Just checking. . .

Is anyone alive out there?

So when my kids get measles . . .

because some parent believed in Andrew Wakefield's poorly conducted study linking the MMR vaccine to childhood autism and, thus, refused to have his kids vaccinated, can I expect a housecall from him?

We Can't Solve Health Care

But Congress will solve the problem that is on the minds of 47 million uninsured Americans: The BCS.

Really? Yes, really.

What the Superbowl Tells us about Norms & Culture

CBS, who will televise Superbowl 44, refused to broadcast an ad for ManCrunch.com, a gay dating Web site though it will broadcast an ad that is a Pro-Life ad,features Tim Tebowby, and was created by Focus on The Family.

It appears that at one point CBS rejected issue ads. Now it appears that CBS does not reject issue ads just issue ads from certain ideological dispositions.

CBS and the Superbowl: Trivializing culture for 44 years.

From CNN here and here.

The Ethics of Research

I wonder if this would make a good case-study on the ethics of research when gathering evidence to support your ideas.

James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old Conservative filmmaker, was arrested for attempting to infiltrate the office of State Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA). O'Keefe and three others were charged with "entering federal property under false pretenses and attempting to gain access to the Democrat’s office by posing as telephone repairmen." As two of the individuals, who were dressed up as telephone repair workers, tried to gain access to the phone system, O'Keefe, who was in the office, taped the interaction on his cell phone. The fourth individual was arrested in a car positioned a few blocks from the office. This individual was in possession of a listening device.

O'Keefe is known for paying someone to pose and a prostitute and film the prostitute with ACORN workers discussing how to circumvent the law. The videos were damaging to ACORN even though there may have been substantial edits to O'Keefe's film.

For more, read here.

Update: Here is a photo of O'Keefe, who is dressed as in pimp for the ACORN videos.

Quote of the Day

"It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me."

Former Presidential Candidate John "Country First" Edwards who admitted that he fathered a daughter with Rielle Hunter.

Sign of the Times

The new meme, according to Democracy in America and The Corner: Martha Coakley may lose the special election tomorrow because she stated that former bloody-sock Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan.

Look. I get that this may be considered a moment when the representative does not know the people. However, at what point do we say that there are times representatives should not be concerned with what the people know.

Interesting

According to the Buffalo News, the person orchestrating Mark McGwire's steroid apologia is Ari Fleischer.

Also, Fleischer crisis communication agency has been hired to promote the College Bowl Series.

Google and You Tube

That's how Rick Davis found Sarah Palin and selected her as VP.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Question of the Day: Would you go to Grad School?

An interesting piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Thomas Benton and a follow-up to a previous column by the author. The overall argument is that students, unless independently wealth, well connected, well supported, or already supported by a current position, should not pursue a Ph.D. in the Humanities because of institutional constraints e.g. too many students and not enough positions; the academic labor system; nepotism.

After reading the article, do you agree or disagree with the author's conclusions? And, more importantly, if given the opportunity, would you pursue a degree in the humanities?

And the War Continued

The war on history that is.

Today, Rudy "America's Mayor" Giuliani followed the lead of Conservative Political Advisor Mary Matalin in claiming that no terrorist attacks occurred under President Bush's watch though there have been domestic attacks under President Obama's watch.

Giuliani:


Matalin:


War is Peace.

Spoken Word of the Day: You're So Cool...

You're So Cool.
You're So Cool.
You're So Cool.

Poem of the Day: Sunday, December 13, 2009

Amusing Myself, Li Bai

Face wine not aware get dark Fall flower fill my clothes Drunk stand step stream moon Bird far person also few

Facing my wine, I did not see the dusk, Falling blossoms have filled the folds of my clothes. Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream, Birds are far off, people too are few.

More here.

Priorities....

Well, the public option for health care looks like it is dead. And rather than provide a meaningful debate on the issue, Congress needed time to debate something more important:

One PO dies and another finds new life. Sure the public option is effectively dead in the Senate, but a House subcommittee has passed a bill calling for a playoff to replace the entrenched and utterly pathetic BCS system to determine national champion in college football

I do like this claim by Ambinder: "Truly, the BCS is a broken system wobbling on the crutches of dollar signs and entrenched interests. In other words, it is the most quintessentially American system we could possibly have."

