Mostly Burritos

Eff Blogspot

2010-12-10T16:29:00.001-08:00

I'm heading to Tumblr. Here's the new digs:

http://mostlyburritos.tumblr.com/

"The Year of the Transsexual"

2010-12-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

I highly doubt it will be remembered that way.

I'm going to put aside the subtle offensiveness of describing people's gender identity in terms of a fashion trend and just say that even if transgender people are edging into the mainstream, we will have to deal with the same problems of stereotypical representations that most other minorities do.

I think pretty much everything the article mentions, aside from maybe the James Franco magazine cover, is just part of a general trend toward androgyny in a lot of fashion, and this is especially true for the urban "hipster" fashion which the NYT seems to idolize. Skinny jeans for skinny guys, baggy sweaters and flannel shirts for even skinnier girls, and American Apparel's insistence on selling "unisex" clothing all kinda contribute to an androgynous aesthetic.

But the year of the transsexual? I don't think so. You could pick out pretty much any year from the past decade and find the "zany" news stories about trans people that this article does, and there doesn't seem to be anything particularly positive happening on any large scale. It seems like the fashion world just kinda sorta loves the outrageousness of Lady Gaga and having a transsexual model, so they talk about it! And that's fine, but to 99% of America and trans people, the change is much more gradual.

As for James Franco, he's just awesomely weird.

Hey Maybe We Should Cut Taxes for Rich People

2010-12-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

Because that has worked out so well for the past decade.

Now, Here's the Thing About This

2010-12-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

You're all fucking losers.

Seriously, if a writer for the Style section for the New York Times casts you as pretentious, then you need to take more than one step back.

The Mustache of Understanding

2010-11-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

In light of Ireland's near complete financial collapse, please see this article from 2005 from our Most Admired Pundits in America.

The fact that this man is employed by the Newspaper of Record is a shame. He's never even studied economics in any professional manner that I know of. He seems to have married a wealthy economist and somehow that means that he should talk about monetary policy and the next country that America should invade.

The issue here is that this is not an isolated problem. Thomas Friedman was one of the most vocal supporters of the Iraq War, and he's been wrong about countless other things as well. Most of his columns consist of some inane variation on the theme "I went to country X in my travels, and I have seen the way of the future". All of his columns contain vague predictions about the future because he doesn't know a fucking thing about anything and everyone will forget what he said before "the future" gets here.

Except that now that we have the internet, no is going to forget, and the NYT's credibility will deteriorate every time Thomas Friedman start mashing the keys on his keyboard.

Everything is flat!

Election Postmortem

2010-11-04T13:25:00.001-07:00

After watching the election, I'm convinced that two things mattered, and they both worked in the Republican's favor:

1) The economy. Aside from all of the things that Obama and Democrats could and should have done while they had the upper hand, the economy is the most difficult thing to spin, and the Democrats have not done it well. These charts have appeared on a lot of political blogs, but I doubt they have been seen on television news. I think Press Secretary Gibbs showed them at one press conference, but every Democrat should have carried around copies of this every fucking day or else gotten it tattoed on their forehead.

But they didn't. So the shitty economy, which was going to be shitty even before Obama took office, has become Obama's and the Democrats' problem. And they haven't done what they could to fix it. They tried to be "bipartisan" and include $350 million of tax cuts in the stimulus bill, but every person who doesn't read read progressive blogs for at least an hour a day is going to see the stimulus as a Democratic program that was spearheaded by Obama, which brings us to problem number

2), which is messaging. There was a poll a few days before the election that said more people thought Obama had increased taxes than lowered them, and most people thought they just stayed the same. This is flat out contrary to reality, but for some reason Democrats are unable to fight it. Yes, there is Glenn Beck screaming every day on Fox News, but Obama is the fucking President of the United States. People listen when he talks. People listen to the Democratic leadership in Congress when they have enormous fucking majorities. But none of them try to counter this perception. These polls are taken as a reality that Democrats have to deal with, and therefore Democrats have to compromise progressive principles even further to "compromise" with Republicans, and on and on it goes.

And no, I don't make the mistake of thinking that all, or even most, Democratic politicians actually believe in those progressive principles. It's much easier for an elected official to make money by siding with the rich guys and corporations. The thing is, they're Democrats. The people that vote them into office aren't generally the rich guys, or the white guys, or whoever. It's the poor people, the minorities, and the young voters that put them there. And despite how much the politicians undoubtedly want to make money, I suspect that their urge to actually win elections is even stronger, and more Democrats will win more elections when more Democrats provide a clear progressive view.

But as it stands now, Democrats seem to want both. Some Democrats want to please the corporations and lobbyists so they can raise huge amounts of campaign cash, but they can't get re-elected when the Democratic base doesn't give a shit about the elections. And as mentioned above, when Democrats have tried to get the message out about the legitimate progressive accomplishments of the past two years, they simply can't do it like the Republicans.

Supreme Irony

2010-11-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

He was the only Senator who voted against the Patriot Act. He voted against the bailouts, against further fighting in Afghanistan, and he has always voted to protect civil liberties.

But the Tea Party elects a Republican businessman because...they love freedom and liberty. Or something.

To be fair, it's not like it was only tea partiers who elected Johnson. There was a lot of gullible Wisconsinites that bought it as well. Enjoy that sweet freedom Wisconsin.

In Reference to the Below Post

2010-10-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the video of Dan and his partner Terry

And here is the post that I found incredibly frustrating.

For those of you who don't what to read my whole post in response to Femmephane, I'll just say this: In general, Femmephane seems to think that Dan Savage's project gives false hope to youth, that it somehow undermines and overwrites the suffering of youth, and that it is a misguided exercise in general.

I couldn't disagree more. As I said below, activism is not a zero sum game. Femmephane seems to think that because Dan started a successful project that some other project necessarily loses or that queer youth are losing their voice. The whole point of the project is not to undermine the suffering of youth, but to establish a community of those that have been discriminated against and their allies. It's true that Dan's project does not actively encourage some sort of intervention in schools, but he has supported the other projects that do exactly that. He is just creating one more opportunity to reach the youth that have so far been unreachable. Maybe YouTube can help.

Side note, this kind of "more radical than thou" bullshit in the queer community really turns me off. Fuck you for being condescending to people who want to live more "normal" or conventional lives than you. That is intolerance.

Why I Disagree with Everything Femmephane Wrote

2010-10-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

This post has been circulating amongst a lot of GLBTQ blogs for some reason. I disagree with nearly everything in it.

I’ll take the points one by one to avoid righteous ranting here:

1) Neither Dan nor Terry explicitly links religion or a small town mentality with “being more bigoted”. They only use their own stories as examples. Shockingly, they experienced discrimination and bullying in religious communities and small towns. If I may offer a quote from the website americancatholic.org: “The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage and the social acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex relationships”.

It is outright denying reality to believe that the majority of American Christian denominations are accepting of homosexuality, and the same goes for the majority of non-urban communities. A 1970s study in The Journal of Homosexuality found that “Respondents in the US who were willing to grant such rights to homosexuals as teaching in college, speaking in a local community, and taking out a book from a local library written by a homosexual and favorable to homosexuality, tended to be well educated, young, Jewish or nonreligious, from urban areas, raised in the Northeast or Pacific states”. You can argue that somehow this pattern has reversed, but it, ya know, hasn’t.

2) I have no idea why this is an issue for the writer. Maybe it doesn’t get better for some people. Maybe Femmephane thinks it would be better to tell kids that the rest of their lives may be miserable. I disagree.

