The extra things - 25-26 August 2010
Aug. 29th, 2010 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptYep, old news sent late.
Good morning, those fighting their good fights, regardless of which fight it is. The "Media Bullshit" department receives top billing today, with why you must see unretouched images, and why you must see them repeatedly. Because the artificial beauty created through photo shoots and image manipulation software is a lie. A very big lie. And there are still people who believe that's reality, and the real people around them just don't measure up. For some girls, that includes themselves.
There may be some hope, though. For the generations before this one, there was Sesame Street (before it became the Elmo show) and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood as the staples of young childhood. Also, possibly, The Muppet Show, whose predecessors are now part of the Smithsonian collection. These days, it's Dora the Explorer. Dora's popularity might say a lot of things about the world kids are growing up in, and the changing values they experience, many of which are more positive.
Plus, 26 August was declared to be Women's Equality Day. Here's hoping that this means support for an amendment that spells out the equality of all men and women, and greater encouragement and support to get women into more fields. The proclamation puts out some highlights of good stuff that's being done, at least in terms of appointments of positions and a couple bits of legislation. Something that would really show some commitment to helping out women, though would be helping them be able to take care fo children and have careers at the same time. Yes, it's another safety-net/socialism thing, but I suspect that if we help women be able to raise their children, we're going to see a lot of positive knock-on effects in all aspects of our society.
In much less serious matters, ever have to explain what a rickroll is to Congressional investigators? Someone did. Oh, and someone captured a visit from The Doctor to MIT campus, apparently unfurling a banner with the current score between the Time Lord and a different university also located in Massachussettes. For a close-up look at the police box in question, enjoy the close-up of building 7's roof, where the writing is made clear.
And before we begin, if you're ever overwhelmed with the thought of there being too much to read and not enough time to read it, know that you're in good company - and examine how many of our great ancestors worked their way through the problem then of too many books and not enough time. In a pinch, too, books are excellent for helping prevent a purse-snatching by bludgeoning the would-be-thief sufficiently hard to knock him out.
Out in the world today, another Assange-like arrest, although this time not over military secrets, but the flaws and security vulnerabilities of voting machines that were developed by two state-controlled agencies in India, machines that were not given to security consultants to try and punch holes into. After speaking publicily about the flawed device, the researcher was pressured to give up the source he had that allowed him to get a machine and find the exploits. He did not, so he was arrested for being in possession of stolen property. It's both a "shoot the messenger" arrest and one that will likely stand under the law, because the researcher won't really be able to prove that his machine was provided to him by someone with access and who could make the decision to give it to him in the interests of building a better mousetrap.
A gay man in Tel Aviv was kidnapped, beaten, and held by his relatives against his will because they demanded he come back to his old village and stop being gay. This after harrassment sufficient that the man filed a complaint with the police about it.
The company that surveyed residents of Jerusalem light rail about whether they would be okay with traveling with Arabs in the same car without security checks and whether they were okay with stops in the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem has caught significant blowback for asking the racist questions. This while they fully intend to have gender-segregated cars, so as not to piss off the fundamentalist Jews. Ahhhh, one of these things is not like the other.
Domestically, it's not news, per se, but it does continue to make the party most clearly associated with denying rights to gay and lesbian people look that much more hypocritical - a former George W. Bush campaign chair and chair of the Republican National Committee has publicly said he was gay, after a long struggle with the identity and the ramifications of being public about it. Had he been out earlier about it, he thinks he might have been able to steer the party away from those positions. Perhaps. Although, as the Slacktivist relates in an anecdote of his own about his Baptist convention and a small armband, sometimes the tide doesn't turn. Sometimes, though, it gives people the knowledge that they're not alone.
What is news, however, is the Senatorial investigation into why the Marshal Service is keeping pictures of people scanned with terahertz backscatter technology, when government specifically denied that it would be saving images. Hopefully, they'll have answers soon. In the same vein, though, a researcher at Wright State is developing the idea of skeletal patterns as an identity marker, being that one's skeleton is nor very easy to fake or change through surgery. It's primarily in the service of PROTECTING THE CHILDRENS from predators and CATCHING THE TERRORISTS, of course, so the massive privacy invasion would be totally justified. commercial applications, like using those skeletal pictures as ID cards, would be a fringe benefit.
