Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 25th from 15:43 to 16:33:
Box Turtle Bulletin » The Scapegoating of Brandon McInerney - I know this is a controversial, but I see no purpose this ruling serves. There has already been one tragedy — Larry’s life is over — and there will soon be another. What this court and district attorney is doing setting the stage for a 14-year-old with no prior record to spend the next 50 years in prison. If this path reaches its logical conclusion, two lives will be over. Do we really think that solves anything?
Broken Record: Four Mistakes That Killed the Record Indstry Before File Sharing - In each critical moment, record labels had the opportunity to think ahead and look beyond their immediate revenue streams. Like many large corporations, they were unable to do so. As a result, they forgot that music is about people and they continue to ignore that fact at their own peril.
Box Turtle Bulletin » Thanks, Ducky - I always thought of Ducky as “Ducky”, so when reading an article in 2004 about some woman named Kate it took me a while to recognize the name. But when I read that Kate looked to her best friends, a gay couple named Chris and Rich, as a model for how a marriage should work, memories came rushing back.
AskMen.com - Man in Speedo - Who would've thought that a tiny contraption that fits snugly around a man's jewels could become the subject of such intense debate?
Independent Bloggers’ Alliance: Black History: The First Klan - As W.E.B. DuBois noted, "It is always difficult to stop war, and doubly difficult to stop civil war… In the case of civil war, where the contending parties must rest face to face after peace, there can be no quick and perfect peace." As reported by Mississippi Governor Sharkey in 1866, disorder, lack of control and lawlessness were widespread; in some states armed bands of Confederate soldiers roamed at will. Southerners seemed to take out on blacks all their wrath at the Federal government. They casually attacked and killed blacks whose bodies were left on the roads.
In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in math in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.
Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, said Janet Hyde, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led the study. And girls, who grew up believing it, wound up avoiding harder math classes.
“It keeps girls and women out of a lot of careers, particularly high-prestige, lucrative careers in science and technology,” Hyde said.
That’s changing, albeit slowly. Women are now earning 48 percent of undergraduate college degrees in math; they still lag far behind in physics and engineering.
But in primary and secondary school, girls have caught up, with researchers attributing that advance to increasing numbers of girls taking advanced math classes such as calculus.
I’ve known this all my life. Like I’ve said before, I suck at math. I did well enough to graduate from college.
Then there was college. At my university, the math department had a reputation when it came to algebra. People failed all the time. I did. Actually, I dropped before I failed. People transferred to other universities for a semester in order to take and pass algebra elsewhere, and then returned. I did. I went back to the local college in my hometown, where I took and failed algebra. I went back to my university and worked around it, taking and passing statistics and logic (also known as “math for poets” at my university). All the while, I was struggling with undiagnosed, untreated ADD, and as a result could only handle a partial class load after I hit the wall during my sophomore year.
At the time, there was a loophole when it came to statistics. If I took it and passed it, I would be exempt from taking algebra even though it was a prerequisite for statistics. So, I did. It wasn’t until a semester before I was scheduled to graduate (after taking six years to finish, by going part-time) that I found out different. My graduation advisor made a funny face when she looked over my records, and then informed that the loophole had closed, just before I took statistics. So, I wasn’t exempt. I would have to take algebra and pass it if I wanted to graduate.
I suppose I could have dropped off my books and walked awa. But then, she made another face. There was another loophole. The semester after I was scheduled to graduate, the algebra requirement was going to be dropped from my degree. I thought moment, and told her to move my graduation deadline back a semester. I would take one more elective and wait for the algebra requirement to be dropped. That’s what I did, and I graduated from college withouthaving to take algebra.
And I’ve always, always known girls who could run rings around me in math. (No major feat. By the time he gets to middle school, I’ve no doubt Parker will run rings around me in math. He’s a bright kid.) In fact, the people I knew in school who did best in math were mostly girls.
It’s not a matter of boys being better at math than girls, or vice versa. It’s a matter of some people being better at or more talented or gifted at math than other people. It doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t learn math. I can learn to paint, but no teacher can turn me into a Picasso or a Van Gough. Y’know?
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 25th from 13:30 to 13:53:
Barbara Fischkin: Why an Older Autism Mom Wishes Life Was as Simple as Mike Savage - Michael Savage, there is a new discussion in the autism community regarding whether we should revile you, or pity you? I have a third suggestion. Perhaps we should ask you if you'd like to see one of our best autism professionals yourself? By your own admission you sound like you, too, are on our kids' spectrum. There is the issue of "inappropriate outbursts." Sadly, our kids have them. Sadly it sounds like you do too.
Dana Milbank - Sorry We Asked, Sorry You Told - washingtonpost.com - It was tempting to think that Donnelly had been chosen by Democrats to sabotage the case against open military service for homosexuals. But Republicans had consented to the witness panel, which also included retired Army Maj. Gen. Vance Coleman, a black man who likened the current policy to racial segregation in the military, and retired Army Sgt. Maj. Brian Jones, who argued almost as passionately as Donnelly for the need to keep the military straight.