3) He’s not assigning guilt here. Femmephane is taking one short phrase out of seven minute video and using it construct some sort of strange worldview in which Dan blames gay children for being bullied into suicide. Does the writer really believe that was his intention? Also, above I thought he was blaming religious people and small towns…

4) Ummm no. Did the writer not see the first two minutes where Dan and Terry talk about how unaccepting their families were? They aren’t overwriting anything.

5) They never encourage anyone to come out. They tell their story in which their seemingly unaccepting families managed to love both them and their partners. Also, consider once again Dan’s intended audience here. His audience is youth who are already miserable and considering killing themselves. I think it’s likely that people call them gay whether or not they have officially come out.

6) I’m going to refrain from an ad-hominem attack and suggest that perhaps Femmephane needs to examine why the fact that a happy gay couple met in a bar by using cheesy pick up line makes them want to vomit. It should not.

7) How is telling your own story overwriting youth experience? I honestly would like an explanation for this. It’s not as if story telling is a zero sum game. Is the writer suggesting that because Dan and Terry told their story one less gay youth gets to tell their story? The idiocy of this is self evident.

8) Again with the overwriting and undermining. These stories do not belittle lived pain. That is the whole point of these videos. They are supposed to be posted precisely because others understand the pain that a youth is going through and how difficult it may be to not just end it all. This seems to be a fundamental difference in the way that the writer and I understand the video. The fact that Dan and Terry are happy now does not imply that a happy ending is inevitable. The writer is making an inference with little basis. They state that it can get better. There is no inference to be made here.

9) This is one particular project of Dan’s that is intended to reach youth who are considering taking their lives because of discrimination. In his column, he has plugged the Trevor Project, suicide hotlines, etc. This is one other means of possibly reaching those youth that haven’t been reached by other means. Anecdotally, I think this project has also been raising awareness about bullying, which is the exact opposite of encouraging “privileged folks” to sit around and ignore it.

10) The writer says that “telling folks that their suffering is normal homogenizes their experience”. Dan and Terry don’t say suffering is “normal”, which implies that it is some acceptable, unchangeable, or inevitable period in a GLBTQ person’s life. They actually don’t say anything even remotely close to this. Perhaps Femmephane is saying that the project itself does this, but I disagree entirely. The videos help further a fucking community of people that have been discriminated against. If one transgender meets another transgendered person, do they feel as if their experience and identity have been “homogenized”? Do ethnic minorities feel this every time they see someone of their own background walking down the street? Pure idiocy.

As for the last three points, I think they have mostly been covered above. Treating a campaign like this as “revolutionary” does undermine anything. Femmephane is again thinking of the attempt to help queer youth as a zero sum game. It’s not a competition. Just because Dan and Terry decided to start a web project that is, just keep this in mind, targeted at youth who are considering killing themselves, does not mean that queer youth are losing their voice (or something). I covered the “lumping everyone together” in #10.

What the Hell is Going on Here?

2010-10-01T14:52:00.000-07:00

I really thought that most of America, especially the urban areas of the Northeast, was over this shit.

She was really asking for it.

2010-09-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

Replace the "harassment" with "rape" in this article and you pretty much have the old idea of women bringing it upon themselves. This is my favorite sentence:

"If you want to be treated like a girl at a bar, dress like a girl at a bar. If you want to be treated professionally and without incident, cover up."

That's true ya know. If she wore a burqa, then they definitely wouldn't harass her. But if she wear something that may tempt the manimals, then there may be an "incident" and she's the one to blame.

Also, the writer puts scare quotes around calling Ms. Sainz a reporter because...she's from Mexico? And yes, she is quite gorgeous, and yes, it is likely that it helped her career on television. How many unattractive female "reporters" do you see on U.S. network television?

It's beside the point, but the writer also has Ines Sainz the sports reporter confused with a different Ines Sainz who was a former Ms. Spain. The sports reporter is not a beauty queen. She actually has a Master's in Tax Law.

The Worldwide Leader in News

2010-09-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

Be thankful you have someone keeping you updated on all the important stories.

Meanwhile, this doesn't seem to be getting much attention. This is the first mention I've seen in the North Texas media, and the Barnett Shale drilling has been going on for years.

Deep Questions

2010-09-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

This is What Collapsing Empire Looks Like

2010-08-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald, as always, says it best.

Atrios pointed out other cheery news from one of America's most impoverished cities. Camden will "selling, donating or destroying" over 187,000 books. Meanwhile, all those wars are going swimmingly.

I'm sure someone will explain how illegal immigration and welfare queens are somehow the cause of all this.

Pretty Much Perfect

2010-07-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Adam Serwer takes apart NYT columnist Ross Douthat's column on "The Roots of White Anxiety"
I think this quote sums it up quite perfectly:

"The "roots of white anxiety" aren't in fairly minimal black advancement; they're in the constantly reinforced notion that when minorities gain, they lose."

Word. The frustrating thing for me is that this is such a recurring problem. In the immigration debate, any policy option that doesn't involve deporting all of the illegals or putting them in jail is regarded as a concession that Whites are making to Mexicans, and presumably that concession involves Whites losing some sort of economic, cultural, or social advantage that they had before.

I really don't know how many times things like this can be said. Whatever advantages or opportunities White people think they are losing to Black or Mexican or Canadians or whomever doesn't matter! There is an economic elite in this country that continues to grow more and more powerful at the expense of the bottom 80%-90%. It's absurd to watch people fight over the comparatively minuscule gains made by large groups of Blacks and Latinos.

The Prestige Factor

2010-07-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

I think there's three big reasons that interest in Teach for America is so high: ease of entrance, salary, and prestige are probably the biggest. There are few jobs that will pay you $45,000 with just a bachelor's degree in anything but the hard sciences. I doubt that there is any overwhelming interest in education specifically, but there is always the idealistic urge to give back to the community.

I think prestige accounts for the interest in TFA over say, the various teaching fellows programs. I can say for myself the thing that attracted me were the first two reasons listed above.

Re: Video Size Below

2010-07-09T16:22:00.001-07:00

Fuck you Blogspot.

Friday Night MeYousic

2010-07-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

If nothing else, I should at least keep up this tradition.

Wealthy Waiters

2010-07-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota thought doing away with the minimum wage for waiters would be a good bone to throw at the Tea Party crowd. It turns out there's thousands of waiters and other service industry workers in Minnesota (who knew?), and they're not really fans of the idea.

Now as far as the merits of the idea, it's true that any sort of minimum wage is going to reduce employment slightly. However, the approach that conservative politicians seem to be taking toward the economy at the moment basically seems to be to tell the poor to suck it up. They are proposing things like raising the retirement age for Social Security.

The real objective of all this deficit scaremongering and hand wringing is destroy the welfare state. There is absolutely no question about that. Where was all fear about the deficit during the Bush years? Nowhere to be found. Alan Greenspan actually warned during the Clinton years that running excessive budget surpluses could be bad for the economy. Presumably that was somehow related to cutting Medicare.

I really want to read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine.

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

2010-07-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Ask tells the story of Milo, a failed painter working in the fundraising office of a university in Manhattan (cleverly called "Mediocre University" throughout). He has a son that he has difficulty relating to, a wife who is not attracted to him anymore, and job that he doesn't like and isn't good at. A fellow blogger who is reading the book right now said she found it kind of depressing, which I hadn't really thought about, but it's true. Milo is not a winner in this book under almost any circumstances mentioned above. In fact, one could argue that his life doesn't actually change all that much from the beginning of the book to the end. The Ask is like a more troubled version of Seinfeld, although it's just as funny.

And that's what saved the book for me. I didn't find it depressing because, despite all of his own fuckups and bad circumstances, Milo maintains his sarcastic and selfish persona throughout. He's not the only funny character, either. His big "ask" for Mediocre University is his rich friend from college, and he turns out to be just as manipulative and clever as Milo. The first few pages had me laughing so hard I had to share them with friends because I was impressed a book could make me laugh so quickly starting from scratch. The humor was also hyper-modern. An example would be when Milo goes on a short tirade about people who use terms like "interwebs and googletubes".

