Gratz to little bro. - 3 June

[silveradept]

The youngest and tallest of the family graduated his high school today. This means that nobody has to go back there again for any occasion. Which did cause some of us to dance a jig, knowing that that particular phase of existence was behind. When all of us go away from our college days, it’ll be much more interesting to see whether it’s as happy a situation. The parents may rejoice, knowing that they don’t have to try and put any more through college, but for some of us, we’ll be much older, and hopefully wiser, when that occasion happens. Anyway, congratulations to the young one - the real education begins now.

I’m pretty tired, so there may not be that much for witty banter on tonight’s list. But we’re still trying for something interesting. Austin Cline at Jesus’ General leads with a comparison between how the French do politics and how America does politics and comes up with some interesting notes on how much Americans are religion-centered and distracted by shiny things, where the French turn out in numbers and basically don’t care that much about religion.

More on the increasing creep of “I can not do my job if what you want me to do offends me personally”, a posting in bad_service about a Washington Post article on a food co-op cashier that refused to serve someone based on their T-shirt, getting another cashier to ring up the sale. (Original WaPo article here - hat tips to 2dlife) I do not like this trend at all. If people wish to be in jobs where they can discriminate like that, fine, find those jobs. Let people who actually are able to do the stated job to all people take over your position. A stunt like that would get me fired, or at least strongly disciplined, from the position I’m going into. I thought the part of taking on a public service job meant that you had to deal with everyone, even people whom you may personally consider to be complete assholes. Upon the occasion where they do something that can get them escorted form the premises, by all means, tell them to get the hell out, but until then, you kind of have to deal with it.

Even well after the actual hurricane hit, experts contend that there are still a significant amount of deaths being caused by Hurricane Katrina and its aftereffects. It’s going to take a lot to return those areas to their former zest, so deaths from psychological causes, as well as reduced capacity at health facilities all contribute to what is probably a more accurate death count from the hurricane strike.

In China, municipal authorities reconsidered the building of a toxic chemical factory after a text message and blog campaign protesting it. (Much more manageable. Thanks, 2dlife) Using “new” tech, and managing to avoid being shut down by any official channels, people made their voices known. Score one for the commoners?

Rather old piece, but I still see the signs that this particular report stems from. I don’t know if they still lead to the same place or not, but reading the Cockeyed report on "Work From Home" signs that lead to Herbalife distribution certainly makes you wary of anything that promises you money from a street sign and doesn’t identify itself. Or, actually, that promises anything from a street sign and doesn’t really identify itself.

USA Today needs to be hit, as they put up a headline like Growth in exhibitionism traced to porn and then spend most of the article talking about the change in what’s considered “sexy” as well as how technology has permitted a lot more people to be exhibitionists and the changes of behavior that follow that. While supposedly being the focus of the article, there’s actually very little about any study or much connective material that justifies the headline. I think the headline needs to be reworked some to more accurately reflect the content in the article. And if they’re tracing it back to a single cause like increased availability of porn, I really want to see some numbers backing that up. (And 2dlife provides the APA report that the article is drawing from. It doesn’t look that much like the APA is pinning pr0n as a single cause there, as possibly one of many reasons why there’s increased sexualization of children, especially young girls.

Robotics continues to produce beings that attempt to help humans understand themselves better. Osaka University has completed CB2, a robot that mimics a one- to two-year old child, in an attempt to understand human infants better.

For those in the rat race, Next Nature shows off a project from the Dalhousie School of Architecture - the grass-lined human hamster wheel. So that even in the middle of the city, you can enjoy the feeling of the earth beneath your feet. This is a neat concept.

So that’s all the stuff for tonight. I think bed sounds like an excellent idea. Tomorrow is laundry and the packing part starts. Hopefully, I remember everything that I’m supposed to. Or, if I don’t, it’s something I can get easily. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m going to be in Washington State, starting on Wednesday. I’d love to meet people who can get into the area while I’m there. There will be some juggling with the job interviews, which take priority, but if we can work something out, that would be fantastic.

Comments

[nebris.livejournal.com]

I'm getting pretty sick of this "Your beliefs offend me, I won't serve you" shit. Time for some hefty law suits, I'd say, against both the service and the server. Let's see how much real dollar value these fuckers place on their 'beliefs' then.

~M~

[silveradept]

Precedent's already been set with the pharmacists being able to refuse birth control, in my opinion. So long as there's someone there who can fulfill the order without moral objections, then things appear to be fine and dandy. Something like this was in the making, no doubt, and it seems to be nth-degree absurdity, but according to the current views, it's probably considered acceptable.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

WaPo article (Hint: stick the headline into Google News)


In China, a protest, spread by text messaging and blogs, over the building of a factory that would produce a toxic chemical appeared to sufficiently convince municipal authorities to reconsider the factory's building. >> Chinese municipal authorities reconsidered the building of a toxic chemical factory after a text message and blog campaign protesting it. (It's not much shorter, but it's more direct.)

