to do, or if you still think that the “friend zone” is an actual thing, then I’m sorry, but you are still in the clutches of Nice GuyNice Guy™ism. There is still hope, but it might be a long and difficult road to self-awareness.

What I’m Reading, April. 21, 2014

Posted on April 21, 2014 by wellsdc

Торжествуют (They are triumphant) by Vasily Vereshchagin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons The Lost Empire that Ruled the Silk Road, Annalee Newitz, io9, April 15, 2014

Today, the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan is relatively remote, known mostly for its magnificent medieval ruins. But over a millennium ago, it was one of the richest cities on the infamous trade route known as the Silk Road. Back in the 600s CE, that route was called simply “the road to Samarkand.”

***

The term “Silk Road” was popularized by European explorers in the nineteenth century. German scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term in 1877, while attempting to follow its eroded pathways centuries after the world economy had come to rely on ocean shipping routes. Also, there is no evidence that anyone traveled along the entire route from Europe to China until Marco Polo wrote about his journey in the thirteenth century. (Polo probably wasn’t the first traveler to do this, but his account popularized the idea and led to many more journeys.)

But for most people the Silk Road was just a local highway system. They used the routes to go from one city to another, and more rarely to cross the borders between empires.

Bill Russell, Boston Celtics Veteran, Sounds Off On Gay Athletes, Jim Vertuno, AP, April 10, 2014

NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell said Wednesday that gay athletes’ current fight for equality and acceptance reminds him of some of the same struggles black athletes faced in the 1960s. Continue reading →

“If you strip away the myth from the frog”: Exploring Muppet Christ Superstar

Posted on April 19, 2014 by wellsdc

Via correliebre.tumblr.com

This is the weekend that I tend to get songs from Jesus Christ Superstar stuck in my head, so the idea of doing the show with Muppets struck me as both deranged and inspired:

Here’s a question we never thought to ask: how would Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera about the life of Jesus play with the Muppets? Now we know, thanks to the Muppet Christ Superstar album, with Kermit as Jesus, Gonzo as Judas, Miss Piggy as Mary Magdalene, and a chorus of clucking proto-Christian chickens.

Mind you, this is extremely unofficial.

Christo Graham recorded the unauthorized Muppet Christ Superstar, with the singers doing their best imitations of the Muppets. As weird as the concept is, it’s actually pretty fantastic in places, especially with the Electric Mayhem as Jesus’ followers—and Beaker meeping his way through “Simon Zealotes.” In other places, though, the voices are a bit off, particularly in the more emotional moments. Give it a listen.

Muppet Christ Superstar by Christo Graham

<a href="http://christophergraham.bandcamp.com/album/muppet-christ-superstar">Muppet Christ Superstar by Christo Graham</a>

Photo credit: Via correliebre.tumblr.com.

Conservatives Aren’t Funny

Posted on April 15, 2014 by wellsdc

By this, I mean that conservatives are not funny when they are trying to be conservative. There are probably enough reasons for this to fill a book, but the fact is that comedy, i.e. the art of making people laugh, strongly tends towards ideas labeled as “liberal” in today’s society. I have argued here before that comedy works best when it is pointed upward, as when someone with less power uses humor on someone with more power. As someone else put it, there is a very good reason why employees of a company might roast their CEO, but the CEO does not roast the janitor.

Some conservatives seem to think that CBS is conspiring against them by giving the Late Show gig to Stephen Colbert. I’ll be said to see The Colbert Report go, but it’s hard to argue, from purely talent- and career-based standpoints, that Colbert hasn’t earned this. And that’s really the key: The Late Show is a comedy show, and Colbert is funny. Limbaugh, et al, are trying to pull more appropriation of progressive language regarding power and oppression, but no one who isn’t already steeped in Limbaugh’s worldview is buying it.

Rush Limbaugh can call his hate speech comedy, but Stephen Colbert’s parody character of conservative hosts is an act of war. One suspects that Colbert’s parody cuts a little too close to the bone for Limbaugh. Conservatives are always looking for a reason to go to war.

In this case, Limbaugh is expertly playing into the Republican victimization complex by claiming that CBS is somehow attacking them by hiring Stephen Colbert. The character that Colbert has played is a funhouse mirror look at how hosts like Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly really behave.

Maybe Rush thinks that he should have been given the gig? The problem with conservatives doing comedy is that they aren’t funny. Glenn Beck thinks he is funny. Rush Limbaugh thinks he is funny, but they aren’t funny. Their humor is usually mean-spirited. Conservative humor tends to enjoy laughing at the misfortune of others.

If conservatives want a spot on a show like The Late Show, they need to put humor over ideology. If conservative ideology just plain isn’t funny, that’s a problem with conservative ideology, not comedy.

What I’m Reading, April 11, 2014

Posted on April 11, 2014 by wellsdc

If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become One? NPR’s Fresh Air, April 7, 2014

You do find Jesus calling himself God in the Gospel of John, or the last Gospel. Jesus says things like, “Before Abraham was, I am.” And, “I and the Father are one,” and, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” These are all statements you find only in the Gospel of John, and that’s striking because we have earlier gospels and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things. …

I think it’s completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that’s what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make. This is not an unusual view amongst scholars; it’s simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understanding of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate.

Good riddance, Barbara Walters, Alex Pareene, Salon, May 13, 2013

Barbara Walters has announced her retirement from journalism, a profession she claims to have been practicing for more than 50 years. Walters, the former co-host of the “Today” show, ABC World News, “20/20,” and current co-host of “The View,” is a national icon and a pioneer, and probably as responsible as any other living person for the ridiculous and sorry state of American television journalism. She has announced her retirement a year in advance, so that a series of aggrandizing specials can be produced celebrating her long and storied career. So let’s get things started off right, by reminding everyone how her entire public life has been an extended exercise in sycophancy and unalloyed power worship.

Does Coachella Actually Have Music Anymore?

Posted on April 11, 2014 by wellsdc

License to Boot [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr Seriously, no one ever even mentions music at Coachella. It’s all about fashion, trends that everyone will look back on in embarrassment, and unforgivable neologisms like “Coachella diet” and “smuicing.” (I promise I will never use that word again, ever.)

Even the fashion aspects, to judge from the pictures, make it look like Coachella consists entirely of skinny hipster chicks without sweat glands standing in the middle of remarkably empty and green fields. Oh yeah, and white people in headdresses, because fuck history.

It wouldn’t surprise me at this point to learn that the whole thing is just staged by New York fashion designers. I mean, I don’t think I know anyone who’s been to Coachella, so how do I know it actually exists???

I’m not even sure why I wrote this post. Now get off my lawn. Continue reading →

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