The hyper-modernity also shows itself in the plot. Milo and his wife struggle financially, Mediocre University is struggling financially, and the rich people who fund the University are struggling (relatively). I found this aspect of the plot brilliantly American and very close to reality. The disgruntled, over-educated creative stuck in one of a series of quotidian jobs with no opportunity for advancement. There is such authenticity in Milo's inner feeling of superiority over the world he continually fails in that I was led to believe in him myself.

I suppose the plot then, is about this conflict. Milo's (perhaps justified) inner feeling of being too clever for his job, his house, his neighborhood, and maybe even his wife, and his continual failure to even maintain what he has. But remember: it's funny.

This is absurd.

2010-07-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

How many times to people have to get killed by tasers before people demand that we don't use them?

This woman was 87 years old and had a gun. Back in the good ole days, the cops would have to get creative and either force her to put down the gun, or accept the responsibility of putting a bullet into a crazy old woman. Now they have the easier option of killing her with electricity and calling it an accident.

I Have a Mental Disorder

2010-06-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

As the movement to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell moves forward, transgender people are often conveniently omitted.

According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, transgender people are discharged under the same pretext as pedophiles.

And one more thing about immigration.

2010-06-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

It's a sideshow. Like much of conservative politics, the only point of raising the issue by politicians is to stir up the base. Even though I concede that having millions of people working on a black market is an economic problem, the amount of money that illegals manage to get from taxpayers is minuscule compared to the corporate, and especially defense industry, welfare that occurs out in the open every day.

A Side Note

2010-06-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Just to further undermine the idea that those savage Mexicans are coming here and ruining our country just like they did theirs, 90% of the traceable guns confiscated in Mexico come from the United States.

All the victims of drug violence in Mexico thank you, National Rifle Association.

Arizona = Baghdad with Better Tacos

2010-05-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

The amount of illegal immigrants in our country is a problem. That I do not disagree with. I'm always wary of supporting the government's ability to monitor citizens, but illegal immigrants work in an essentially black economy, which is a bad thing. They do not pay taxes, but they are able to use various government services (although these would probably be free to them anyway through welfare).

However, the solution to the economic issue is precluded by animosity and xenophobia that underlies most of the economic arguments that people make. Immigration reform was never successful in Congress because it turns out many people (mostly conservative white guys) don't actually want the Mexicans to be here at all. If illegals were offered permanent and temporary worker programs, and perhaps a path to citizenship, there would be no reason to be illegal.

The common arguments seem to be that illegals "don't pay taxes", although the person making that claim often doesn't actually want illegals to pay taxes. The argument then becomes that illegals are "stealing our jobs" or coming here to commit crimes or, my personal favorite, coming here to "take advantage of our generous welfare state".

Except our welfare state is not really that generous, especially for the very poor. And it turns out that illegal immigrants don't cause crime to increase, either. It actually turns out that El Paso, presumably one of the most illegal-filled cities in the country, is also one of the safest in the country. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and her supporters seems to think that Arizona is some sort of war zone, but violent crime has actually been decreasing steadily there for years. Apparently the mere presence of Mexicans can turn a whole region into a chaos resembling Baghdad.

So the only arguments that you're really left with is pointless traditionalism, such as making people speak English, or the argument that they should have to pay taxes because they and their families go to our schools, our hospitals, etc.

And this is true. They should be legalized as either temporary or permanent workers, and then they can pay taxes and move out of the black economy, but this is never going to happen with laws like Arizona's. That law entrenches the black economy by making people even less likely to attempt to gain legal status after being here illegally.

There is absolutely no fucking logic to the immigration debate in our country and it's about time that people stop humoring what is fairly evidently racism. Why else would the Governor of Arizona refer to "illegal immigrant terrorist attacks" when her state is undergoing a steady decline in violent crime?

There is no excuse, and the media needs to call out this bullshit.

Different Types of Freedom

2010-05-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

This post from Bruce Bartlett (who is no liberal himself. He worked for Reagan, Bush, and even Ron Paul back in the day) perhaps makes my point about institutions a little more clearly. At the end of his post, he says that Paul believes "that freedom consists of one thing and one thing only - freedom from governmental constraint".

This is why Paul would use the term "institutional racism" to describe governmental discrimination, when in fact "institutional racism" encompasses a lot more than just the government.

Yay!

2010-05-20T16:49:00.001-07:00

Here's an argument showing that Rand Paul is completely wrong even in legal terms!

More Thoughts on Rand Paul

2010-05-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase Atrios, government regulates and provides for the existence of private business in all kinds of ways, so why choose the Civil Rights Act to rail against?

This kind of thing sure doesn't help anyone believe that your motives are pure.

Easy For You to Say

2010-05-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

Adam Serwer at the American Prospect has a typically insightful post on the Rand Paul debate. I think a key paragraph is this one:

Paul would never face the actual "hard part" of his vision of freedom, because it would never interfere with his own life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. Rand Paul would not have been turned away from a lunch counter, be refused a home, a job, or denied a loan, or told to sit in the black car of a train because of his skin color, or because of the skin color of his spouse. Paul thinks there is something "hard" about defending the kind of discrimination he would have never, ever faced. Paul's free market fundamentalism is being expressed after decades of social transformation that the Civil Rights Act helped create, and so the hell of segregation is but a mere abstraction, difficult to remember and easy to dismiss as belonging only to its time. It's much easier now to say that "the market would handle it." But it didn't, and it wouldn't.

Exactly. Also, as Serwer notes, Rand Paul kept referring to "institutional racism" in his interview with Rachel Maddow, and I think he's misunderstanding or misstating what "institution" means. As Wikipedia says, it is the "structures and mechanisms of social order" that govern a collectivity. By no means does this only describe government. Whatever channels the dominant individuals in a society communicate through are institutions as well, be it the Elks Lodge or the KKK or the guys who sit at Woolworth's lunch counter.

The point of this distinction is that Rand Paul's exclusion of businesses from the definition of "institutions" allows him to imply that they do not need to governed by things like the Civil Rights Act because they do not have the control over people's lives that the government does. But in the real world, these non-governmental institutions have an enormous amount of power in the daily lives of individuals, and they are quite resistant to change. Presumably free market fairies will fix everything in the long run, but the thing is, that never happened with institutionalized racism.

Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly unintentionally illustrates pretty well why we need ENDA to pass.

I Didn't Even Comment on the Accents

2010-04-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

Arizona can now fire teachers because they have accents. I presume this is targeted at the dreaded southern drawl.

Keep digging, Arizona. I'm sure driving away all of your cheap labor will help you get out of that housing crash hole. Fucking idiots.

More Nuggets from 'Murrikin History!

2010-04-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

Page 6 Item 8 (b). Did you know that "the release of the Venona Papers confirmed suspicions of Communist government"? I didn't think so. Well, it turns out that Joseph McCarthy guy was right all along. You might know that if you weren't educated at the StalinHitler University of Moral Corruption.

Ethnocentric Education

2010-04-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently it's a bad thing. Unless, of course, the culture that you are centered on is a ficticious Judeo-Christian White Utopia.

Some of these people think the same thing about African-American Studies departments at universities. Who needs black history when you have the Founding Fathers? I mean, you know black people had to have loved the Constitution. How could you not? Oh, right.

And who needs Women's Studies? You know there weren't any bitches at the Constitutional Convention. They were probably back in the kitchen making Benjamin Franklin a big ole steak because women didn't create freedom.