Original APA report on sexualization of girls

As for comments: 1) Congrats and all that to your brother. 2) The hamster wheel may have to be astroturf or some species of grass that can really really take a beating (and grow upside down in minimal water) since it's going to be trampled by what is effectively a small army of people. 3) Refusing service is a touchy issue. While it seems that you're taking the moral high ground right now because it's easy to side with the person with the limited free speech, reverse the tables. Should the openly gay librarian help the homophobe with the "Kill all Gays" T-shirt find a book detailing how homosexuals should suffer? What if the customer keeps glaring at the librarian and makes obvious gestures to avoid proximity? What if a customer is indirectly verbally abusive... he's talking to someone on a cell phone about a cashier being a good-for nothing, ugly, stupid, bitch etc... Does she have the right to refuse service? Does she have the right to speak up to defend herself? In these cases, the customer is exercising free speech, not being abusive in an illegal way (the cashier shouldn't be eavesdropping) and yet it'd be an uncomfortable exchange. Does the service person at least have the right to excuse herself and let someone else ring up the sale?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

As much as those situations are all cases where you want to say "refuse service!", unless the company has some sort of policy set that says you have the right to refuse service to someone, there's a large possibility that if you do refuse service you could lose your job. Same if you "speak up" to defend yourself or your choices, because there are a a lot of places that still go along with "the customer is always right". In the article, one of the comments was something along the lines of it being no different than the cashier leaving to go to the bathroom - that would be an acceptable way of avoiding confrontation with someone you did not agree with. You could excuse yourself and on the way to the restroom talk to another employee to help the person, and it can all be explained away by not wanting to leave the customer waiting for the person to come back. but acceptance is two-way. If the gay librarian wants to be accepted for who they are, they also have to accept people who don't agree with their lifestyle.

[silveradept]

Thanks for the source material. I should probably do that whole librarian thing and find what I'm looking for myself.

The brother's going to get his propaganda degree from one of the nearby universities. I think he'll do much better now that he has control over class choice and isn't stuck in the hell that is high school (and our high school on top of that.)

Hamster wheel will probably have to be very tough grass to withstand the beating, yeah. It might be grown in segments, so that it's fully rooted in by the time that it starts having to hang upside-down. The soil underneath has to be well-attached to whatever the outside material is. I'd be more worried about all the dirt leaking out than the grass, myself.

Part of the library's service requirements are that all people, regardless of their political or religious beliefs, are to be politely served. To counteract that, though, things like the Rules of Behavior and library policy will detail what is expected of those using the library. So, the openly-gay librarian should be helping the obvious homophobe, despite how distasteful they may find it, so long as the homophobe isn't violating any of the rules. Same applies for the indirect abuse. At the point where the rules are violated, the librarian is fully within their right to refuse service as a matter of policy. Same for cashiers (no shirt, no shoes, no service.)

Now, for the ability to excuse or pass to someone else, so long as it's not a great inconvenience for the customer, that shouldn't be a problem. The other librarian on the desk can take it, or the other cashier out front. But if it's going to force a long wait while someone suitable is found, that's when I worry. Or when workers start deciding they're not going to give service to someone who hasn't actually given them a justifiable cause to refuse them. I know it sounds horrible, but unless there's policy violations happening, the best people can do is grin, bear it, vent later and possibly post to customers_suck.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I don't agree. No one is a robot, and the customer is not always right. There's an expectation that a server should be wholly robotic and treat all customers identically. It makes sense in theory: they're paying for your service, not for you. However, it's breeding a mentality that it's OK to be a jerk as the customer. Purchasing something is a human interaction, there are precious few of those as it is, and it should be valued. If the server doesn't feel that the circumstance would allow a proper level of human interaction, she should be allowed to ask that someone else do the serving. Some situations should be exempt, such as dispensing of medication, but in general, the right to refuse service is part of the ability to coexist.

[silveradept]

Hrm. I think we're basically agreeing on some things, but coming at it from different views. To encompass those rights that you feel are necessary (and they're good rights, no doubt about that) in an official sort of manner, policies need to be enacted to do so. It's a very CYA sort of thing. So what I'm saying is mostly "If it's not covered under policy, there's not much you can do about it, so get people to change or include that in the policy." Whereas you seem to be saying, "Even if it's not in the policy, this should be a fundamental right, and people will have to deal with that." I don't disagree with that, but from my experience, unless you can point to policy, problems erupt. Making a momentary decision without the force of something official to back you up is asking for trouble.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

If you haven't already, tell Little bro congrats for me :)

Packing....

Suit (2 shirts)
black socks (2 pr)
regular clothes (x number of days)
pajama pants
towel (just in case)
extra printouts of resume
stick drive loaded with resume in case you need to print more
camera
cell phone
cell phone charger
toiletries
mp3 player
extra batteries
SS card (might need it for interviews)
book
snacks for the plane (but no snakes)

:D Me and my lists....