Why Not Study Archtitecture? Because…

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I love being an architect. The education is rich and rewarding, drawing on skills of history and criticism, logic and math and art in a wonderful and often irrational coexistence. For those of you who want to study architecture, I couldn’t think of a more engaging pursuit, engaging all parts of the brain.

For those of you who want to become an architect, however, here is a recent job posting in Craigslist. This is a grim reminder of what you have to look forward to.  (emphasis mine)

… have significant experience with various building types… have good management and organization skills combined with a high level of design ability.

[Responsibilities and qualifications:]

• 3d Modeling, design and construction documentation, presentation materials and competition entries
• Coordination with consultants
• Professional degree in architecture, planning, urban design or interiors
• 4-8 years experience as intermediate architect (strong 3d and AutoCAD skills mandatory)
• Friendly, outgoing personality with strong organizational, collaboration and communication skills
• Ability to handle multiple deadlines and collaborate with in-house and consultant staff
• Proficiency in Excel, AutoCAD, Revit and 3-D modeling software

  • Compensation: $15.00 – $20.00/hr

 

So let paraphrase… They want an  architect with a professional degree, 4-8 years experience, strong design skill, ability to produce contract docs (blueprints for you greenhorns) and proficiency with a battery of software. They expect this person to have strong organizational and communication skills.

And they want all of this for about the same salary my  daughter in college is getting as a baby sitter. And they still have the audacity to ask that person to be friendly and outgoing.

Unskewed Polls and the (Forthcoming) Election Conspiracy

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The 2012 race may not rate high on the historic index of elections but I believe that it will be notoriously remembered as the largest mass disconnect from reality witnessed in modern elections. Romney’s extraordinary gift for shape-shifting and policy hypocrisy was met in-kind by the Republicans’ willingness to see him through the very singular lens of that day’s political expedience. In an era where it is quite easy for the average voter verify the truthfulness of their politicians, reality is obfuscated with equal ease. As quickly as real information becomes available, disinformation responds like a rapidly mutating virus. And I can think of no finer example than UnSkewed Polls. As the election stands today, I think that the real legacy of UnSkewed Polls is yet to come.

The September polls showed Obama putting some very clear margins between himself and Romney. Naturally most conservatives were dispirited by this trend. Not content with reality, along comes Dean Chambers who set about creating his own alternate-reality and Unskewed Polls was born.

Chambers decided that all the pollsters were over-sampling Democrats in their surveys which, in turn, produced a Democratic bias in the poll results. He much preferred the results from Rasmussen’s over-sampling of Republicans so he adjusted all of the other polls accordingly. In an instant, Romney went from a two point deficit to being seven points up. Brilliant!

We have five days left until the election and the prognostication business is brisk but still not showing the love for Romney. Rolling October Forecast has Obama winning the EV 281-257; Electoral Vote gives it to Obama 299-206; Talking Points Memo projects Obama at 303-191; FiveThirtyEight predicts Obama 300-238; and Intrade has Obama’s chances of victory at 68.2%. I’m sure you see a trend here. And, of course, we have our outlier at UnSkewed Polls that projects a Romney win with 321 EV to Obama’s 217.

From a statistical point of view, right now the odds running against Romney are roughly 2:1. Even a drunk conventioneer in Vegas would think twice before putting their stack on Romney’s square. It is not impossible for Romney to win, it is just less likely. And while it is possible that I may be showered with I-told-you-so this Wednesday, I’m reasonably confident that I will get to enjoy some unskewed schadenfreude next week. Following that, I hope that UnSkewed Polls will simply be humiliated into obscurity.

Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen. On the contrary, UnSkewed Polls will rise up to serve a whole new purpose. It will be proof of Democratic election fraud and conspiracy. Their revised projection numbers are well outside of the margin for error and and their followers accept them as a truth. Chambers and his devotees know that Romney will win. And if he doesn’t win, their “evidence-based” certitude will leave little doubt that the election was somehow fixed. The ensuing cacophony of speculation will include everything other than the possibility that UnSkewed Polls was wrong.

In short order, snippets of evidence will crop up on conservative blogs. A stock photo of a bus filled with blacks will be posted (clearly crossing the state line with illegal voters). A friend of a friend who worked at a polling station will expose the dirty truth of how they tampered with the machines and pseudo experts will validate the story. Others will ask if an election official really died of a heart attack or was Obama cleaning things up? And Fox will do its part by frequently reporting that “There are some people who say…” The conspiracy will get a name like Skewergate and I imagine that their subscribers will actually like being call Skewers (sticking it to the Prez).

One of the strengths of this conspiracy is that it will play rather nicely into the conservative narrative of the proposed Voter ID laws. Mike Turzai not withstanding, those laws were marketed as a need to reduce voter fraud. With the exception of a few very red states, most of those bills have been overturned or ruled unenforceable for this election. An Obama victory coupled with UnSkewed Polls will, in their minds, vindicate the need for such laws.

All of this will come none-too-soon for the wingnuts. It will be their new weapon-of-choice to delegitimize Obama’s presidency. The birther thing has gotten a bad comb-over and, inexplicably, no-one seems to care that Frank Marshal Davis is Obama’s real father. Now I can’t say with certainty that this will happen, but if I had a stack of chips I’d sooner put it on the likelihood of a skewergate than a Romney victory.

Article first published as UnSkewed Polls and Election Conspiracy on Blogcritics.

Amazon Binder Reviews

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Tuesday night’s favorite new meme found its way onto to the review pages of Amazon for Avery binders. A sampling:

 

 

 

Product not as advertised,October 18, 2012Product came with no women of any kind. Company needs to square its sales pitch with that of its national spokespeople.

 
Great place to keep women in their place,October 18, 2012

Before Tuesday I had no idea WHERE to keep my women, but I do now! Thank-you binders. For years I had to search through paper after paper to find the right woman, now I can keep them in their place…and alphabetically too! If I want to call up Joan Doe I can and easy too….just grab the right binder and BAM there she is, saves so much time of relentless searches! I just have to have Joan home by four, she has to make dinner for the kids.

 

One Missing Bit of Information You Might Want To Know,October 18, 2012

For any of you who might be considering, like me, purchasing this binder based on the reviews, let me just point out one glaring omission: While this is a lovely, multi-purpose binder, IT DOES NOT COME WITH WOMEN. Presumably one is expected to find women on one’s own, or contact women’s groups who are supposedly eager to help stock your empty binder with women.

For a first time buyer like myself, I have to say I would rather have waited until I had accumulated a few women before investing in a binder. Just a little warning for prospective buyers.

Easily the most comfortable binder I’ve ever lived in,October 18, 2012

I just cannot say enough about this binder! It’s so cozy and homey on the inside, yet classy and sophisticated on the outside. I sleep like a baby in this binder! I just wish it had a bathroom. Can’t have it all, I guess :)

 

Confirmation of daughter’s name,October 18, 2012

Who would have thought a woman like me, living in a binder, would have had the forethought to name my daughter Avery? But I did, and boy am I glad. Now she can live in a binder with her name on it, but not seem haughty or overly masculine. Of course, I run the risk of seeming proud–such an unfeminine trait!–so I will give my manly husband all the credit for Avery’s name.