All hyperbole aside, you can go read the amended Texas Education Boards guidelines on their website. The best part? They used tracking changes! So you can see all the great new educational innovations that they inserted. My personal favorite comes on page 3 of the new high school Social Studies standards, where a new weeklong mandatory celebration called "Freedom Week" is described. It will probably be like spring break, except with more recitations of the Constitution.

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

2010-03-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

I think it’s inevitable to compare this book to The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. They are the two most widely known books (as far as I can tell) about the subject of our food systems and the ethics of eating animals, and both writers seem to have received a lot of media attention for their work.

Foer’s book is a much quicker and more engaging read. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that Foer’s view on the subject of meat is very black and white. He makes this clear several times when he describes humanities’ current situation as a “choice between cruelty and ecological destruction, and ceasing to eat animals” (p. 229). Foer’s language is much more opinionated, and he is not afraid to call something cruel when he sees it. I think his condemnation is more powerful than Pollan’s, and Foer even mentions that many people he knows who have read Pollan continue to eat factory farmed meat, although they often make attempts to eat “moral” meat. This stuck with me because that is pretty much the category that I would put myself under since reading Pollan’s book. I still eat meat that involves cruelty, but I eat much, much less of it, and I make attempts to buy non-factory meat. Foer’s book is likely to have just as much, if not more, of an impact on how I eat because it serves as a particularly effective call to action. On page 173 he says if this book means something to you, “then perhaps the drama of the growth of the factory farm in that Iowa kitchen will help produce the resistance that will end it”.

And I think he’s right. For people who consider themselves principled, there really is no way to excuse eating factory farmed meat. It is bad in every way, and Foer’s book is much more focused on enumerating the specific cruelty and destruction that factory farms cause than is Pollan’s. Pollan certainly did not offer such a broad condemnation of eating meat, and he offered an eloquent defense of meat eating at the end of his book that left the door open for people to continue eating meat.

However, I do think that some of Foer’s criticisms of Pollan fall a bit short. When he is discussing the “myth of animal consent”, Foer quotes a long passage from The Omnivore’s Dilemma in which Pollan describes how it has been evolutionarily beneficial for domesticated species to become reliant on humans because their species have become more widespread. But Foer uses this as a modern example of the various myths throughout history that have described animals as wishing to be slaughtered by humans in some sort of supernatural balancing of scales, and that is not what Pollan is saying. Foer leads off his next section with the sentence “But species don’t make choices, individuals do”. He’s exactly right, but individuals do not make the choices of evolution. In fact, it’s the individuals that are being selected by evolution, not the other way around. Whether something is detrimental to the individual or not, natural selection will choose the traits and individuals most likely to survive and propagate, and those happened to be domestic animals once human agriculture came along.

Another bone that I would pick with Foer is his definition of cruelty. Nearly all of the practices he describes as cruel are unarguably so, but he includes two “humane” farmers under the term because one of them brands the animal and the other castrates them. First, castration is practiced on dogs and cats everyday. I actually don’t know if anesthetic is usually given, but if it’s done early in life, I think it can be seen as an acceptable practice. Controlling the domestic animal populations is a task that humans are going to have to face regardless of whether we eat meat or not. And second, while I think there are surely alternatives to branding, it just struck me as another example of Foer’s black and white view on the subject of cruelty. There is no wiggle room for performing procedures to modify animals into something they would not be in nature, even if something arguably as painful, circumcision, occurs to millions of humans at birth.

However, despite his own black and white viewpoint, a highlight of Foer’s book for me is other opinions that he includes. There are several essays from figures in the food industry such as a PETA activist, a factory farmer, and “humane” farmers. The diversity of strong opinions allows the book to be a self contained debate, and the debate participants are surprisingly good writers. The juxtaposition of the essays is also clever. I especially enjoyed the two accounts, one by Foer and one by unnamed animal rights activist, of an undercover mission to a factory chicken farm which were titled “I’m not the type of person who finds himself on a stranger’s farm in the middle of the night”, and “I am the type of person who….”. His discussion of shit at factory farms made me laugh out loud, partly because he is a funny, witty writer, and partly at the simple fact that he used shit so many times in three pages. Towards the end of the book, Foer even gets a little Marxist when he talks about the workers’ alienation from the product that they are producing. I think alienation describes a large part of why consumers and the factory farm workers aren’t bothered by the cruelty. The consumers never see it, and the workers are dull from seeing it too much. I also think the distance and alienation answers what I thought was a profound question posed by the activist mentioned above, which is “Why is taste excluded from the moral constrictions that we place on our other senses?”

I Want a House of Solid Gold!

2010-03-04T12:00:00.000-08:00

Rush Limbaugh has always been a caricature, and I really don't pay attention to his bullshit because his listeners aren't the type that will respond well to my arguments anyway, but his conservative credentials surely must be burnished by the photos of his working man's domicile.

It's like the character from the Simpson's.

Street Fight

2010-02-22T13:38:00.000-08:00

A good political documentary. The film doesn't even go into the issues, really, it just focuses on how many problems Newark has and how the political leadership has failed to solve them. One of the most surprising things for me was seeing Al Sharpton (and Jesse Jackson?) endorse Sharpe James, the incumbent mayor who obviously is not really helping the city. I knew that Jackson played politics quite a bit, but Sharpton, especially during his presidential campaign, struck me as somewhat bombastic, but also a bit separated from partisan politics. He was never going to win even one state during the primaries, so he said a lot of things were really excluded from the mainstream conversation. Seeing him endorse someone who is obviously at the top of a very insidious political machine was a bit disappointing, but I guess it's all in the game.

Fast Food Diet

2010-02-22T12:51:00.000-08:00

It is really a sign of how poor our eating habits have gotten in this country when people start looking for ways to lose weight without giving up eating fast food. The author doesn't mention until the middle of the page that the item that the spokeswoman lost so much weight on, the Fresco Ranchero Chicken Taco, has 740 milligrams of sodium. That's in one taco. One taco for lunch, one taco for dinner, and you barely manage to stay in the acceptable range of sodium for normal adults. And who the hell eats one taco for lunch and one for dinner? Doesn't sound like an enjoyable lifestyle. And even if you do manage to lose weight on these diets, you are likely taking years off your life by not eating any fresh vegetables except for the iceberg lettuce they put on your taco to garnish the chicken and cheese.

As the article linked to above the Mayo Clinic above mentions, 77 percent of the sodium in the average American diet comes from eating prepared or processed foods. That is, it is not because you put salt in your scrambled eggs, as the first paragraph mentions for some reason. Adding a pinch of salt to your baked potato or scrambled eggs is not the problem, it's adding a pinch to your fast food french fries that is causing heart disease in so many Americans.

Good for the Crowd, I guess

2010-02-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

but the fact is that this guy was an invited speaker and is chairman of a non-marginal conservative youth group in the most populous state in the country.

Like Talking to a Wall

2010-02-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

Winsonsin Republican gubernatorial candidates want to cancel the state's high speed rail project even though it has already received federal funding. Upper Midwestern folk in Minnesota and Wisconsin have always seemed a bit more savvy than people living to their south, so I doubt this will get huge support.

But it's annoying to see the line that always gets repeated about "non-riders subsidizing the riders" of the train/bus/subway. It's bullshit. The gas tax does not pay for all road construction. The Interstate Highway was constructed out of the general fund, so therefore non-users were subsidizing it. Ryan Avent sums it up well here.

It seems like no matter how many it gets said, some people don't hear it. What is it about mass transit and rail that makes even seemingly intelligent libertarians such as Ron Paul miss forest for the trees?

One Year In

2010-02-15T17:20:00.001-08:00

It's been a little over a year since Obama took office. There seem to be various factions among those who voted for him that either excuse his conduct of the past year as "pragmatism" or are outraged that he has not delivered on his promises.