Crappy Hour: Why Is It That Elaine Donnelly Can’t Stop Thinking About Gay Sex? - Elaine Donnelly is a crazy right-wing lady who hates the idea of gays in the military so much that she just can't stop thinking about all the perverted things they do to one another and how other completely heterosexual people like her might get caught up in homosexual behavior. And if that sounds like the start to, like, every gay porn flick you've ever seen, well, that's because Elaine missed her calling as an erotic writer/lesbian and is instead writing porn into her Congressional testimony.
Truthdig - Reports - AIDS and the Myth of the Oversexed Negro - Conventional wisdom insists that habits die hard. Stereotypes die even harder. Ever since journalist/adventurer Henry Stanley Morton’s account of Lord Napier’s 1868 Ethiopian campaign was published by The New York Herald, Africa has remained, in the minds of Americans, an ungovernable jungle where half-naked pygmies, polygamists and pagans roam around, negotiating their existence in the midst of exotic primitive chaos.
TPMCafe | Talking Points Memo | World writes open letter to McCain - The entire world drafted an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) today, asking him to drop out of the U.S. presidential race and concede the presidency to Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois).
The Obama Man Crush | Views | TheRoot.com - Sure, women swoon, but have you ever noticed that guys, too, seem almost weak-kneed over the senator with mad skills and a million-dollar smile?
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 23rd through July 24th:
Hollywood Walk of Shame to Get $4.2 Million - Okay so let me get this right. $4.2 million dollars is going to be used to fixed cracks in concrete that feature the names of celebrities who are either dead or they themselves are millionaires. How about $4.2 million to go towards eradicating Los Angeles’ homeless problem?
Citizen Crain: McCain’s neurons - I am concerned about Senator John McCain's mental ability to perform well as president. Anyone can make a gaffe or mis-speak. However, there have been a string of errors from McCain recently that indicate to me that his neurons aren't firing quite optimally.
The G Spot: My heart vagina belongs to daddy - Oh well — Time magazine likes to cover its scarlet hussy soul in the virginal white of the purity balls. Sally Quinn's little kink is to masquerade as a Catholic. But then again, Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting liked to dress up as shepherdesses, didn't they? It's the same phenomenon, expressed in different ways: bloated, corrupt, hopelessly out-of-touch elites pretending to be what they're not, and hoping the moral virtue of the Little People will rub off on them, somehow.
From the Ashes of Neoliberalism — Center for Community Change - The neoliberal agenda has had devastating consequences. To change course, we will need to challenge the values of individualism and competition, and reintroduce the values of community and cooperation.
The Bilerico Project | John McCain Should Talk to the Real Expert on My Family - Me - My moms adopted me out of foster care when I was eleven years old. I'm seventeen now. I love my family. My moms provide for me in all the ways that other parents provide for their children. We have our problems just like everybody else, but in the end we take care of each other. We believe in each other.
XGW Bookshelf: Messy Spirituality | Ex-Gay Watch - Most churches reinforce this perfectionistic line of thinking, setting high standards for how their members should look and act and offering countless formulas for “godly” living that never quite work as well as advertised. The end result is pews full of people with smiles permanently in place who know all the right things to say to hide the disarray and dysfunction that lie just below the surface.
Feministe » The US Economy Is Completely Utterly Totally Screwed - These people are all scurrilous lying sacks of shit, selling you a bill of goods in service of their corporate masters. They are purposefully hiding from you the ugly ugly truth about the US economy, in order to “prevent panic”, which is code for “give the ultra-rich time to pocket their ill-gotten gains before the bottom falls out”.
“Gay guilt” & the lack of gay Mental Health blogs « Aethelread the Unread - By not being happy, self-confident and so on, I’m not just letting the side down by failing to be like everyone else. I’m also letting the side down because I’m providing ammunition for the sorts of people who still like to argue that being gay means living a lonely, sad and unfulfilled existence.
I wasn’t tagged for this, but after coming across Jill’s post, I couldn’t resist.
Julian has tagged me with a meme: The five most embarrassing tracks on my iPod. His are pretty great/horrendous (I too remember feeling like a super-hardcore 7th grader for loving “NIN,” and I too went to several “DMB” concerts). But here’s the thing: I have tons of embarrassing music on my iPod, but the most embarrassing of the embarrassing comes from this dude who I’m currently hanging out with who has the worst taste in music possibly ever (he’s pretty sweet in just about every way, but looking at his iTunes makes me want to weep). So he may or may not have sent me songs not only by Hilary Duff, but also by JoJo and Jordin Sparks. Yeah. I also may or may not have put both songs on repeat and muted my computer so that it would look like I listened to both of them when I haven’t.