 

Need a binder with more pockets!,October 18, 2012

This binder did fit me and the other sister wives comfortably, but we found that we could use more pockets for storing our belongings – like our list of rules and the sleeping with the husband schedule. THANKS FOR LISTENING! (We’re not used to being heard)

 

math too complicated!,October 18, 2012

I thought I could handle this binder. I hear as a stay at home mom, my pay would be well over 100k. Is that what stay at home dads get? Should I multiply that by 72%? And then do the woman in the binder only get 72% of that answer? ‘Cause that still seems like a lot. Ugggghh! Frustrated and overwhelmed, I couldn’t make sense of the math and gave up. Now the binder is stuffed to the back of the closest like all my other poor choices and kitchen gadgets. Don’t waste your money and complicate your life. Sometimes the good old fashioned way works best.

Ann Dunham and Her Prolotariat Porn

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The one thing I dread about re-electing Obama is having to endure another four years of comically inept conspiracies.

The latest version of Barrack Obama’s real history embraces the notion that Frank Marshall Davis, a notorious communist agitator, was in fact Obama’s most influential mentor. At least, this is what Paul Kengor argues in his new book, The Communist. It makes perfect sense that during Obama’s high-school years, while smoking weed, skipping class to shoot buckets and dabbling in coke, learned that it might be pretty cool to lead a communist take-over of the world.

However, never let it be said that conspiracy theorists aren’t good story tellers. Davis as an influential mentor, by itself, just wasn’t fun enough. Too much crap about ideology and intellectualism, using lots of words that I have to look up and other forcing-me-to-think bullshit. Nope. This story needed help and who could be more qualified with fiction than the right-wing blogosphere? The (new and improved) truth has just been released and with a few taps on Google, you can learn what the librul lamestream media is hiding. We now have the sordid details of Obama’s mother, “posing nude for communist Frank Marshall Davis´ “subversive” magazines.” And what could make more sense than to publish nudie pictures in communist propaganda.

Yet, like a paella without saffron, something was still missing. Bombshell: Frank Marshal Davis is Obama’s real father. Ah, perfect! Like so many on the irrational right, WND took to this story like an alcoholic stumbling across a bottle of Mad Dog 20-20. It is ironic enough that WND concurrently endorses three mutually conflicting theories on Obama’s citizenship. Those hair-brained offerings variously argue that Obama is ineligible to be president because he was born in Kenya; he was born in Hawaii but his father was not a citizen, ergo Obama doesn’t meet the Natural Born Citizenship standard; or, he was born in Hawaii but before Hawaiian statehood. Now we have four to choose from.

Isn’t the first rule of a good lie to get your story strait?

“Middleton Mammary” Conspiracy Exposed!

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The ace investigative reporters at French magazine Closer have produced startling photographic evidence that the Duchess of Cambridge does, indeed, have breasts. There has been controversy surrounding the Middleton mammaries from the beginning of her relationship with Prince William over ten years ago.

Bubba Orbs and Mikey Mellon, co-founders of the organization Groping for the Truth, have alleged an international cover up has been going on for years. Keeping her breasts under wraps involved the complicity of hundreds, including high profile individuals from Great Britain, The United States and Italy. Some of the names that have been exposed include Alice Temperley, Prabal Gurung, and Alexander McQueen. It was less than a year ago that Prabal Gurung, who has a long-time relationship with First Lady Michelle Obama, had been implicated in a White House cover up.

When asked for their reaction to the recent photo of Kate Middleton’s breasts, Orbs responded, “Of course, we’re feeling up about all of this. We celebrated with a pair of milkshakes. ” He added, “We’re just grateful for the endowments that has given our organization such a great lift.”

This is the second vindication for the sleuths in as many months. Acting on a tip about Prince Harry, Orbs and Mellon were the nutcrackers whose Penisgate investigation exposed hard proof of the never-before-seen Royal Family Jewels.

When asked what’s next, they said that they plan to go to Florida, Virginia and Ohio in the United States. They are planning to track down rumors of an enormous boob that has appeared there but admit that it won’t be easy. According to Mellon, “Apparently it is constantly shifting positions and as of now we only have an etch-a-sketch of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Romney Kills Bin Laden!

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Carsten Koall/Getty Images

 

Apparently, in Ohio Republicans’ world-as-they-choose-to-see-it, a significant number believe that Mitt Romney is the guy who got Osama Bin Laden. No doubt, Mittens was able to sneak into the White House and take care of business because Barack Hussein Obama was busy forging birth certificates in a cave with fellow Moozlums.

In a recent PPP poll, 15% of Ohio Republicans thought that Mitt Romney was “more responsible” for Bin Laden’ death. Of those same Republicans, 47% “weren’t sure” who was responsible for Bin Ladens death.

There is not much I can add to this except to let out a big ol’ “Huh?”

Libertarianism: What is it, Anyway?

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While it is fair to say that there is fuzziness in the definition of any political label, libertarianism is certainly one of the hardest to nail down because there appears to be no widely accepted formal definition. So to be clear, the following description is my best understanding of the party, along with my usual disclaimer of being apocryphal and incomplete.

The root word of libertarian is “liberty,” of course, which is the core belief of the party. As such, an individual should have the unrestricted right live and pursue life as they choose; to manage their own property and belongings as they see fit; and to respect this right for all others equally. The moral principle is that behavior is guided by consequence and personal responsibility.

From a policy point-of-view this translates into a belief that we should aspire to the smallest possible government because this will have the greatest direct benefit to the individual and by turn, the economy and the society. Every individual should have the right to express and pursue all of their freedoms as ordained by the constitution. Civil restrictions and laws should be limited to the sole standard of protecting individual freedoms to the extent that those freedoms do not cause harm nor interfere with another individual’s same constitutionally granted freedoms.

Although libertarianism is not explicitly an economic model, the concept of laissez faire capitalism is naturally sympathetic to their core values. It is generally held that if the government were reduced in size with a corresponding reduction of taxation and spending there would be a direct benefit of a stronger economy. A free and open market is the only valid arbiter of somethings value to a society. If someone doesn’t actually have to pay for it then there is no way to index its real value. As such, government taxes hurt both the individual by reducing their personal resources and the economy simply by taking those resources out of the free-market economy and running it through a government spending program whose benefit is independent of the free market litmus test. Thus the value of that spending will always remain dubious.

Additionally, government spending (well intentioned or not) is inherently inefficient because they operate without competition and, therefor, the management practices are dictated by politicians and bureaucrats who have no risk or incentive to manage that program with economic viability.

