Just now the President made a rather interesting speech about compromise w/r/t personal taxes. What was interesting was that there was already a very clear compromise and the one that he decided to agree to gave away far more than he needed to.
The politics of the thing are that, for whatever reason, the democrats don't have the votes to limit keeping the tax cuts in place (i.e., not raising taxes for those of us not caught in spin) to the "middle class," which evidently consists of 98% of the country. I get the 98% figure from the fact that this whole debate has to do with maintaining tax cuts for 2% of the country.
What just happened is that 2% of the country held 98% of the country hostage. There wasn't even a 50/50 split - 2% won about 70% of the concessions.
What's odd is that a Democrat, someone who ran on a platform of change and commitment to average people just did this. It is odd, and it isn't odd. I've no doubt that he's reading the climate in Washington and making some sort of decision based on that, but it is very very strange for him to attempt to claim that he should not engage in actual compromise and back-and-forth because then people would have more taken out of their paychecks in two weeks than before. That is true, but when we're talking about an average of 3,000 over a year for this average middle class family, it's not really very much money. On the other hand, the amount the 2% will be retaining IS a lot of money.
The genuinely difficult part came with the claim that two years hence, we will have to make serious cutbacks and talk maturely about the future of the nation. It seems that one could easily have done that now, simply by engaging in a compromise that may have cost him more in terms of short-term political soundbites, but would have been the right thing to do. Moreover, if he had let this simmer for a little, constituents would have gotten a balanced compromise. We do have a democracy and while representatives may feel free to vote for their own interests when they don't hear the voices of their constituents, subjecting this to public debate and media coverage would have resulted in more than enough political pressure.
But maybe this ignorance of the power of public sentiment is consistent with the belief that 2% of the country is the equivalent of 98% of the country. Perhaps most of us just don't count.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
New Rule
Company-wide email requests for assistance MUST be preceeded by, at a minimum, a google search with regards to your request. You must determine, before sending your email, whether it is absurd and in particular, whether it requires greater detail/specificity. For example, you cannot send an email to thousands of people you don't know asking, does anyone know of a lawyer in Africa? To clarify, "lawyers" aren't a generic commodity and "Africa" does not have a uniform legal code or mode of judicial implementation. Obviously, if it is just a quiz or survey question you can send it, but I would imagine that is well outside the bounds of approved use for such emails.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Census 2010 - Race & Ethnicity
Ordinarily, I obviously couldn't care less about the census. It is a tragically and permanently flawed entity that pretends to count people and take in a little biographical information about them as well. It counts very poorly and takes in very little data. And a massive number of human beings are actually employed to walk around and count people. Truly massive. I mean, it's just obviously idiotic but so are a lot of things (not keeping subway trains running on schedule during rush hour comes to mind).
But this year, they're switching things up in the race section. In fact, dramatically so. Hispanics/Latinos etc. are no longer a race - they are an ethnicity and they get their own question, separate from the race question.
At first that seemed kind of cool. I get irritable when I have to guess at checking boxes to define who I am on a form. I've called and complained and refused to fill things out on this basis. And I don't appreciate the idea that one of my ancestors should trump another in terms of government or statistical importance. But then I noticed the second part - that there was no hispanic for race.
Then, I was confused. I know there are people who feel strongly that this is the case - hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, and that's cool. But I just don't know what the heck you are supposed to check of what is left in the "race" section.
(Here is a copy so I don't go painstakingly through it)
You basically get to choose white, black, native of some area where we care about natives, or asian. For some categories (natives and asians) they give you a lot of options in terms of identifying yourself. For others (whites and blacks) you get an extremely cursory discussion. I mean, really? The Alaskan Natives get to write down the individual tribe they are in and you expect people to check a box marked with a color because some of their ancestors were on the same continent with a bunch of other people?
So annoyed with this, I do some quick research and stumble upon the decision to make this change. It's a bit of madness throughout, with, for example, small groups of people insisting on recognition but then there was a pretty fascinating bit of information about one of the race categories - as of this census, "American Indian" includes natives of central and south america.
You may have no idea why that matters. It matters to me, for example, because then I get to check a box that feels more racially exact than marking a color. Like many Hispanics, my Hispanic heritage is a mix of native Spanish and native Mexican. Which means, in part, I am now officially for census purposes, American Indian.
Moving forward one more step, imagine if a lot more people (including those crazy liberals I mentioned who count people individually on the street) think this through? I have a feeling there will be a massive upsurge in the number of American Indians. So that's one issue.