Oh boy. I have something like something like over 4,000 songs on my 30 GB video iPod. There’s plenty of embarrassing stuff there.
I probably shouldn’t say this, but I work on K Street. I’ve even bumped into Robert Novak once, when we were both pedestrians, crossing the street in opposite directions. Now, I’ll have remember to keep an eye out, and look both ways before I cross the street, lest Robert Novak run into me.
I’m officially blaming it on gas prices, which probably isn’t too far off the mark. Metro ridership in D.C. is way up, and recently hit a new record.
Metro says it counted 854,638 riders on Friday, beating the old record by 4,000 passenger trips. Officials attribute the spike to a Washington Nationals baseball game, a Women of Faith Conference at the Verizon Center and tourists visiting the city.
So far, 20 of Metrorail’s top 25 highest ridership days in its 32-year history have been recorded this year. Many of the busiest days are generated by baseball games or big events like the Cherry Blossom Festival or the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
No wonder I can’t find a seat on the Metro. I used to let packed trains go by, because I could be almost certain that I would get a seat on the next train. That means I’d be able to take out the laptop and use that little bit of quiet time between work and home to catch up on some of the stuff I’ve been wanting to read.
But the trains are all crowded now, and by the time the third packed train goes by, I have to get on or get home late. So, what’s a guy to do?
Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 23rd from 07:59 to 15:15:
Fresh Intelligence : Radar Online : 10 Greatest Moments In Heterosexuality - Inspired by Big-Not-Gay-Al and his insistent heterosexuality, we got to thinking about other heteros persisting in their hetero-ness in the face of similarly vicious rumors. A list of of our Top 10 Greatest Moments In Heterosexuality follows!
PFLAG National Blog: Families on the Frontlines: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell . . . and Don’t be Transgender Either - Over 12,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual service men and women have been discharged under DA, DT. We may never know how many of those discharged were really transgender-identified people. We also don’t know how many transgender people who were discharged under DADT that did not get counted in the above number. We do know that some have been sent packing and DA, DT was the excuse the military used.
Booman Tribune ~ Dead Black Man Tasered 9 Times by White Cop - As we all know, African American men are well known as dangerous, crack smoking criminal degenerates (and always have been) and Mr. Pikes was undoubtedly a very evil, evil man. Even so, I think Officer Nugent just may have gone above and beyond the call of duty when he electrocuted Mr. Spikes to death for the crime of not responding quickly enough to the good Officer's commands. Indeed, one can only wonder if Officer Nugent, under similar circumstances, would have tasered a white suspect who was handcuffed and in his custody 9 fucking times in 14 goddamn minutes.
Another Bigot Claims a First Amendment “Right Not to Work” - To review: In the absence of some legislative abomination, there is no right of government employees, who owe their livelihood to taxpayers, to claim a plenary “religious exemption” from one’s duties. If you find your job offensive, then you have one and only natural right: the right to quit.
I don’t really care about the Madonna/Alex Rodriguez affair story, because I’m not married to either of them. But in this day and age why would anyone (who’s not “in the business” and getting paid for it) intentionally record their sexcapades on video? Why, when there are a thousand different ways for someone to get and distribute that video? How dumb do you have to be to make a ’sex tape’ nowadays?
I probably shouldn't say this, but I work on K Street. I've even bumped into Robert Novak once, when we were both pedestrians, crossing the street in opposite directions. Now, I'll have remember to keep an eye out, and look both ways before I cross the street, lest Robert Novak run into me.
I don't really care about the Madonna/Alex Rodriguez affair story, because I'm not married to either of them. But in this day and age why would anyone (who's not "in the business" and getting paid for it) intentionally record their sexcapades on video? Why, when there are a thousand different ways for someone to get and distribute that video? How dumb do you have to be to make a 'sex tape' nowadays?
Maybe I'm taking this the wrong way, and I know these aren't Warren Buffett’s actual words of widsom, but nothing irritates me more than hearing things like "Happiness comes from within," and "Find happiness in simple pleasures." From a billionaire? Easy for him to say...
Gimmick or no gimmick, I would sodance with Lance. Hey, I took ballroom dancing in college, and was pretty good at it. Later, I learned to two-step in a gay C&W bar, and was pretty popular because I was a good follower. Not like dragging around a sack of potatoes. So, Lance, you can lead if you want to...
I knew there was a reason I'm not buying an iPhone today. (Besides the fact that I don't "need" one, and the reality that I don't need to spend that much on a tech purchase. It looks like Apple's having a pretty bad day, along with people who did buy iPhones that currently don't work due to server problems.
My friends and I used to joke that in D.C. it's a law that in DC, you're never more than a block from Starbucks. When tourists stop me and ask where's nearest Starbucks, I usually end up pointing in three different directions. But that may change.
I'm getting tired of wanting to write, and needing to write, but not writing because writing is not my job. Anybody know anyone looking to hire a writer?
In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in math in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.
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