Even programs that may be deemed to have a greater social good, ultimately will backfire. For instance, it makes no sense to subsidize solar panel manufactures because to do so artificially props up a company that would otherwise fail in a competitive market. What you are really doing is to weaken a private company (through taxes) thus damaging the broader economy in order to subsidize a weak company that the free market has already determined is not of value to that market, ergo. Worse, this subsidized competition in the market is an unfair advantage to those energy suppliers working solely within a competitive market structure.

Other government programs, though well intentioned, will similarly backfire and weaken the entire system. Unemployment benefits, for instance, is compassionate on the face of it by helping an individual through difficult times. However, not only do the aforementioned economic damages apply as a government program, there is a societal drain as well because those benefits will disincentivize the recipient to look for work that is actually productive by keeping them out of the natural market economy. Ultimately, everyone looses because this is not sustainable for long term economic growth.

The libertarian believes that the social needs will be better met by a higher participation of the private sector and local communities (by being able to keep and use more of their own money). This ability to meet those needs will be be augmented by reducing people’s social dependencies due to higher risk and and consequence of their own behavior. It is believed that without the safety-net of programs such as assistance to an unwed mothers, fewer women would risk such unplanned pregnancies.

*          *          *

I’ve been intrigued by libertarianism for a couple of decades. It would surprise many to learn how often it can overlap with liberalism. There is even a small faction who have been coined as liberaltarians. None-the-less, they have never quite been able to close the deal with me. But that’s an article for a different day.

Meanwhile, comments are encouraged and I would especially like to hear from real live libertarians who would like to correct or amend my description.

A Tale of Two Guns

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I was raised on a Wisconsin farm tended by the real-life incarnation of Oliver Wendell Douglas of the TV series, Green Acres. My father wasn’t much of a farmer but he was an avid hunter, and a pretty good one, too. As such, I grew up with a fairly impressive collection of firearms which I eventually learned to use well enough, though no-one ever called me sure-shot.

As a teenager, I might occasionally take the 45-70 off the rack, go to the back yard and pop off as many rounds as I figured my dad wouldn’t notice missing. I was on a farm, after all, and even if a neighbor did hear the gun shots they would have thought, correctly, that the only danger is to a rabbit or a fence post. I have genuinely fond memories of those warm summer afternoons when I defended the house against the hostile advances of bottles, tin cans and the occasional melon.

Let’s be honest, here. For their own sake guns can be truly seductive. A fine rifle has the craftsmanship of a Swiss watch with parts that mesh and click with a near poetic beauty. Yet, it retains the utility and ruggedness of a jeep – not the slightest hint of estrogen. What’s not to like? Form, function and beauty; this is a machine with an ergonomic heft that fits into your palm as an extension of your arm. You and the gun become one.

When a talented marks woman levels a rifle and sights down the barrel, she and the machine merge to create a powerful experience. She pulls the trigger and a loud crack from the barrel reports the excitement while the recoil resonates through her body. When that bullet hits it’s it mark there is a visceral excitement involving all of the senses, validating that union.

If you think I’m exaggerating, check out R. Lee Ermey gush like a twelve-year-old when he obliterates commie watermelons with a variety of firearms. In those moments, he is not thinking about the 2nd amendment or gun control, nor of property to defend or to take, or of God and Country. For now it’s just him, a semi-automatic and a bunch of dead watermelons that makes him squeal with delight. For a gun enthusiast the experience is visceral.

While you may think I’m picking on Ermey, I’m not, for two very good reasons. First is that even in his late sixties, if he told me to jump, I’d be wise to ask how high on the way up. Secondly, and more on point, I am absolutely no different. There is just no disguising the fact that guns are really, really fun. In one very limited sense, it could be argued that the experience is the same as a pinball wizard and his machine or an accomplished skier and his equipment.

What is different, of course, is that you can also use the gun to kill people and manage people’s behavior. (At least, in ways that are less practical than with a pinball machine.) If I’m a store clerk with a gun pointed at me, that gun owner is my new manager and I will obligingly empty the till into his sack. I also believe that the vast majority of gun-owners have a very sober and mature recognition of this. I know a hunter who couldn’t enjoy playing paint ball because pointing a gun at the other players was distressing and went against his instincts.

As a rule, however, owners are comfortable with the guns themselves if not downright fond of them. Most owners believe that they are both safe and facile with their use. Your average gun owner is also your average citizen, complete with the very natural and human goal of protecting themselves and their family, as well as their property and ideals. How dangerous our world really is can be rather subjective but there are few places left that aren’t touched by violence. With all that in mind, it would be almost crazy for a gun owner to not see that firearm as a friend and ally in defense from the many threats, both real and imagined, that lurk outside their doors. As one gun owner put it, “It just makes me feel safer.”

As it happens, my wife stands in exemplary contrast to my personal gun experiences. When I met her, she knew there was a middle-America largely because it was a five hour flight from New York to Los Angeles. Her sole experience with guns were nightly reports of drive-bys, hold-ups and the usual urban mayhem. She grew up in a world where the gun had no charm and no ulterior motive. Rather, it had a singular and ugly purpose. Whether for good or ill, it is nothing more than a tool for killing another person. She had no warm summer afternoons of picking off coke cans and the only thing she’s ever hunted was a cab.

Once, when she saw a shotgun on a table with barrel broken and no shells in the chamber (read “nonthreatening”), she grew pale and stiffened, as if she stumbled on a coiled and hissing rattler. I remember her discomfort, many years ago, when there was a gun in our house even though it was unloaded, in a case, safely buried in a closet and no ammunition. Like the viper she spied on the table it still, somehow, retained the ability to slither in the night and strike us in our sleep.

For anyone who lives in a city the anxiety that guns evoke is not particularly irrational, even if they or their family has never been a victim of gun violence. If you live in Los Angeles as I do, sooner or later you will have to detour home because of a police barricade that is investigating a shooting. I have seen police with weapons drawn just a few times which makes it, relatively, a lot. It is true that some city dwellers are safer than others but the reminders that a city is a dangerous place are constant and real.

John Atterberry, a music executive, was randomly shot and killed by a stranger who apparently was distraught over a recent break-up. This happened at an intersection that I have often walked with my wife when out for a movie and a drink. Ronni Chasen was shot and killed in her car by a would be robber on a bicycle at a stop-light in an affluent neighborhood. This incident was at a light on a commute route that I used for 6 years. Too often, in some way, we are able to locate ourselves at the site of a recent tragedy.

If the dangers are so thoroughly understood by the urban denizen, why would they want gun controls rather than carry one themselves? They share the same world with the same dangers and the same fundamental goals as the guy who sleeps with a Glock. They also have the goal of protecting themselves and their family, as well as their property and ideals. Just like the gun owner, they are making decisions about the cost to benefit of gun ownership and control laws.