But before I found the entertaining bit about defining my own race, I started searching because I realized I really had no idea what they were basing these categorizations on. Why did a race suddenly turn into an ethnicity and what was that supposed to mean? (it sounds absurdly offensive to me, while I understand and respect that the opposite is true for others)
So I searched rapidly, again, and stumbled on this article.
I read the first fellow/person's first few sentences and shook my head out of its reading slumber as I realized I was reading something very very old. Dalton Conley states you can only have one race and makes the incredibly weird comment, "You can identify ethnically as Irish and Polish, but you have to be essentially either black or white." So, a) do you mean that there are only two races? why two and not one or two and not four? why?, and b) assuming you are not absurd and do not believe there are only black and white people, why would all people of Irish or Polish heritage have to be black or white? I mean, it was weird and I assumed, I think quite reasonably, that it was an old racist thing. Nope. 2003.
Okay, so I read on. "The fundamental difference is that race is socially imposed and hierarchical. There is an inequality built into the system. Furthermore, you have no control over your race; it's how you're perceived by others." Wow. I mean, that's just wildly incorrect. If you read it closely, rather, it is. See, the sentence structure actually says that "race is socially imposed," which means it is not an independent thing. It's just magically invented by society. Weird. Then it says, reifing the earlier point, that you can't "control" race, that it is defined as how others perceive you. First off, those two phrases contradict each other because if something is controlled by how others perceive you, you can always change yourself to change the way others perceive you. But regardless, it's useless as it just sounds like prattle to me.
Next up: John Cheng. John, unfortunately, is way off base too. "Ethnicity isn't just a question of affiliation; it's also a question of choice. It's also a question of group membership. And it's usually associated with a geographic region. It's also often confused or conflated with nationality, but that's not the same thing. Today people identify with ethnicity positively because they see themselves as being part of that group. People can't just simply say, "Well, I want to become a member of that race." You either are or are not a member of that race. Whereas, if you wanted to look at ethnicity based on culture, you could learn a language, you can learn customs - there are things that you can learn so that you could belong to that group."
John totally weirded me out because he makes ethnicity sound like a club you can join. You CANNOT join an ethnicity. That isn't how it works. He doesn't seem to understand at all how it works. It also is not optional and has zero to do with choice. In all truth, ethnicity is basically a way we came up with of defining cultures that don't rise to the level of being interesting enough or don't have stories sad enough to define as races. As someone pointed out later, Irish used to be a race in America, back when Irish weren't allowed in places and signs were posted saying they wouldn't give any work to the Irish. Then they moved up and suddenly, they're just white, with a little Irish "ethnicity" dropped in. See that I also find offensive. But it's not worth going into the struggles of the Irish.
Next up, Sumi Cho: "In the law, I think there's a failure to seriously grasp the significance of the impact of racial exclusion and white supremacy in this society." Huh? Really? What cases have you been reading? It's pretty much explicitly spelled out and has been addressed about a million times over in lower court rulings and legislation. It's also a really dated view - I would appreciate it if these "scholars" picked up on the fact that they are staring into a class/wealth divide, not a race divide. But let's continue on.
"There are many who don't believe that racial divisions are much different from ethnicity-based divisions; i.e., what African Americans have faced in this country is little different from what Irish Americans or Italian Americans have faced." Given that I just brought up the Irish and their treatment, I'll bite. Yes, not the same thing. But I'll give you that only because of course it's not the same thing as we're not talking about the same thing. (quick side-bar, the italians were WAY better off than the Irish - that is an offensive comparison) That really doesn't help with defining race at all and the situation is WAY WAY more complicated than simply comparing apples to apples between the irish and african-americans, but whatever.
To finish up: "There's an asymmetry that's important to keep in mind when we're talking about race versus ethnicity. Yet politicians deliberately further this non-distinction between race and ethnicity, especially conservative politicians who want to downplay the significance of racial discrimination in this country." I think the irony here is that I am going through all this trying to find out what a "race" is. I started because I was trying to figure out what I was meant to check on the census form. And as I was going through I started thinking about friends of mine and wondering what they would check, how they were supposed to define themselves in a little box under "Race." I'm trying to think of groups I see discriminated against (old people, homeless people, ugly people, fat people, young adults) but none of the pictures that are coming up are racial. Sure, the imaginary people or memories of people I'm conjuring up have colors, and if I had to I could put some of them into one of three big categories, but it really doesn't play into the everyday.