Alan Simpson apologizes for his 310 million tits remark, and will...continue to serve as the Republican co-chair for the debt commission, despite teh calls for him to resign over such a statement. This may be a "better the devil you know" kind of thing, but when the opposition made firing the administration economic team a talking point on his economic speech, before floating substance-light suggestions hinting that life will be better with them in charge, I'm not sure that the devil you know is going to be any help. And then there's the matter of the 36th biggest state in the Union - the state of the unemployed...of California. Think about the population of the normal State of the Unemployed.
Finally, A teen who rescued a fellow from drowning and took on a little water himself will not be charged for the medical costs associated with his heroism, after it seemed like he would have to pay for his heroism, something he wouldn't have been able to afford.
Into technology, where research indicates flares from Sol may affect the decay cycles of radioactive elements on Terra, writers invent mathematical theorems of sorting just so they can get away with mind and body-swapping jokes, we send up a new lab to the ISS so we can grow space crystals, try to measure the speed of gravity (it's about c or so), and someone may have just discovered a manufacturing process for sheets of nanotubes that's fast enough for people to use in big applications.
Plus, there was that unmanned drone that lost communication, wandered into restricted airspace, and did not actually execute the program that would have landed it once it lost communication, but that's not important at all. Because you have nothing to fear from the possibility of a hacked drone doing bad things.
Our opinions tonight begin with The Media Research Center, another arm of thoroughly discredited propagandist L. Brent Bozell III, responsible for airing both doctored videos that resulted in manufactured scandals, releases soundbites from liberal-leaning radio hosts intended to make them seem like the real monsters, [PDF format] because... a few liberal radio hosts and guests, mostly one Mike Malloy, make ad hominem attacks and jokes in poor taste about conservative radio hosts. Some of the accusations leveled mirror the "liberals are terrorists" attacks that have emenated from the other side when they were in power. Others mirror the talking point that "liberals want to ruin this country/take over and take away your freedoms" that seems to be standard boilerplate on many of the conservative shows and columns. Some of the quotes mention serve multiple places in the report, padding out the length some. I wonder, if we let Media Matters or Talking Points Memo go over conservative talk radio for the same period of time as this report, and exclude them from being able to duplicate quotes, how many pages of material would they produce?
For people screaming about the terrorists in our midst, we point out the Zogby poll indicating that most American Muslims hold American values, and are aligned closest to the positions American Catholics hold more than American evangelicals.
An important point for all of us - The people who are the ass end of asinine jokes about their minority status should not always have to swallow any complaints they might have, lest they be accused of being the fun police, an angry bitch, or lacking a sense of humor. It's bad enough being a minority. Being told that you should have to educate all the ignorant people out there as well in a way that lets them save face is a further insult. Unfortuantely, we can't expect the majority to care enough to educate themselves on the matter, and then to get a good education that doesn't instill or excuse their -isms. We are Not Unbiased, and so we need correction, too. Sometimes bluntly, I'm guessing.
A couple of interesting lists, both related to the concept of unlearning - ten things that teachers should be unlearning, which then led into at least 20 things that a teacher-librarian should be unlearning. Some of these are intended to knock out old ways that are being transmitted mostly by inertia instead of any proven effectiveness, like the adult in the room is the one that knows best and should control it all, in a pristine, quiet, and tidy environment, through structure that cannot be deviated from. Others take swings at how we do evaluations, like how numbers and letters have taken over for real assessment, which themselves have been neutered so as to allow the numbers and letters to take over. The rest emphasize the growing role of technology and how much teachers cannot afford to not integrate it everywhere, instead of having it be mostly a la carte. They're both worth reading, if only to see what sorts of things we thought were good then aren't all that great now.
In technology, our tendency to fill our downtime with digital devices might be hurting our ability to learn and remember.
Last for tonight, driftwood, indeed. A tree washed ashore in La Push, Washington, in June, and there's the picture to prove it. And the charge of driving while distracted, to a woman who was driving, using a vibrator, and watching a pornographic movie on a laptop in the seat next to her.