WTF, to borrow from the popular title used by others on here

So yeah, some of this post in rambling and a bit whinny, but believe me a very, very thankful I have a good job right now. However, I want to pass on some of the information that numbed me as a bit of a warning for my mates--snoop around on those faculty union sites at the schools where you interview as you might be amazed about what you can learn about salaries which can come in handy for negotiations. Now let the rambling begin.

I returned to my office today (as you know I have been away for a while) and struck up a conversation with one my colleagues that began with an insightful discourse on micro-brews (got to love them), which quickly digressed to unions, faculties, departments, wages, etc. Of these, ramblings the one that has stuck in my craw was our joint outrage over salaries and the ridiculous discrepancies among them within the units of my college/faculty. As A&H folks we are all used to the sciences, medical, business schools, and the like, making insane amounts more (for the many reasons we know), but I was slapped in the face almost quite literally upon learning that folks of my own rank (start date, tenure-rankings, etc.) make 7,000-10,000 dollars more than me to teach music, classical studies, English, and so on. I learned this bit of information from our faculty union which has a nifty little program that states what you should be making based on performance rankings, and you can just change departments to get the goods on their salaries. Although I expect English to make more than me, mainly because of the shear size of the departments and volume of revenues from students, I was taken aback by the vast amount of dollar seperation; a few grand, o.k. but 10,000 come on. Even though I stand a chance of reaping some of the benefits of such discrepancies if the wife can land a tenure-track job here, still. Moreover, what is truly f'ed up is that my colleague, who just made tenure makes considerably less (more than the numbers above) than her equals in other departments because a cliche in the salary-leveling that occurred several years ago. To keep up with affirmative action and women's equality, the university tried to bring the female profs to the pay of their male colleagues--the men were making 10s of thousands more per year. Instead of leveling across the university, the salaries were balanced within the departments, well my department at the said time, basically had no senior men, therefore there was no real imbalance so the women only recieved a modest pay increase (same for the men). Although, one can say my department was more progressive, these same women (and some now senior men) are still making, as I understand it much, much less than other tenured folks.

Well to even make things more crazy, which led to our discussion of money in the first place, there is a push to bring the university's pay scale to an equivalent amount to other comparable institutions in our region--an assistant prof at a comparable school makes 30,000 more than a prof at my institution and my university ranks higher than all but 2 of them.

The one element of good news, is that I make a few grand more than what our union's program says I should make.

I'm back from sabbatical...

and ready to jump into the blog.

Hello? hello?

Does this mean no year-end review?

Preventing Sexual Assault

Here are some tips on preventing sexual assault we all might find handy.

The Rhetoric of Appriopriateness: The Reality of Ficiton

Searching for MLK's "I Have A Dream," I found this: Stormtroopers' 9/11. It is a little eerie, a touch ironic, and contains everything from "I was on my way there" to "Emperor Palpatine knew" to "It justified our invasion of Hoth."

It is awkwardly humorous.

Um, Seriously?

Ok, here's one for the "What in the hell is the world coming to?" file. Apparently Levi Johnston is planning to pose Playgirl. Chew on that one for a while, Situationers.

New York Calorie Count

Last year, NY State enacted a policy that gave consumers information on the number of calories in every dish at restaurants throughout the state. Because of the knowledge imbalance between consumer and restaurant, NYS thought by providing people more information on what they eat they would be able to make better decisions, especially in regards to their calorie intake.

After the first year, studies show that the calorie labeling did not reduce calorie intake. In fact, calorie intake increased. In response, libertarians attempt to be first in line to proclaim the nanny state and nanny state legislation does not work.

Yet, something seems odd with the findings. According to the Times:

The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.

It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.

But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.

The findings, to be published Tuesday in the online version of the journal Health Affairs come amid the spreading popularity of calorie-counting proposals as a way to improve public health across the country.

There seems to be very little discussion of the economic climate and the connection between fast food sales and poverty stricken areas. While this study tentatively shows that, even with better information about food, consumers may not make better choices, the commentary does not discuss the context of the study as well as a Queens resident, interviewed by the Times, who was in Harlem for a job interview and, while at a McDonalds, ordered two cheeseburgers, which contain 600 calories, for two dollars:

When asked if he had checked the calories, he said: “It’s just cheap, so I buy it. I’m looking for the cheapest meal I can.”