By which I don't mean to say there isn't discrimination because of course there is and as I told my high school students a few years back, don't forget that racism goes in every direction and comes from every conceivable source. But I think there is a very significant generation gap here, perhaps even in the course of a decade, I don't know. But things have really changed. You see it in people socializing together. You see it in who people are willing to vote for. You see it in (something that always drove me insane) people not being described to you in part via their race. Which begs the question of why I care that I lost a race. I see a racial categorization as society's way of saying it cares. Losing that means society doesn't care anymore. Making it an ethnicity that has its own race diminishes the significance of my heritage. So I'm offended. It's not some "decision" I made about people I want to hang out with or cultural traditions I want to carry on - I have no traditions and don't hang out with anyone who does. It's the opposite of that, it's the race that he was defining. It's something you are born with and that is that.
But this year, they're switching things up in the race section. In fact, dramatically so. Hispanics/Latinos etc. are no longer a race - they are an ethnicity and they get their own question, separate from the race question.
At first that seemed kind of cool. I get irritable when I have to guess at checking boxes to define who I am on a form. I've called and complained and refused to fill things out on this basis. And I don't appreciate the idea that one of my ancestors should trump another in terms of government or statistical importance. But then I noticed the second part - that there was no hispanic for race.
Then, I was confused. I know there are people who feel strongly that this is the case - hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, and that's cool. But I just don't know what the heck you are supposed to check of what is left in the "race" section.
(Here is a copy so I don't go painstakingly through it)
You basically get to choose white, black, native of some area where we care about natives, or asian. For some categories (natives and asians) they give you a lot of options in terms of identifying yourself. For others (whites and blacks) you get an extremely cursory discussion. I mean, really? The Alaskan Natives get to write down the individual tribe they are in and you expect people to check a box marked with a color because some of their ancestors were on the same continent with a bunch of other people?
So annoyed with this, I do some quick research and stumble upon the decision to make this change. It's a bit of madness throughout, with, for example, small groups of people insisting on recognition but then there was a pretty fascinating bit of information about one of the race categories - as of this census, "American Indian" includes natives of central and south america.
You may have no idea why that matters. It matters to me, for example, because then I get to check a box that feels more racially exact than marking a color. Like many Hispanics, my Hispanic heritage is a mix of native Spanish and native Mexican. Which means, in part, I am now officially for census purposes, American Indian.
Moving forward one more step, imagine if a lot more people (including those crazy liberals I mentioned who count people individually on the street) think this through? I have a feeling there will be a massive upsurge in the number of American Indians. So that's one issue.
But before I found the entertaining bit about defining my own race, I started searching because I realized I really had no idea what they were basing these categorizations on. Why did a race suddenly turn into an ethnicity and what was that supposed to mean? (it sounds absurdly offensive to me, while I understand and respect that the opposite is true for others)
So I searched rapidly, again, and stumbled on this article.
I read the first fellow/person's first few sentences and shook my head out of its reading slumber as I realized I was reading something very very old. Dalton Conley states you can only have one race and makes the incredibly weird comment, "You can identify ethnically as Irish and Polish, but you have to be essentially either black or white." So, a) do you mean that there are only two races? why two and not one or two and not four? why?, and b) assuming you are not absurd and do not believe there are only black and white people, why would all people of Irish or Polish heritage have to be black or white? I mean, it was weird and I assumed, I think quite reasonably, that it was an old racist thing. Nope. 2003.
Okay, so I read on. "The fundamental difference is that race is socially imposed and hierarchical. There is an inequality built into the system. Furthermore, you have no control over your race; it's how you're perceived by others." Wow. I mean, that's just wildly incorrect. If you read it closely, rather, it is. See, the sentence structure actually says that "race is socially imposed," which means it is not an independent thing. It's just magically invented by society. Weird. Then it says, reifing the earlier point, that you can't "control" race, that it is defined as how others perceive you. First off, those two phrases contradict each other because if something is controlled by how others perceive you, you can always change yourself to change the way others perceive you. But regardless, it's useless as it just sounds like prattle to me.
Next up: John Cheng. John, unfortunately, is way off base too. "Ethnicity isn't just a question of affiliation; it's also a question of choice. It's also a question of group membership. And it's usually associated with a geographic region. It's also often confused or conflated with nationality, but that's not the same thing. Today people identify with ethnicity positively because they see themselves as being part of that group. People can't just simply say, "Well, I want to become a member of that race." You either are or are not a member of that race. Whereas, if you wanted to look at ethnicity based on culture, you could learn a language, you can learn customs - there are things that you can learn so that you could belong to that group."