As a postscript, you will read an opinion about the desire for cookies that actually tell fortunes, instead of proverbs.
Good morning, those fighting their good fights, regardless of which fight it is. The "Media Bullshit" department receives top billing today, with why you must see unretouched images, and why you must see them repeatedly. Because the artificial beauty created through photo shoots and image manipulation software is a lie. A very big lie. And there are still people who believe that's reality, and the real people around them just don't measure up. For some girls, that includes themselves.
There may be some hope, though. For the generations before this one, there was Sesame Street (before it became the Elmo show) and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood as the staples of young childhood. Also, possibly, The Muppet Show, whose predecessors are now part of the Smithsonian collection. These days, it's Dora the Explorer. Dora's popularity might say a lot of things about the world kids are growing up in, and the changing values they experience, many of which are more positive.
Plus, 26 August was declared to be Women's Equality Day. Here's hoping that this means support for an amendment that spells out the equality of all men and women, and greater encouragement and support to get women into more fields. The proclamation puts out some highlights of good stuff that's being done, at least in terms of appointments of positions and a couple bits of legislation. Something that would really show some commitment to helping out women, though would be helping them be able to take care fo children and have careers at the same time. Yes, it's another safety-net/socialism thing, but I suspect that if we help women be able to raise their children, we're going to see a lot of positive knock-on effects in all aspects of our society.
In much less serious matters, ever have to explain what a rickroll is to Congressional investigators? Someone did. Oh, and someone captured a visit from The Doctor to MIT campus, apparently unfurling a banner with the current score between the Time Lord and a different university also located in Massachussettes. For a close-up look at the police box in question, enjoy the close-up of building 7's roof, where the writing is made clear.
And before we begin, if you're ever overwhelmed with the thought of there being too much to read and not enough time to read it, know that you're in good company - and examine how many of our great ancestors worked their way through the problem then of too many books and not enough time. In a pinch, too, books are excellent for helping prevent a purse-snatching by bludgeoning the would-be-thief sufficiently hard to knock him out.
Out in the world today, another Assange-like arrest, although this time not over military secrets, but the flaws and security vulnerabilities of voting machines that were developed by two state-controlled agencies in India, machines that were not given to security consultants to try and punch holes into. After speaking publicily about the flawed device, the researcher was pressured to give up the source he had that allowed him to get a machine and find the exploits. He did not, so he was arrested for being in possession of stolen property. It's both a "shoot the messenger" arrest and one that will likely stand under the law, because the researcher won't really be able to prove that his machine was provided to him by someone with access and who could make the decision to give it to him in the interests of building a better mousetrap.
A gay man in Tel Aviv was kidnapped, beaten, and held by his relatives against his will because they demanded he come back to his old village and stop being gay. This after harrassment sufficient that the man filed a complaint with the police about it.
The company that surveyed residents of Jerusalem light rail about whether they would be okay with traveling with Arabs in the same car without security checks and whether they were okay with stops in the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem has caught significant blowback for asking the racist questions. This while they fully intend to have gender-segregated cars, so as not to piss off the fundamentalist Jews. Ahhhh, one of these things is not like the other.
Domestically, it's not news, per se, but it does continue to make the party most clearly associated with denying rights to gay and lesbian people look that much more hypocritical - a former George W. Bush campaign chair and chair of the Republican National Committee has publicly said he was gay, after a long struggle with the identity and the ramifications of being public about it. Had he been out earlier about it, he thinks he might have been able to steer the party away from those positions. Perhaps. Although, as the Slacktivist relates in an anecdote of his own about his Baptist convention and a small armband, sometimes the tide doesn't turn. Sometimes, though, it gives people the knowledge that they're not alone.
What is news, however, is the Senatorial investigation into why the Marshal Service is keeping pictures of people scanned with terahertz backscatter technology, when government specifically denied that it would be saving images. Hopefully, they'll have answers soon. In the same vein, though, a researcher at Wright State is developing the idea of skeletal patterns as an identity marker, being that one's skeleton is nor very easy to fake or change through surgery. It's primarily in the service of PROTECTING THE CHILDRENS from predators and CATCHING THE TERRORISTS, of course, so the massive privacy invasion would be totally justified. commercial applications, like using those skeletal pictures as ID cards, would be a fringe benefit.