I tend more toward outrage.

Score One for the Radical Gay Agenda

2010-01-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

Of course this bothers the religious right. And by bothers, I mean makes them very afraid that they will soon have to confront all of their repressed kinky fantasies in their own workplace.

On a related note, Tim Pawlenty has decided that gender transition is just too confusing for children to comprehend. He's probably right. It's better that they're not exposed to that, so they can keep their own gender problems bottled up until they are out in the workforce as a professional, like a teacher or something, then they can make their own decisions about when to....oh. oops.

Bad articles at New Geography.

2010-01-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

It's true that Portland, Oregon is not as diverse as most American cities. However, this article is quite stupid and really seems to be a simple attempt at contrarianism, and this one is anecdotal, condescending garbage that really doesn't merit reply.

However, I still feel the need to reply to both. I'll start with the second article, "Sushi Without Japanese". He points out that the majority of Latino immigrants end up working in the agricultural sector across the state, as if this phenomenon is unique to Portland and Oregon. I think it self evidently is not. The same with his complaint that new foreign immigrants tend to cluster in autonomous neighborhoods in Portland. Does he not think that this exists in other cities? Has he ever been to a Chinatown elsewhere? Little Italy? Japantown? Furthermore, these clusters likely actually help the new immigrants. They are surrounded by people who are familiar with the problems that immigrants face, people speak their language, and they are allowed to maintain part of their culture. I really don't see how this is a bad thing. Would he prefer that we require cultural assimilation of all new immigrants? Perhaps everyone should eat a double cheeseburger once a week? Fucking idiotic.

The second article has more data behind it, but it is just as historically ignorant. I'm going to assume that his goal is to call out Portland on our "self congratulatory" nature about how livable our city is because those policies have only been "enabled" by a lack of diversity.

But there's really nothing to call out. Portland is the way that is because there was never a diverse enough population to cause all the problems associated with diversity, so white people never fled the city and left it to decay. That is not something that Portland should be apologizing for, rather it is something that other cities should regret. Minorities, and particularly African Americans, never left the big American cities. The only people who did were white. This sentence in particular pissed me off:

Civic leaders in city after city duly make their pilgrimage to Denver or Portland to check out shiny new transit systems, but the resulting videos of smiling yuppies and happy hipsters are not likely to impress anyone over at the local NAACP or in the barrios.

First of all, does Aaron Renn think that the local NAACP or the residents of the barrios run other American cities? I'm pretty sure they don't. Other cities continue to suffer from underinvestment from the government because white people still run the fucking show. So maybe those videos of smiling happy hipsters with their pretentious lattes and blackberries aren't aimed at the people in the barrios. Maybe they are aimed at the suburban whites who still have most of the political power in this country and who may actually be convinced not to cut bus service because someone that looks like them might actually ride it.

Renn also says that "it's easy to have Scandinavian policies if you have Scandinavian demographics". True, but again, the problem in the other cities is not that Black people don't ride mass transit. Philadelphia serves as the perfect example here where almost all the mass transit riders were minorities (in my limited experience). So I think he is framing this wrong. Minorities ride public transit everywhere. Poor people ride mass transit everywhere. The issue is that, unless you have "Scandinavian demographics", white people choose not invest and not ride mass transit (or send their children to public schools, etc.).

Just to be clear: "progressive" things like investing in public transit do benefit poor people and minorities. The difference is that the riders in those other cities may end up being a different color than in Portland, but that doesn't change the benefits. White people don't ride mass transit in other cities, so they don't fund it because they don't see the benefits. So should Portland be called out because their investment in public transit has benefited the mostly white poor as opposed to the more ethnically diverse poor in other cities?

Lastly, his assertion that cities like Houston "welcomed Katrina victims with open arms" can only be spoken by someone who hasn't ever lived in Texas. I was living there, and there were exaggerated horror stories that circulated (mostly amongst whites) about the havoc that the refugees caused upon arrival. In the Texan white community, the refugees were largely seen as criminals, just like they were depicted on television.

Oh Hey They Must Read My Blog.

2009-12-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

Washington continues to be a surprisingly progressive city. Gay marriage, fancy modern subway system, what's not to like?

Tuesday Morning Meyousic

2009-12-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

Wednesday Night MeYousic

2009-12-16T19:02:00.001-08:00

Aristocrats

2009-12-16T18:49:00.000-08:00

Long ago, I accepted that our elected representatives in Congress were beholden to lobbyists and that most of them cared very little about the substance of policy. The only thing that matters is how the juvenile media and the lobbyists will react.

But Joe Lieberman seems to have set a new standard here. He is not listening to lobbyists, and he is not listening to the media. He is simply trying to spite the liberals that worked against him in the last election. Money from the insurance industry probably doesn't even matter at this point.

Just another reminder that, for the most part, we are governed by technocrats (and aristocrats in the case of the Senate) who do not have even the mildest sense of the importance of the things that they do. It's all an intra-governmental game and, for lack of a better word, petty office politics. It's like In the Loop, but less funny.

Oh, by the way, fuck Joe Lieberman.

Fuck Joe Lieberman

2009-12-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

I have read several theories speculating on the possible motivations for Joe Lieberman's almost single handedly destroying healthcare reform, but I honestly don't carfe what his motivations are. He needs to kicked off his committee now, and the Obama administration needs to start treating him like the other 41 obstructionist Senators that just happen to call themselves Republicans instead of Independents.

Fuck Joe Lieberman.

The ACLU

2009-12-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

Oh fucking hell.

Pretty much everyone that I've told that I work for the ACLU has said something positive, but qualified. Like "Oh they're a cool organization, but I don't support everything they do". Or "They've made some bad decisions", or whatever.

But actually, everyone that I know and talk to, you are wrong. Yes, the ACLU defended neo-Nazis right to march down the street in predominantly Jewish town. Yes, they defended NAMBLA (the most tragically funny organization ever), and they defended those disgusting Theocrats from Westboro Baptist Church.

But really, if you don't let the Nazi's march, or you don't let the Westboro idiots yell at soliders and queers, then it just makes the problem worse. The idiotic movements are exposed as what they are by being out the open. If something is prohibited, it just makes it all that more appealing to those that are predisposed toward these ridiculous movements, and it makes violence more likely. Provocation is what these types of groups specialize in, and letting them march out in the open while you drink a cup of tea and act all gay or Jewish or whatever is probably best way to fuck with them (this is why I advocated a big gay dance party counter-protest to the Westboro people when they came to town instead of an indignant, angry counter-protest). Furthermore, I'm willing to bet that the neo-Nazis and the Westboro people have done more to hurt their cause with any publicity they got because the public's reactions are pretty universally disgust.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, I honestly can't think of a court case that the ACLU has been wrong on. They literally persuaded John Scopes to testify on behalf of evolution at the famous trial. They supported school desegregation, Roe v. Wade, and gay rights time after time.

Like Glenn Greenwald says, the ACLU has been the first and most prominent opponent of all the tough guys that have wanted to establish a police state since September 11. For example of the tough guys who love to start wars that they don't fight in, you can always check the Weekly Standard.

Here's Glenn's response to that article.

Wednesday Night Meyousic

2009-12-02T22:36:00.001-08:00

More from the Mercury.

2009-12-02T22:25:00.001-08:00

Absolutely shocking.

Is someone trying to say that prostitutes don't actually like being prostitutes? That's absurd. Jail time should solve our prostitution problem just like it solved our drug problem.

And lastly, this is perhaps the funniest movie review I've ever read.

Once Again

2009-12-02T22:17:00.000-08:00

Why I love the Portland Mercury.