However, in their world there really is a corollary between the number of guns on the street and the rate of gun violence. The idea of more law-biding citizens carrying as a deterrent to crime just won’t gain traction in those woods. This belief is drawn from a long history of prisons being choked with arrogant, stupid and brazen criminals despite three-strikes and the death penalty. Their conclusion is that owning a gun will not make them safer than simply having fewer guns on the street.

For these gun-control advocates, concealed carry and the expansion of gun-ownership rights has the same logic as using more landmines to make the city safer. My wife will never hold a gun much less keep one for personal safety. It just isn’t in her DNA. Whether legal or otherwise, another gun on the streets is perceived as just one more opportunity for someone to die a capricious and violent death. She and her family have racked up several lifetimes of living in big cities, and not one of them has been the victim of a gun crime. Still, the very idea of more guns out there just makes her feel less safe.

The gun-control debate has evolved into a litmus test of personal character and political values. We have become a divided culture with reasoned debate quickly devolving to hurling insults. No longer exchanging ideas, we find ourselves screaming with veins popping, “Why can’t you see what is so painfully obvious to me?” But it really isn’t that obvious. Most people never say out-loud what, in their hearts, is actually driving their beliefs. We aren’t allowed to say things like, “I just like them” or “they just scare me.”

However, with this in mind it should come as no surprise that we get little traction when we apply rational arguments to something that is much closer to a faith based position. At the most basic level, choosing to support gun owner rights or to support additional gun control laws is a personal and emotional calculation. Only then are the reasoned arguments developed to support those beliefs. Yet we bury this notion, and what we are left with is lobbing statistics, anecdotes, nuance arguments and idiotic excuses at each other only to perpetually fall on deaf ears. And we all know how well that’s been working.

Henderson Wave Bridge, Singapore

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The Henderson Wave Bridge is, perhaps, one of the most photogenic bridges in recent construction.The Southern Ridges is a 9km (5.6mi) trail in Singapore that connects a series of parks situated, not surprisingly, along the southern ridges that rims the city. The bridge is a popular pedestrian thoroughfare for trail users as well as a destination in itself with its undulating form creating resting areas and shelters while visitors take in the spectacular city views.

Completed in 2008, the bridge was a collaboration of IJP Corporation, London and RSP Architects Planners & Engineers of Singapore. The overall length of the bridge is 284m (932ft) in seven sections and clears 37m (118ft) at its highest point.

The Fallacy of Liberal Media Bias

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There are countless individuals and organizations dedicated to tirelessly monitoring all forms of media, breathlessly posting the latest bias infraction, another brick in their bombproof case for the liberal media bias. Not confined to conservatives, indeed not even to politics, forward sentries on the internet are vigilant for bias in everything from breastfeeding to UFO activity.

There are plenty of surveys, formal or otherwise, that show there is little disagreement that MSM bias is real. That said, it turns out that this bias is a bit like pornography – we all know it when we see but there is little agreement on a common definition. So this raises a question: If there is no consensus on what constitutes bias or how it swings, does the charge of systemic liberal bias in the MSM have a leg to to stand on?

Without doubt, there are credible instances of bias that show up in the media. Mindful of this, the many watchdog organizations, whether liberal or conservative, do provide a truly valuable service to consumers of news in a cyclonic industry. The edit of George Zimmerman’s 911 call really did alter an interpretation of the conversation. And while I support the assertion that the Trayvon Martin tragedy highlights the reality of ongoing social challenges, I still don’t like being lied to; especially if I might unwittingly use that lie to support my sympathies.

The Zimmerman 911 edit is a demonstrably credible instance (or sample) of media bias. Unfortunately, most news items rarely have such a clean empirical test for the alleged bias. Most often, they drift without moorings in a subjective, and very crowded harbor. Let’s say I wake up one morning to hear a story on the radio that Action News X’s Special Investigative Team (SpIT) report that authorities believe that the numerous recent UFO sightings were most likely a weather balloon.

If I believe with the conviction of fact that the weather balloon was indeed an alien spacecraft I would, in turn, have every reason to believe that the integrity of SpIT’s reporting was corrupted. If a story violates my beliefs, then how meaningful is it when I label the story as biased? This is only one example of how sample collection can be flawed. Researchers have yet to produce a broadly accepted method to rate news items quantitatively for bias; therefore, these studies will continue to be dogged with perfectly credible accusations of some sort of bias in sampling.

Yet, despite the growing mountains of evidence showing MSM bias, using this as proof for an information cartel driving a liberal bias (or any bias) in the MSM still does not pile higher than a hill of beans. On the contrary, this overwhelming evidence is actually doing a better job of proving the the opposite: that there is no systemic bias in the MSM. To make my point, let’s play with marbles.

Alice and I decide to toss a marble in a bucket for every MSM news story we see. The color of the marble we toss represents our interpretation of the story’s political bias with red for conservative, blue for liberal and purple for politically neutral. I am a known card-carrying liberal and Alice sleeps in Reagan jammies. Not surprisingly, a month later, her bucket is filled with 50% blue marbles, 45% purple marbles and 5% red marbles. She looks at my bucket and quips, “Still wearing your Trotsky PJs, I see,” and notes that it contains 50% red marbles, 45% purple marbles and 5% blue marbles. So we thoroughly mix our respective buckets together in a tub, take a few steps back and, guess what? The tub appears to be filled with purple marbles.

If only two people play the game, it is reasonable to assume that one player is less objective than the other and, thus, skews the merged results. When lots and lots of people are collecting samples of media bias, the quantitative integrity of the sample collection matters less and less because it is also reasonable to assume that this lack of integrity distributes equally across the political spectrum. Since the errors will tend to distribute evenly across the political spectrum, then the results will still produce the same mean. Translation: still no systemic MSM bias being shown.

A news report deemed false (whether real or imagined) is the most popular indictment of the MSM bias but is far from the only argument being used. There are myriads of studies using methods such as relativistically ranking how conservative or liberal a news organization is deemed. Other studies have surveyed editors and journalists about their political beliefs. Still others count the frequency of liberal versus conservative sourcing, or possibly, the frequency of the reporting of a politically charged event.

So far, however, none of these studies has proved unassailable and whether they favor the liberal or conservative hunches, they are uniformly burdened with an avalanche of criticisms. For instance, despite the revelation that a very large percentage of journalists self-identify as liberal, the effect of this on their neutrality in reporting is still supposition.

I’m not suggesting these studies are all useless, just suspect. Mostly what I am saying, though, is that despite 30 years of research, we are still no closer to a definitive position on bias in media. Like the the news sample based evidence, what can be said is that, flawed or not, when viewed collectively the widely varying results of these studies still aggregate into a net-neutral conclusion.

As I hope I’ve made clear, I do believe that media bias is alive and well. It is sometime egregious and clumsy, as in the Zimmerman edit, but is more often quite subtle. Imagine Glenn Beck spending a tearful hour decrying the horrors of socialized health care which is not news but is editorial content (to be generous). Following Beck, the news opens with a laboriously objective story about the legislative state of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Can that story be considered objective if it has been potentially poisoned by the preceding editorial? Obviously, I’m picking on a popular cable news network in this example but in all truthfulness, I believe that this kind of cross pollination of news and editorial is not unique to Fox.