Alan Simpson apologizes for his 310 million tits remark, and will...continue to serve as the Republican co-chair for the debt commission, despite teh calls for him to resign over such a statement. This may be a "better the devil you know" kind of thing, but when the opposition made firing the administration economic team a talking point on his economic speech, before floating substance-light suggestions hinting that life will be better with them in charge, I'm not sure that the devil you know is going to be any help. And then there's the matter of the 36th biggest state in the Union - the state of the unemployed...of California. Think about the population of the normal State of the Unemployed.
Finally, A teen who rescued a fellow from drowning and took on a little water himself will not be charged for the medical costs associated with his heroism, after it seemed like he would have to pay for his heroism, something he wouldn't have been able to afford.
Into technology, where research indicates flares from Sol may affect the decay cycles of radioactive elements on Terra, writers invent mathematical theorems of sorting just so they can get away with mind and body-swapping jokes, we send up a new lab to the ISS so we can grow space crystals, try to measure the speed of gravity (it's about c or so), and someone may have just discovered a manufacturing process for sheets of nanotubes that's fast enough for people to use in big applications.
Plus, there was that unmanned drone that lost communication, wandered into restricted airspace, and did not actually execute the program that would have landed it once it lost communication, but that's not important at all. Because you have nothing to fear from the possibility of a hacked drone doing bad things.
Our opinions tonight begin with The Media Research Center, another arm of thoroughly discredited propagandist L. Brent Bozell III, responsible for airing both doctored videos that resulted in manufactured scandals, releases soundbites from liberal-leaning radio hosts intended to make them seem like the real monsters, [PDF format] because... a few liberal radio hosts and guests, mostly one Mike Malloy, make ad hominem attacks and jokes in poor taste about conservative radio hosts. Some of the accusations leveled mirror the "liberals are terrorists" attacks that have emenated from the other side when they were in power. Others mirror the talking point that "liberals want to ruin this country/take over and take away your freedoms" that seems to be standard boilerplate on many of the conservative shows and columns. Some of the quotes mention serve multiple places in the report, padding out the length some. I wonder, if we let Media Matters or Talking Points Memo go over conservative talk radio for the same period of time as this report, and exclude them from being able to duplicate quotes, how many pages of material would they produce?
For people screaming about the terrorists in our midst, we point out the Zogby poll indicating that most American Muslims hold American values, and are aligned closest to the positions American Catholics hold more than American evangelicals.
An important point for all of us - The people who are the ass end of asinine jokes about their minority status should not always have to swallow any complaints they might have, lest they be accused of being the fun police, an angry bitch, or lacking a sense of humor. It's bad enough being a minority. Being told that you should have to educate all the ignorant people out there as well in a way that lets them save face is a further insult. Unfortuantely, we can't expect the majority to care enough to educate themselves on the matter, and then to get a good education that doesn't instill or excuse their -isms. We are Not Unbiased, and so we need correction, too. Sometimes bluntly, I'm guessing.
A couple of interesting lists, both related to the concept of unlearning - ten things that teachers should be unlearning, which then led into at least 20 things that a teacher-librarian should be unlearning. Some of these are intended to knock out old ways that are being transmitted mostly by inertia instead of any proven effectiveness, like the adult in the room is the one that knows best and should control it all, in a pristine, quiet, and tidy environment, through structure that cannot be deviated from. Others take swings at how we do evaluations, like how numbers and letters have taken over for real assessment, which themselves have been neutered so as to allow the numbers and letters to take over. The rest emphasize the growing role of technology and how much teachers cannot afford to not integrate it everywhere, instead of having it be mostly a la carte. They're both worth reading, if only to see what sorts of things we thought were good then aren't all that great now.
In technology, our tendency to fill our downtime with digital devices might be hurting our ability to learn and remember.
Last for tonight, driftwood, indeed. A tree washed ashore in La Push, Washington, in June, and there's the picture to prove it. And the charge of driving while distracted, to a woman who was driving, using a vibrator, and watching a pornographic movie on a laptop in the seat next to her.
As a postscript, you will read an opinion about the desire for cookies that actually tell fortunes, instead of proverbs.