P.S. Willamette Week didn't even mention Outside In in their list of 70 non-profits (or something) to give to over the holidays. Fuckers.

He Just Doesn't Want Gays Stuffing It Down His Throat All the Time.

2009-11-22T11:48:00.000-08:00

Only sometimes. It's really hard to give speeches to TV crews with the gays stuffing it down your throat. Or your kid's.

BUT HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT!

2009-10-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Never before have I learned of such a news event from Facebook, but that was actually the case this morning with Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The comments were almost all from the old conservative friends that I don't really talk to anymore, and they were almost all some version of the all caps title of this post.

I agree somewhat. Obama hasn't done much in the name of peace, and he did just rule out pulling our troops from Afghanistan. He's made progress in Iraq, but so far his words are no more peaceful than Clinton's were in 90's as far as I can tell.

But really, who gives a shit? The Nobel Peace Prize means nothing. The only thing that this event signifies is that some Western Europeans love Barack Obama, which should be surprising to nobody. The rest of the world despised Bush, and apparently the Nobel committee wanted to send an obvious message that they like Barack better. I didn't even think most conservatives cared about the opinion of the international community, especailly socialist Scandinavians. I'll be surprised if the socialist element doesn't work it's way into conservative rhetoric soon.

It's all just one more unproductive hissy fit against Barack. I wish they would throw one so I could get some fucking healthcare.

The Northeast

2009-10-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

It sure is different from the West Coast. More makeup, fewer bikes. Apparently white people are still too scared to ride the subway in Philadelphia, as though the hundreds of non white people surrounding you at all times will just sit and stare as you get mugged.

It's a very weird dynamic. Apparently suburban legislators control most of the regional planning, and therefore mass transit, so there is a huge amount of commuter trains that go from suburb to city. The stations are nice, and they come very frequently during rush hours, and lots of white people ride these.

But the subway is a mess. I couldn't get any of the token machines to work, so I had to get a SEPTA guy to come help. The signage in the subway was insufficient at best and misleading at worst. One of the tubes on the Broad Street line literally indicated which way the trains would go by spray painted arrows along the wall.

This is all because a lot (most?) people there don't find the city of Philadelphia a very nice place to live, which I don't understand. I do understand that many people perceive the suburbs to safer for children, which may be true, but it also may not be true. It always seemed to me that in a city there are so many eyes on the street that it is more difficult to commit a street crime. I would say if a mugger wants to rob someone, he or she has a better chance of getting away with it in a suburban mall parking lot than the middle of a busy street downtown.

Once a child becomes a teenager, I would guess, with no empircal evidence at all except for my own experiences, they may actually be safer in a city. More teenagers die in car crashes than anything else. Why? Because they live in the fucking suburbs and have to drive everywhere. As they are experimenting with alcohol and perhaps drugs, they are going to have to drive home to mom and dad's house every night under the influence. Teenagers are also just terrible and aggressive drivers that are prone to crashing. I'm surprised the high cost of providing a car for every member of the family isn't more of a deterrent from living in the suburbs. According to my own experience, it's also not any more difficult to acquire alcohol or drugs in the suburbs than it would be in the city.

In a demonstration of the animosity that Pennsylvanians feel toward Philadelphia, the legislature nearly let the city go bankrupt. The Mayor was forced to come up with a plan to cut police, close all the parks, and pick up trash only every two weeks. This in a city that I would call messy, if I were being generous.

Philadelphia has great potential, and it seems like urban living is becoming more appealing to people these days, so maybe it will improve.

Also:

Cheesesteaks=delicious

Pizza in the Northeast=even more delicious

By Popular Demand

2009-09-28T11:23:00.000-07:00

A friend suggested that I do a post about the Kanye dustup and race in America. Then another friend said she thought it was an interesting subject too because Kanye has always been outspoken about racial prejudice, which hadn't really occurred to me. So here it goes.

Kanye made himself look like an asshole. If he thought that the award was being given to the white girl because she was white, he didn't represent that opinion very well. In fact, he played into outdated stereotypes of black men as intimidating and uncontrolled...or something.

And I think perhaps Kanye plays into stereotypes of black men, or at least hip hop artists, himself. He's the son of the chair of the English department at a substantial university and he writes blog posts in all caps with terrible grammar (I can't seem to find his actual blog posts). Granted, the blogosphere isn't exactly the most grammatically correct forum, but he pushes the LOL-language to the point of incomprehension. Normally, I wouldn't judge a hip hop artist on their grammar because it seems classist and condescending, but Kanye is known for his clever wordplay and he is obviously educated. Anyway, Lupe Fiasco seems like a good example of being the anti-Kanye in that he addresses racism in a more approachable and understandable way.

I did love "George Bush doesn't care about black people". That was an appropriate event for yelling on national television, and I was incredibly happy that he did it. But stealing a microphone from a 19 year old on national television makes racism worse, not better. I must agree with Obama that he is somewhat of a jackass.

My God.

2009-09-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have only heard of Robert Moses in the past few years when I realized that cities are actually great places to live, but it really seems like he just drew lines on maps of cities however the fuck he wanted. A Laurelhurst Freeway? Seriously?

It's basically the same design every time. Giant inner ring highway destroying inner city neighborhoods, giant outer ring highway so suburbanites can get to wherever quickly, with several spokes so they can get to work downtown. But it never works.

Clinton on Gay Rights

2009-09-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Undoubtedly he's trying to shift the blame here, but I think sometimes we may overestimate the power that a president has to make dramatic change. Institutions (such as the military) offer a lot of internal resistance.

Wednesday Night Meyousic

2009-09-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

Irony and Tragedy (or, The Day that Everything Changed)

2009-09-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about my own (usually ironic) way of discussing 9/11, and the title of this post at Gawker made me feel as if others may share my sentiments.

I remember when we were discussing the Holocaust in a class at school, some of my classmates insisted that it was inappropriate to be ironic or humorous about Hitler or the Holocaust because it diminishes or trivializes the deaths of millions of people. I said that it was not being humorous about a tragedy that can trivialize it, but rather a sort strict culture instruction on how to discuss a subject that trivializes it. That is, if the only way that we are allowed to discuss the Holocaust or 9/11 is by public demonstration of grief, then that grief just becomes ritual. In the same way that calling someone Hitler has become a joke, so has the phrase “never forget” when discussing 9/11, because both Hitler comparisons and commemoration of the attacks are so common that they have become banal.

As the Gawker article says, some emotional distance is appropriate in these situations, and irony or humor is a way of maintaining that distance rather than watching the planes hitting the towers 50 times or looking at pictures of Jews in concentration camps.

That’s because those images are the important thing. They’re self-fucking-explanatory, and when we demand that people deliver a visible or audible demonstration of the emotions they are supposed to feel when they are confronted with that tragedy, it just becomes a ritualized demonstration that people do because that’s just what people are supposed to do. It's difficult to return to the rage, horror, sadness, etc. of that day and demanding that everyone recreate those emotions is counterproductive on many levels.

To add another layer of irony, it’s these cultural demands for public grieving that allow politicians to exploit something like 9/11. To add another layer, it’s the politicians who exploit 9/11 who actually caused the tragedy with their empire building and whatnot. It’s never ending unless everyone just shuts up about 9/11 and let’s the tragedy speak for itself.

Maybe I wouldn't feel the need to be ironic about 9/11 if it hadn't been exploited so grotesquely, but I doubt that the exploitation was unique to this event.

The Massachusetts Congressional Delegation

2009-08-30T01:37:00.001-07:00

The first video shows pretty well why the Kennedys are still important. The second one shows Barney Frank, a Congressman from Massachusetts, getting properly sassy with a crazy woman. The Athens of America indeed.

Friday Morning Meyousic

2009-08-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

Because I feel the need for some culture.