Actually, it is my opinion (not allegation) that this is an industry wide practice. Naturally, news organizations noisily boast of their neutrality and fairness. And while performing this very public song and dance, they actually quietly expect us to see through their disguise. Why wouldn’t they? What better way to for a news organization to brand themselves in a competitive MSM market. If Fox viewers took a bizarre seismic shift to the left then I have every reason to think that we will soon see a soggy face tearfully lamenting how the social order ordained by the constitution is being undermined by greedy corporate interests. Rupert Murdoch may have a political agenda but his prime directive is profit.

I will even confess a natural suspicion of corporations. My anxiety shoots up when, for instance, the three largest oil companies have closed door meetings with the vice president (who also happens to be waging war against an oil producing nation). Egregiously discomforting exceptions not withstanding, out-of-hand assumptions about a media corporation’s motive is akin to “proving” that the driver was speeding because that car model is popular with professional auto racers.

Corporations don’t like me, they like money and I’m okay with that. They are businesses first and foremost, and that means that a cartel-like collusion on providing news with a liberal bias will still have to make business sense. As a nation, the media consumer market will split down the middle of the political divide so it would make no sense for a cartel to alienate an entire half of the media market. As Daniel Sutter argues in his excellent and thorough essay, there is no profit advantage for this kind of collusion.

So when a fan of a political candidate blasts media bias for the the poor coverage Ron Paul receives, I offer a simpler explanation. Maybe it’s because nobody likes him. The news, after all, is just responding to consumer demand. (And Ron Paul supporters do like consumer driven markets, don’t they?) Thus, while it’s true that I regularly want to kick in my TV, I take comfort in knowing that all over the country, spanning race, creed, income and political beliefs, millions of other Americans also want to kick in their TV. And I figure that as long as the MSM is pissing off all of us, the system is still working.

Article first published as The Fallacy of Liberal Media Bias on Blogcritics. Named BC editors pick.

Beyond Grace – FINAL FRIDAYs Screening Series

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Sarah and Urs Baur are friends of mine that eschewed city life a dozen years ago and moved to Topanga Canyon, a rustic community north of Los Angeles that could be described as Laurel Canyon without the angst. They love all things film and are filmmakers themselves.

Eight years ago, they put out a call for entries, rented a projector and invited a few hundred friends over for a backyard screening and the Topanga Film Festival, was born. Since then, the TFF has evolved to be a dynamic presence that brings together local creative professionals and other like-minded film seekers and has been steadily garnering attention from the broader film community.

TFF is now sponsoring a FINAL FRIDAYs Screening Series at the Topanga Library in an intimate venue followed by a Q & A with the filmmaker. The event series kicks off on Friday, April 27th at 7:30pm with Beyond Grace, a feature documentary directed by Sara Baur-Harding & Vijayalakshmi. The event is free but owing to the scale of the venue, it is recommended that you reserve a seat: wpb@topangafilmfestival.com

You can read more about the documentary here: Beyond Grace | Topanga Film Festival.

And, the trailer:

Concrete Monuments

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I love concrete. It is really neat stuff. It starts out as a liquid and in a short while, presto, we have stone. Architects will describe it as plastic because it can be formed into most any shape.

To make my point, check out these concrete monuments that were built mostly in former Yugoslavia by Tito to commemorate significant WWII battles or tragedies.

My Favorite App – Google Sky Map

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Google Sky Map

On my last vacation my wife and I dined nightly with the sound of the surf under the glorious Mexican night sky. Sorry, no app for that – yet. However, I’ve been in Los Angeles for nearly three decades where the city glare and atmospherics make star-gazing a rare treat.

 

We all know the names, Sagittarius, Taurus, Ursa Minor, etcetera, but how many can you actually identify? After twenty-five years of marriage, I’m still trying to impress my wife like a college kid. So I authoritatively point out Ursa Major and Polaris. “And all those other stars you see are, uh, all the other stars, or possibly planets or maybe a galaxy.” My wife was underwhelmed.

This trip I had a secret weapon. I pulled out my Android with Google Sky Map, and aimed the smart-phone at the sky. The screen then presented an augmented reality of what I we were looking at. It displayed the the same sky except with annotations and graphic indications of constellations.

What makes this app fascinating is how it works. It uses GPS and time to locate the “where and when” of your position on earth. The app also uses the built-in compass and accelerometer to determine where the phone is aiming. As you sweep your phone across the sky, the screen smoothly pans with it, displaying the information I needed to sound like an astronomy PhD. It has a neat search function, too. Enter “Jupiter,” for instance, and an arrow will direct you right to it. Other features include the ability to turn on and off layers such as constellations graphics, planets, stars, galaxies, horizon and meridian grids.

Google Sky is free and only available to android users. So I also tried out a couple of similar apps available on iPhones. The most similar to the Google Sky was The Night Sky, which I downloaded for a buck.

The Night Sky had some features not found on Google Sky. First was the ability to track orbiting satellites which I thought was kind of cool. The second was the optional swooshy space music. How can you not love that? You could also toggle between sky view and globe view which seems of greatest interest to satellite trackers but since this isn’t 1958 with Sputnik up there, I got bored pretty quickly. It also lacked the layer controls, meridian grid and search function of Google Sky.

Star Chart Screen Shot

Another iPhone option, and the most feature rich of the three, was Sky Chart which I downloaded for $4.99. In addition to having all of the same features as Google Sky, Sky chart could place a ghosted image top of the constellations which was very cool. Another nice feature included the additional information that one could summons for the celestial body. “Hey Honey, wanna know the altitude of Jupiter?” She didn’t.

Of the three, I preferred the graphics of Google Sky when viewing individual celestial objects. The stars are displayed nicely with a relative brightness to each other, making it easier to identify them in context. The planets, moon and sun had tiny images to represent them making them instantly identifiable. Sky Chart uses background images to show the Milky-way and other celestial “cloud” formations that some may appreciate but I felt that they interfered with legibility and I often found myself wishing I could turn this off. Star Chart’s trump card, however, are the ghost images that overlay the constellations. So if that is your primary interest, this is the way to go.

Which ever one you go with, they all represent why technology is so damn much fun. This is an app which is just as perfect for your first date as it is for your 400th.

Have a favorite app? Post it in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Email For A Rainy Day – The Eddie Sessions Session

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I recently received yet another impassioned “Why I Hate Obama” chain-mail article with the subject line, “Article from the: Wall Street Journal – by Eddie Sessions.” Predictably, the article did not appear in the Wall Street Journal and nobody knows who the hell Eddie Sessions is. (Good name for a rock star, though. “He just released his newest album, The Eddies Sessions Sessions.)