John totally weirded me out because he makes ethnicity sound like a club you can join. You CANNOT join an ethnicity. That isn't how it works. He doesn't seem to understand at all how it works. It also is not optional and has zero to do with choice. In all truth, ethnicity is basically a way we came up with of defining cultures that don't rise to the level of being interesting enough or don't have stories sad enough to define as races. As someone pointed out later, Irish used to be a race in America, back when Irish weren't allowed in places and signs were posted saying they wouldn't give any work to the Irish. Then they moved up and suddenly, they're just white, with a little Irish "ethnicity" dropped in. See that I also find offensive. But it's not worth going into the struggles of the Irish.
Next up, Sumi Cho: "In the law, I think there's a failure to seriously grasp the significance of the impact of racial exclusion and white supremacy in this society." Huh? Really? What cases have you been reading? It's pretty much explicitly spelled out and has been addressed about a million times over in lower court rulings and legislation. It's also a really dated view - I would appreciate it if these "scholars" picked up on the fact that they are staring into a class/wealth divide, not a race divide. But let's continue on.
"There are many who don't believe that racial divisions are much different from ethnicity-based divisions; i.e., what African Americans have faced in this country is little different from what Irish Americans or Italian Americans have faced." Given that I just brought up the Irish and their treatment, I'll bite. Yes, not the same thing. But I'll give you that only because of course it's not the same thing as we're not talking about the same thing. (quick side-bar, the italians were WAY better off than the Irish - that is an offensive comparison) That really doesn't help with defining race at all and the situation is WAY WAY more complicated than simply comparing apples to apples between the irish and african-americans, but whatever.
To finish up: "There's an asymmetry that's important to keep in mind when we're talking about race versus ethnicity. Yet politicians deliberately further this non-distinction between race and ethnicity, especially conservative politicians who want to downplay the significance of racial discrimination in this country." I think the irony here is that I am going through all this trying to find out what a "race" is. I started because I was trying to figure out what I was meant to check on the census form. And as I was going through I started thinking about friends of mine and wondering what they would check, how they were supposed to define themselves in a little box under "Race." I'm trying to think of groups I see discriminated against (old people, homeless people, ugly people, fat people, young adults) but none of the pictures that are coming up are racial. Sure, the imaginary people or memories of people I'm conjuring up have colors, and if I had to I could put some of them into one of three big categories, but it really doesn't play into the everyday.
By which I don't mean to say there isn't discrimination because of course there is and as I told my high school students a few years back, don't forget that racism goes in every direction and comes from every conceivable source. But I think there is a very significant generation gap here, perhaps even in the course of a decade, I don't know. But things have really changed. You see it in people socializing together. You see it in who people are willing to vote for. You see it in (something that always drove me insane) people not being described to you in part via their race. Which begs the question of why I care that I lost a race. I see a racial categorization as society's way of saying it cares. Losing that means society doesn't care anymore. Making it an ethnicity that has its own race diminishes the significance of my heritage. So I'm offended. It's not some "decision" I made about people I want to hang out with or cultural traditions I want to carry on - I have no traditions and don't hang out with anyone who does. It's the opposite of that, it's the race that he was defining. It's something you are born with and that is that.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Can't use your old plates because you're missing too many?
I honestly can think of absolutely no one who uses a computer who I could share this with, but I am sure there are plenty of people out there who can use this information and I think it's rather fascinating so here goes.
Summary: There is an online store called Replacements, Ltd. Basically, they have tons of china and silver and that sort of thing and while they do carry patterns that are still in stores, the hook is that they carry discontinued lines as well. So if you broke too many tea cups from the set you got X number of years ago, you have a chance to replace them.
My relationship with them started via some spam a year or more ago. Evidently, some pattern of china, of which I had bought some for a friend's wedding at some point (I can only assume), had been discontinued. However, there was still some available at Replacements, Ltd. I think I ignored the first few emails and then clicked through, out of curiosity, as it was obvious it wasn't spam.
The pattern of the first set of plates was really lovely and I think about them to this day (no really - charming bright floating butterflies - sort of a calming daydream). Since then, they've been sending me hideous sets that I can't imagine anyone I know ever wanted but taste cannot be bought, borrowed or stolen. In any case, I appreciate the business plan and in particular the creativity.
The store was founded in 1981 by a guy and evidently has an "inventory of 13 million pieces in more than 300,000 patterns, some over 100 years old." Which is, of course, insane. They even have a 12,000 square foot showroom. They even go and search for your patterns for you when you can't find them.
Anyways, just a shout out to a rather innovative business plan for the material era, particularly as we drift back into being more economical. No reason to throw out a whole set of plates because a few are broken or missing when you can actually replace them...
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