Teaching To the Test

2009-08-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

Every school teacher I know, and most people that are informed about public education, are infuriated by the amount that teachers are forced to “teach to the test”. The test is usually a state administered standardized test that students are required to pass in order to be promoted to the next grade level.

So “teaching to the test” has become a code-word for bad educational policy, but is it? Stephen Brill has an article in the New Yorker describing the difficulty in removing a horrible teacher from the classroom in the NYC public school system. Teachers are paid based solely on seniority, and most are tenured after three years, so there is little economic incentive for them to continue to teach well. The city is prohibited from using test scores in their consideration of offering tenure to teachers, which effectively prohibits any consideration of teacher quality in the decision to offer a teacher life long employment.

Most teachers do continue to teach well, and they always will because they became teachers in order to do so. But some won’t. And, as Brill notes, teacher quality is more important than any other factor in determining a student’s progress. So the question becomes: How do we decide who the bad teachers are if we don’t like the use of standardized testing? The advantage of standardized testing lies in the name itself: it’s standardized. A program in which teachers are evaluated in their own classroom by an independent observer could conceivably accomplish the same purpose, but the ratings would not be standardized. That is, the personal disposition of the observers would allow a large amount of variation between assessments.

Most public school teachers work very hard for not very much money. But in a school system like New York, where tenured teachers who have twenty five years seniority are getting paid well over a hundred thousand dollars a year, there has to be some sort of accountability mechanism. Standardized testing may the imperfect but functional choice.

Freedom Isn't Free

2009-08-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

Good thing we have these brave men protecting it for us. But really, it’s probably because carrying an assault rifle makes your penis twice as big. I really doubt that these losers are the ones that the Secret Service or whomever has to worry about. It’s the guys who don’t strut around who might actually pull the trigger.

Mediterranean Spinach and Orzo Salad and Zucchini Latkes

2009-08-15T23:22:00.000-07:00

I think I’m going through a Greek phase. Or maybe it’s not just a phase; maybe I have always liked Greek/Mediterranean food and I’m just finally learning how to make my favorite things. Anyway, I ate falafel every day for at least two weeks recently, and I ate basic Greek salads even longer. Now I’ve been making this orzo salad for several days, and I just bought more sundried tomatoes so I could keep eating it. It might be good with olives if you’re one of those people that, you know, like olives. I’m not one of those people.

The latkes aren’t Greek, but they’re just something I’ve wanted to make for a while. They are really good with a little bit of sour cream. The first time I made them, I didn’t think the mixture was eggy enough and decided to add another one. Don’t do that. They turned out more like overcooked eggs with some potato and zucchini mixed in.

I got the salad recipe from my mother, who saw it in a Costco magazine. The recipe is one of those that tell me which brand of spinach to buy. That makes me laugh. The zucchini latkes are from the best food blogger on all of the internets.

Mediterranean Spinach and Orzo Salad
1 cup orzo pasta
½ cup sundried tomatoes
½ diced cucumber
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 oz feta cheese

Red Wine Vinaigrette
1 clove of a shallot or 1 clove garlic, chopped
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ cup rw vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard if you want it to be a little creamier
Fresh oregano or thyme if you have it

For the vinaigrette, mix it all up in a bowl and leave it to sit while you make the salad. Boil the orzo to the liking of its manufacturer, and then let it cool before adding it to the salad. Mother says it’s good to let the orzo soak in a little bit of dressing beforehand but I’m not so sure. That sounds like a recipe for soggy orzo to me. Anyway, you know how to assemble a salad. Do it with the ingredients mentioned above.

Zucchini Latkes

Recipe here. I used flour instead of matzo meal because I have never purchased matzo meal and had never really considered it before. If you have matzo meal, maybe you should consider using that, but flour was just fine.

What to do if your teacher is a war criminal?

2009-08-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

I suppose some of my former high school classmates will be facing this question at Texas Tech. Most laughably, he will be teaching a “leadership” class for minority and underrepresented students. Presumably, he will tell them to sell their soul so that the rich, white Republicans can win more elections.

To be fair, his war criminal status is as yet to be determined. Go Red Raiders!

Being Well Endowed.

2009-08-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

I’m talking about colleges, of course. A while back I wrote a short post about the inferior endowment problems at Reed (the innuendo just keeps on giving). Now an economist/blogger named Felix Salmon raises an interesting question: Why don’t colleges spend their endowments during rough times to avoid the admissions and service cuts that they are currently enduring?

It seems like colleges are beholden to the same growth principle that drives publicly traded companies that says that simply sustaining the current level of profitability is not enough. The result must be an exponential increase or else that result is a failure. I just don’t get it.

Why I Love the Mercury

2009-08-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Things like this.

Everyday Salsa

2009-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

So since I acquired a tiny little food processor/chopper around Christmas, I have realized that there is no longer any need to buy salsa. Ever. I haven’t experimented with trying different kinds of salsas yet because I mostly just love really spicy, tomato-y, cilantro-y salsa, so I’m still working on getting tired of putting that on everything (like my breakfast of potatoes and eggs this morning).

So, for anyone who has even a tiny food processor at their disposal, there is no longer any need to consume that substance known as Pace Picante, which seems to have a half life of about 10,000 years. It only takes about 10 minutes to make your own salsa, and you can make it spicy as hell. You can probably make this with fresh tomatoes as well, but you should squeeze a lot of the juice out first because in my experience blended fresh tomatoes = very watery salsa.

Everyday Tomato Salsa

1 can diced tomatoes

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 jalapeno, chopped with seeds removed

¼ of a red onion

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon hot sauce (Louisiana, Cholula, etc.)

Juice of ¼ of a lime

1. Put all the ingredients in your food processor/chopper

2. Process/chop it up real nice

3. Eat it on any one of the five million things that salsa is good on. Preferably a burrito, though.

Better Than Your Grandma's Chicken Salad

2009-08-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

Oh, so your Grandma had the most delicious chicken salad EVAR, did she? You used to look forward to eating every time you went to her house, eh? And even though she shared the recipe, it seemed like no one could replicate Grandma’s delicious chicken salad, huh?

Well my Grandma had a chicken salad like that, too. However, there was one thing that was neglected in her chicken salad, and hence in the chicken salad of my mother and all of my other family members’ as well. Specifically, the salad was neglected.

Grandma’s chicken salad was a tasty combination of mayonnaise, chicken, and celery with some tarragon. It was tasty, but chicken, celery, and mayonnaise does not a salad make. So I have my own version incorporating such salad-like elements as bell pepper, onion, tomato, grapes, and fresh herbs on top of the old staples. It’s delicious, and this is certainly something that you can wrap up in a tortilla with some lettuce make an awesome BURRITO.

Better Than Your Grandma’s Chicken Salad

½ a large hothouse tomato
½ a red onion
½ each of a red and yellow bell pepper
2 celery stalks
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup mayonnaise
3 whole chicken breasts (BOOBIES!)
2 cups chopped green grapes
1 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons tarragon
2 Tablespoons paprika
Fresh thyme, oregano, rosemary (optional)
Salt and peppa and a little garlic powder

1. Boil the chicken in a pot of salted water for about 12-15 minutes.
2. Chop all them delicious vegetables, herbs, and spices and put them in a big mixing bowl
3. Take the chicken out of the pot, let it cool, then tear with your fingers or a fork and put it in the big mixing bowl.
4. Mix in the mayo and mustard and stir it all up
5. Put it all on some toasted bread (maybe with a little sweet relish?) and a plate with some regular Lay’s potato chips
6. Try not to scream as you have a foodgasm

Friday Night Meyousic

2009-08-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

More Food Thoughts

2009-08-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

Just to clarify the last post, I don't see any coherent moral prohibition against eating humanely raised meat. I think that in the current state of our food system, the more vegetarians the better, because many Americans eat a ridiculous amount of inhumanely raised meat, and vegetarians help counteract that.