The article was one of those “kitchen sink” cases being made against Obama. You know, the ones that throw in every crime and misdemeanor imaginable committed by our president. Sessions can’t be taken seriously as journalist. With a vague amorphous evil lurking in every paragraph, though, I was forced to admire its horror story sensibilities.

It has been rainy and dreary of late, which made it perfect for parsing the arguments in the the email. This is an activity that is kind of like doing a crossword puzzle – it keeps the mind busy in a useless, incidental sort of of way. Sessions was a bit thin on facts but his scary language was downright Gothic. The article opens with:

I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group (George Soros anybody?) took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

I have no idea what the extent of Soros’ influence was on Obama, but then again, neither does the author. However, it would be incredibly naive to believe that both Jeb and George W. enjoyed political success without the mentor-ship and financial support from his father and his political machinery. So is mentor-ship and support a bad thing?

His next assertion is laugh-out-loud stupid. Nobody would make the political calculation that a “tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name” would be a best bet to groom for high political office.

After eight years of presumably supporting Bush I certainly understand why he would frame “facile speaking skills” as a pejorative. As I recall, however, GOP Patron Saint, Ronald Reagan, was an extremely talented communicator. Was he evil too?

Scary Stuff: “at some point early on somebody or some group… “
Facts Presented: Tall; half-white, half-black, African/Muslim name.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams of My Father” was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’” was the real author.

Last I read, republicans lionize ambition. It’s the lazy they hate!

Isn’t foresight a virtue? Memoirs are now routine and almost expected of anyone running for higher office. No reason to think that he wasn’t already thinking about high national office in 1995. A bit of foresight might have been nice when someone was contemplating lowering taxes while waging two wars.

There is no credible evidence to support the rumor that Bill Ayers was the actual author of Obama’s biographies. In fact, there is no credible evidence that the two were particularly close on in any respect. Note the qualifier “there are some who think.” Names, please.

Scary Stuff: “In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry.”
Facts Presented: “In a very real way, he has been a young man.”

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial.. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.

If he rarely voted on anything controversial, then why was his voting record demonized as being radically to the left? You can’t have it both ways. I will add that his public stance against the Iraq war in 2003 was hardly neutral.

“Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine” This is one of those things that you get to say without it meaning anything. You get to wink and imply “we all know what that means.” Mayor Daley is, of course, shorthand for graft, corruption and voter fraud. The author is implicitly suggesting that Barrack Obama was engaged in the same. PROVE IT!

Scary Stuff: ”He had the… formidable political machine at his disposal.”
Facts Presented: Obama was an Illinois legislator and a Senator.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital.. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He was running for the Senate at the time of 2004 DNC and was, by any metric, not an unknown. (BTW, he won.) The point of this paragraph is to implied a conspiracy. The author doesn’t articulate the nature of the conspiracy much less provide facts. This is just another “wink” and that is the beauty of a conspiracy. They don’t demand facts, because “the conspirators destroy the evidence.”

Scary Stuff: ”His bid for the presidency was… part of some greater game plan.”
Facts Presented: Was a US Senator, Keynote Speaker for 2004 DNC

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

Um, okay. I suppose most of this is true. He did outmaneuver Clinton, win the Iowa caucus and is charming and cool by many accounts. Iowa the antithesis of cool? Hmm. Never really thought about it. But he did have an army of volunteers.

Scary Stuff: Jim Jones and his zombi minions lay to waste vast swatches of the heartland.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska. It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984′s Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man.

I found some nice bipartisan ground to stand on here. I also though John McCain was inept. (See we’re not so different.) I used to think that Obama was lucky to run against McCain. After following the GOP primary, I see that republicans seem to have a taste for inept candidates.

Of course the MSM fell in love with Obama. A black man was winning the race to the White House. This is the kind of news that sells papers, not your ordinary everyday headline stuff. Why wouldn’t they love that. Even Fox found the mileage in this. However, I don’t remember any conservative bitching when the enormous coverage included Reverend Wright, Rezko real estate transactions, John Ayers, Obama’s citizenship and the repeated suggestion that he was a Muslim. All fully reported and followed up by the MSM.

Scary Stuff: “He picked Sarah Palin.”
Facts Presented: “He picked Sarah Palin”

Now, nearly 3 full years into his presidency, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President.. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Gilded years? Which ones were those? He went to college, he got out and he worked. Also, if you don’t believe Obama can speak without a tele-prompter, check out this video of Obama taking Questions at GOP House Issues Conference, in January, 2010. He waxed the floor with those guys and they wouldn’t let him back unless cameras were barred.

Scary Stuff: ”All of those gilded years have left him unprepared…”
Facts Presented: Presidents use tele-promters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of
Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain …

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

A partial list of senior terrorists that Obama “wished away,” usually with a predator:  Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, Ilyas Kashmiri, mmar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, Ali Saleh Farhan, Harun Fazul, Younis al-Mauritani, Baitullah Mahsud, Noordin Muhammad Top, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, Saleh al-Somali, ‘Abdallah Sa’id, Abdul Ghani Beradar (captured), Muhammad Haqqani, Qari Zafar, Hussein al-Yemeni, Dulmatin, Abu Ayyub, al-Masri, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, Sheik Saeed al-Masri, Hamza al-Jawfial.

BTW, any student of history would know that Islam spread incredibly quickly for a couple of centuries but expansion was largely stagnant or declining during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Scary Stuff: “His capacity to wish away some terrible realities [with] the… intention to destroy America and enslave the West. It knocked on the doors… having gained a foothold [with] the great crowds that greeted him…[not] having even the slightest grasp of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions. (Did I copy that quote correctly? AR)
Facts Presented: Crowds greeted him.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Anybody who thinks that Obama is a communist doesn’t know what the fucking word means. Show me his manifesto and I will gladly re-evaluate.

Scary Stuff: In the end it was never about the party.
Facts Presented: None.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an  “obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against “jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu Akbar.” The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

I agree that Obama overreacted regarding the Harvard Professor and said as much at the time. To Obama’s credit he apologized, if only gingerly.

Regarding Fort Hood, the warning against jumping to conclusions was made within minutes of the news breaking to the public and was perfectly appropriate. In what way is this reckless or imprudent?

In context, the Christmas Bomber quote is completely void of policy implications. He was congratulating the passengers on the plane who physically prevented an explosion and said it “…demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist.”

Scary Stuff: ”The absurdity was lost on no-one.” and the word “obstreperous.”
Facts Presented: Obama did cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America . He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when
no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

According The New York Times, from 9/11 through April 2011, 450 have been charged with terrorism or national security crimes. Of those 279, cases were settled in civilian courts, with a conviction rate of 82% and an average prison sentence of more than 15 years. By contrast, after a decade, Military tribunals have produced all of five convictions with most defendants receiving relatively short sentences. Two were set free years ago.

Footnote: It is also true that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s civilian trial in New York famously resulted in him being acquitted of 280 charges engendering conservative outrage. However, he was convicted of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property – you know, the charge that mattered. He is serving a life sentence so it is hardly a failure of justice.

Scary Stuff: “No one would even consider such an obscenity.”
Facts Presented: Strove to close Gitmo.

And finally, Eddie Sessions closes with some more rounds of GOP Kum Bay Ya:

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual’s life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America ?

Okay, this has gotten tedious, even for me. Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive GOP nominee, I thought that this exercise would be instructive. An argument is a position supported with facts or information. This article did not contain any arguments. It contained ad-hominem attacks, quotes out of context, false information, dis-proven rumors, baseless speculation and colorful language.

Learn this distinction because you will be hearing an awful lot more of it in the coming months. On the article as a whole:

Scary Stuff: If this were a movie it would be “Halloween III.”
Facts Presented: Obama is the President of the United States – so get over it!

Nick Gillespie Panics Over Helicopter Parents

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In his recent Reason article, “Stop Panicking Over Bullies“, Nick Gillespie is careful to acknowledge that bullying is wrong and is not to be tolerated. That said, he goes on to argue that the bullying crisis is, in reality, a declining problem with an overblown sense of crisis. To make his case, Gillespie used dated studies which Scottie Thomaston at Prop 8 Trial Tracker does an excellent job of challenging and setting the facts straight about. However, whether bullying is waxing or waning is hardly the point. If bullying exists, it is a problem, no qualifiers.

Ironically, it is Gillespie’s own hysteria that is most apparent as he rehashes some well-worn libertarian irritations and highlights a few new ones. He decries the abuses of helicopter parents, the New York School Board, and Congress prohibiting those under 16 from driving tractors. He suggests that anti-bullying laws are a threat to free speech and that they will lead to more lawsuits against school systems.

He warns of more bureaucracy and the further dilution of already limited resources for existing school programs. He deprecates the problem of bullying by conflating it with a culture of over-protectiveness. He states, “Now that schools are peanut-free, latex-free and soda-free, parents, administrators and teachers have got to worry about something.”

It quickly becomes clear that Gillespie is willing to trade the inherent social good of an anti-bullying campaign in deference to his need to vent his pet peeves.

He recommends that there should be distinctions between the “the serious abuse suffered by the kids in the movie Bully” and the everyday “lower-level harassment.” This reframes and trivializes bullying as kids just being kids. So I ask, who will decide for that kid if the bullying rates a two or rates a ten? How bad does it have to get before the bullying is addressed with more than a “suck-it-up” from parents and teachers? I’m sure that Gillespie could confidently assess the correct level of seriousness; however most bullied kids still experience it as a ten.

And the consequences are real. The risk to bullied students include school attendance and a performance drop, with obvious further effects. They are more likely to develop behavioral problems and to show a higher level of drug and alcohol abuse. According to the National Institutes of Health, both the bully and the victim are at higher risk of engaging in violent behavior. Most tragically, there are an increasing number of studies that find a positive link between teen suicide and bullying.

It is appropriate to worry about the cost of and resources for a program and to be mindful of the unintended consequences of anti-bullying laws. But that is not where Gillespie wants to go. For him, the real problem is overprotective parents and a meddlesome government. But denialism is not a solution, it is a run from the problem.

The problem is real and the facts point to solutions that do help. But the real tragedy is that Gillespie is putting his disdain for helicopter parents ahead of the best interests of creating a secure and positive environment for our children. It might make him feel good today but it is an irrational trade on the future.

Article first published as Nick Gillespie Panics Over Helicopter Parents on Blogcritics.

C.J. Pressma – A Kentucky Photographer

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Many years ago, during my “photography stage” I stumbled into an obscure institute in Louisville, Kentucky called the Center For Photographic Studies. The center was created by C.J. Pressma, a man whose passion for photography ran so deep that his favorite cocktail was scotch with a splash of D-76 developer.

Pressma studied with Minor White in a special graduate studies program at MIT and he studied with Henry Holmes at Indiana University where he also earned his MFA. He has received a number of awards and his his work has been exhibited internationally. Eschewing the coasts, he has been a celebrated figure in the Kentucky arts world for a generation.

C.J. Pressma :: Portfolio, represented by: PYRO Gallery

Gerrymandering

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This is a word that I loved long before I had a clue what it meant.  It just sounds great, doesn’t it? That is until you find out who’s been doing it and why. So just say the word out loud a few more times then you can read on to spoil the joy.

Gerrymandering is redrawing a congressional district map in such a way that it alters the demographics of that district. Congressional members like to do this to help ensure a majority of people who are more likely to vote for them.

Think of the following diagram as map where the blue dots represent democrats and the red dots represent republicans.

Note that this map is divided into 4 congressional districts with 16 voters in each district. Each district has 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans. This will make the outcome of any given election less predictable.

Now consider the same map with the 4 districts redrawn:

The map still has 4 districts with 16 voters each. However, 3 of the districts have a majority of Republican voters and only 1 district has a majority of Democratic voters.

As you can see, without actually changing the demographics of the map, redrawing the districts can create a huge electoral advantage for one candidate over another. Although my example showed the redistricting to the Republican advantage, it has been a very popular tool for both parties.

Rick Perry Took Pain Killers Prior To Debates

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A passage from the forthcoming book, Inside the Circus, describes Rick Perry’s back pain as bad enough to require “painkillers in sufficient dosages to keep him standing through the two-hour debates,” This is used to partially explain his weak debate performance.

Of course, after the debate, he required sufficient dosages to keep from thinking back on on his two-hour debate performance.

Inside the Circus was written by Mike Allen and Evan Thomas and is expected to be released on Tuesday.

Everyone Wants Their Own Ho

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Have you noticed the Hos springing up around the world?  Of course, the original Ho started in the City of Westminster, England with the swanky SoHo music and theater district. I can’t speak to London’s West End SoHo. Maybe it is because I have a predilection for countries where I don’t speak the language – you know, someplace where I can rationalize my cluelessness.

For those of us who grew up across the pond, New York City has the real SoHo and it still connotes edgy artists struggling in a 2,000 square foot loft with a sofa, a fridge and over sized canvases everywhere. The nights promise that special undiscovered restaurant followed by an opening with a brilliant (and also undiscovered) artist.

Of course, my information might be a bit dated. This is the SoHo where Madonna got her first (and only) kudos for acting just like herself in Desperately Seeking Susan. The artists have been squeezed out of this SoHo a generation ago and my daughter who makes the island a part of most weekend plans says that now it is more like going to the mall. 

So maybe the used clothing bins have been replace by Abercrombie and Fitch. None of this matters because the myth lives on and everybody wants a Ho in their neighborhood. New York also hosts NoHo (North of Houston) and BoHo for the Bowery south of Houston. Like SoHo, these Hos earned an urban street cred, teeming with emerging artists and specialty micro restaurants. Also like SoHo, gentrification forced them out of the neighborhood years ago.