Neither does that mean that our meat consumption shouldn’t be reduced dramatically. Of course, I’m really only justifying my own consumption, but I don’t really feel bad about it.

My Omnivore's Dilemma

2009-08-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a great book, but anyone reading this blog has probably known that for about a year now. I read about two thirds of it last summer, but then school started, and I never got to read the last 150 pages or so. But now I did, and they were really the best part of the book. The last third (or perhaps half) of the book covered Pollan’s trip to Polyface Farm in Virginia, where he encountered the most delicious sounding meat I’ve ever read about, and his "hunter-gatherer" meal.

Pollan’s thoughts on the ethics of eating animals in general are also described in detail in the last half, and they seem to somewhat parallel my own feelings on the subject, although he is certainly more eloquent. I have never really had a justification for why I eat meat, but it never seemed wrong to me. I think it’s maybe because my general philosophy on eating has become “eat the things that people have been eating for thousands of years”, and meat is firmly within that category. Pollan doesn’t necessarily advocate the eating of meat, but he does provide what seems like a coherent argument against a moral prohibition of the act.

One important argument that he makes against the “animal rightists” as he calls them addresses the equivalence that is drawn between animal and human life. I haven’t read Animal Liberation Peter Singer, and perhaps I should instead of accepting Pollan’s characterization of his position as purely “utilitarian”. However, according to Pollan, one argument advanced by a utilitarian position such as Singer’s is that we should grant the same rights to a chimp, a dog, or a pig as we would to humans because, in fact, many chimps are more intelligent and capable of emotion than either young or under-developed human beings. So Pollan poses the question of animal testing: If we must test a medical product on a mammal, should we do it to rats or retarded humans?

The answer is obvious, of course, but it does address what seems to be the logical extension of a utilitarian argument that envisions complete equivalence between species. Despite how awesome monkeys are and how bad I want one to be my friend, they are not humans no matter how closely we are related. We feel a certain connection to other humans that we do not naturally feel with other animals, and it's probably not a coincidence.

Pollan also addresses animal happiness, which in the case of domestic animals is probably best represented by a life on Polyface farm. Yes, they die in the end, but chickens don’t survive so well in the wild, either. So if we end consumption of the meat of domestic animals, that could very well lead to the extinction of one or more domestic animals...Is that a good thing? Pollan points out that these animals have evolved to become dependent on humans, and it was, at least until recently, a successful evolutionary adaptation.

Something that Pollan mentions, which I don’t think he needed to, is the “Vegetarian’s Dilemma”. He says that he feels like a burden on people when he goes to their house for dinner, and that vegetarianism makes life more complicated or more difficult or something, etc.

But…really? I don’t see this at all with my vegetarian friends. In fact, I enjoy accommodating them because it makes me cook new vegetarian things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I don’t necessarily think anything is lost by not eating meat, as Pollan seems to imply, but I also don’t see any moral reason not to. But I think it's becoming more and more well known that Americans eat too much meat. And in the current state of our food system and environment, the more vegetarians the better. More restaurants offering more vegetarian options, more people eating vegetarian meals at home, and more people just being exposed to the reasons to not eat meat would be an improvement.

Anyway, read the book if you haven’t, or if you’re too lazy, go see the movie version. And ya know what’s good either vegetarian or omnivorous? BURRITOS.

Friday Night Meyousic

2009-07-31T20:04:00.001-07:00

More Policing!

2009-07-31T19:48:00.001-07:00

I remember in high school there was a rumor that someone had invented a roadside test for detecting marijuana in someone’s system. This caused alarm for many people who had enjoyed relative security in their stoned driving (as opposed to the more risky drunk driving).

However, the public is much more likely to support legalization if we find an effective method of testing drivers. Presumably the police would be much more supportive, also. So perhaps investing some of the money we spend shooting at smugglers on the border would be better spent finding an effective roadside test for the police to regulate stoned driving.

Some worry that legalization would lead to an industry that is dependent upon people using marijuana consistently and spending their money on it, much like tobacco or alcohol. But we regulate alcohol and tobacco marketing specifically for this reason, and I see no reason that the same can’t be done for marijuana. The “grow your own” policy of allowing growing, possession, and consumption but maintaining the illegality of selling marijuana maintains the black market for people who don’t have a garden to grow it in, and so we would just continue wasting our police and throwing people in jail for a drug that is relatively harmless.

More Taxes!

2009-07-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

There really is no reason not to have a tax on plastic bags. Sales taxes are somewhat regressive, but that’s easily solved by handing out canvas bags to poor people. Maybe two canvas bags twice a year to anyone that gets food stamps? There’s fucking plastic bags all over every city and highway in the United States and it does not need to be that way. In my personal experience, it just doesn’t occur to most people that paper or plastic is unnecessary. Also, it's actually a lot easier to carry groceries in the stronger canvas bags.

The Irish taxed each bag at 15 cents and they were using 90% less bags in three months. Now that is some effective taxation, my friends. Seattle is considering doing this in November. I hope they pass it.

For British Eyes Only

2009-07-30T17:00:00.001-07:00

Apparently the Obama people don’t want anyone to prove that we tortured people. Isn’t it a pretty well established fact to everyone that has been paying attention?

Truthfully, I don’t care all that much as long as don’t torture more people. I just wanted an excuse to post this video. See if you can spot the Guantanamo detainee:

American Wasteland

2009-07-30T16:54:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of Southern California:

Big Bob Dole Cock

2009-07-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I went to see some stand up comedy last weekend, and one of the comics was quite funny. The other, however, was somewhat offensive and juvenile. Political incorrectness was the central component of his act, and it’s not really surprising that he wasn’t really my thing.

One theme in his act that he emphasized several times struck me. The reason he was ranting against bikers, gay rights supporters, people who recycle, or whoever else was that “he didn’t like being talked down to, dammit”.

Fair enough. But he only verbalized this feeling later in the act, as he was ranting against Bob Dole’s Viagra commercials for making him feel inferior. I think perhaps what is necessary in such a situation is to separate the commercial message that is intended to make you feel inferior so you buy a product, and someone who makes you feel slightly inferior for doing something that is detrimental to some of your fellow human beings (gay rights) or perhaps all of the creatures on the earth (recycling). It seems as though this inferiority complex will show up in very inconvenient places, such as when one is in charge of the U.S. military and one wishes to use it against U.S. citizens just so those Terrorist Motherfuckers learn that one doesn’t fuck around.

But really, when someone tells you to support gay rights or to recycle, it’s not about you or your lack of a Big Bob Dole Cock. It’s about everyone. I’m reminded of some writing that I saw on a bathroom wall once: “It’s not everyone else, it’s everyone”.

Oh By the Way

2009-07-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney thinks he should get to play general with the Army in your neighborhood.

Glenn Greenwald has an in depth discussion of the memos and the legal justification. But of course, there really isn’t any justification.

Presumably he would do this so it would make it easier for the government to keep the suspects in military custody without trial, which has been done anyway.

It's All in the Details

2009-07-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

To quote some other blogger:

"Healthcare that doesn’t cover lady parts isn’t really healthcare".

Friday Night Meyousic

2009-07-17T21:59:00.001-07:00

Liberty!

2009-07-16T00:35:00.000-07:00

An interesting story about the public packaging of board games and worldwide empires at the bottom of this post at the Monkey Cage. When you get down to it, the people running the show are really just businessmen.

Today's Sign of the Apocalypse

2009-07-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

This probably smells really good on a barbeque stained white t-shirt.