But these Hos continue to spring up around the world. Next time you are in Hong Kong, head to SoHo, or “South of Hollywood Road,” which has emulated the New York SoHo to a fault with corporatized shopping and overpriced tourists galleries. They even have their own NoHo, North of Hollywood Street. Maybe you want to tango your way down the street. Then head to Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires where the hip restaurants and street shops are a magnet for tourists and affluent youth seeking a safe way to have some “edgy” fun.

Los Angeles’ North Hollywood also wanted some of that urban juice and one day a bunch of signs suddenly appeared reading “NoHo Arts District.”  As urban environments go, however, Los Angeles is still an adolescent and we are just now learning how to park our cars to get out and walk – baby steps, as it were. Los Angeles is evolving, though, and contrary to the cartoons in New Yorker Magazine, there is a rich and vibrant arts scene here. But North Hollywood? Really? I found the signs pretty amusing but I kept driving without stopping to get out. This is The Valley, after all. Even if you do like it here, you aren’t supposed to admit it. For you New Yorkers, this is like having a HoHo Art District in Hoboken (on the Hudson), New Jersey.

Beside here in Los Angeles we already have WeHo (West Hollywood), home to the world’s largest Halloween party attended by 300,000 spectacularly put together alter egos. It is also home to one of the nations largest Gay Pride parades, attended by hundreds of thousands of unaltered egos.

Most cities will never get a whole Ho district and will settle for a scaled down sampling. If you are doing some traveling but still have a longing for that smell of oil paints and no-whip lattes you can stay at the Soho Hotel in Budapest. In Barcelona, you even have a choice between the SoHo Hotel and the Hotel SoHo Barcelona.

Google “SoHo” +”your favorite city” and you will find a SoHo restaurant, bar, coffee shop or gallery. SoHo is synonymous with young dialed-in urbanites. And who wouldn’t want a little of that metro mojo regardless of where they live?

Even Topeka, Kansas, still living down its image as created in A Boy and His Dog, seeks out some of that urban vibe. First scrub that Victorian house with a visit to Soho Interiors, Then change up the bonnet and bustle for some bohemian styling and grab a cappuccino at SoHo Espresso to make sure that brown isn’t really a mocha.

Curiously, HoBo never caught on.

“Letter From Siberia” – Chris Marker

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I finally decided to post my biography and I give Chris Marker’s documentary film Letters From Siberia (1957) credit for inspiring me to do so. If you watch the clip before you check out my bio page, it might make a bit more sense.

Ostensibly this film sets out as a cultural travelog, however, before long one realizes that Marker is taking us on a cheeky, irony filled stream-of-consciousness ride through Siberia that is less of a journalistic journey than an impressionistic one.

I lifted the following paragraph from Adrian Miles in Letter from Siberia | Senses of Cinema because he said everything that I wanted to say… only better:

The film moves with gleeful but not mocking irony from live action to simple cell animation, so the description of a scientific expedition to uncover frozen mammoths in the tundra looks eerily like something from South Park! In a similar manner, the soundtrack slips from a narrative marked by its engaged critical commentary into playful song. Or in what has become the most famous instance from the film, the same footage of streets, a bus, and workers repairing a road is repeated verbatim three times, but each time with a differently inflected voice over narrative. The first is in the spirit of Soviet Socialist Realism, all honest happy workers and modernization, the second more like a Voice of America broadcast with mention of slaves, sinister looking Asiatics, and primitive labour, while the third is what could be characterized as a reasonable description of just what is going on, and why. Which is Marker’s? Well of course we all think the third is his, observational, somewhere between the not quite objective and idiosyncratically personal. But all three are Marker’s, and the third only gets its reasonableness, even what might be called its clarity of reasonableness, because it is contextualized as one of three.

The clip I attached is of the famous montage sequence repeated three times with three different narrations. One might ask if is this a documentary, an attack on the documentary or even a documentary of a place as it was understood through the subjectivity and experiential senses of the filmmaker.

I haven’t located the full film on line yet but when I do, I will put it up here for you.

Study: Conservatives’ Are Loosing Trust In Science

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Trust in science has dropped by 25% since 1970 among those who identified themselves as conservative. This is the conclusion of Gordon Gauchat’s paper that appears in American Sociological Review. According to the study: 

To summarize the main empirical findings, this study shows that public trust in science has not declined since the 1970s except among conservatives and those who frequently attend church.

 

Interestingly, conservatives were far more likely to define science as knowledge that should conform to common sense and religious tradition. Relating to the second pattern, when examining a series of public attitudes toward science, conservatives’ unfavorable
attitudes are most acute in relation to government funding of science and the use of scientific knowledge to influence social policy. Conservatives thus appear especially averse to regulatory science, defined here as the mutual dependence of organized science and government policy.

Apparently there has been little or no shift in the trust of science among those who self-identify as moderate or liberal.

Buildings You Should Know: Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier

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The Villa Savoye is an iconic modernist opus designed by Le Corbusier. It was completed in 1931 as a family retreat in Poisse near Paris. It also remains as his best exemplar of his Five Points for a New Architecture. Those points are:

  1. Ground-level pilotis (the slender columns) that elevate the building, separating it from the earth, allowing the landscape to enter the building.
  2. A roof that can serve as a garden and terrace, which is a reclamation of nature.
  3. Open floor plan by relying on pilotes which does away with the bearing wall, freeing the wall to be placed only as aesthetics dictate.
  4. Ribbon windows to provide a greater amount of light and ventilation.
  5. Facades designed freely as a skin and not as a load bearing element.

Entry to the home is by way of a ramp that brings one up and into the space from the ground floor. This is thought to be more akin to a stroll, intending a landscape experience as one enters the house rather than an urban solution.

The open plan includes a glass wall that creates ambiguity between the courtyard garden and the interior spaces.  Note that the courtyard glass panel on the right is in fact a sliding glass panel that, when opened, create a freedom of movement and further disrupts the distinction between interior and exterior space.

The four exterior walls create a formal envelope for defining and framing space to the interior. Within those walls, Le Corbusier abstracted classical primary forms to create interventions according to his aesthetic judgement, not structural limitations. This winding stair created an element that unified spaces from the ground floor to the roof-top solarium. Beautiful as they are, these were ostensibly “servants” stairs.

The ramp continues the sense of strolling from the courtyard to the roof-top solarium. This weaves the interior circulation to the exterior spaces, creating an organic experience of movement through the garden spaces which are never separate from the house.

The villa never waivers from an understanding of the house as a machine nor is it a harsh imposition on nature and landscape. Rather, Le Corbusier develops a nuanced interplay, where one is never fully absorbed by either nature or machine.

One of Le Corbusier’s greatest works, this building represents his challenge to the conventions of architecture as they were handed to him. The Villa Savoye has been an inspiration to architects and has influenced them for generations.