Tue - August 19, 2008
AND NOW WE HEAR FROM THE PEDESTRIANS
or, when the feet turn to the
hands.
And now, as they say, another country is heard
from. This time, a couple of delegates from the sovereign state of Pedestria,
write to weigh in on the great Bike-Car Cold War of August
2008.
First up is a regular reader from my home corner of the state -- we'll call him RK -- who both introduces walkers to the mix and informs us that the same epic battle of riders and rhetoric also rages in Philly:
Here's the thing. Many cyclists, when they are on the road with cars, believe that traffic should yield to them and that cars should just slow down to match their speed until it's safe to pass. And I can kind of see their point. Clearly, they can be very seriously injured if they are stuck by a car, which is far heavier and moves far quicker than they do. So they worry about it, as is only logical for someone in their position.
And yet, when these same cyclists get on a path which does not contain cars, but instead contains slower pedestrians, the same logic no longer seems to apply. Instead, they complain about those fucking joggers and walkers who get in their way, slow them down, and force them to reduce their speed until it's safe to pass.
As further proof of his claims, RK submits this Philadelphia Inquirer article that, appearing in yesterday's editions, tells of chaos and carnage on the Kelly Drive Bike Path at (the always fabulous) Boathouse Row.
Next up is one of TWM's favorite readers and writers -- we'll call her Big N -- who combines a somewhat revolutionary spirit with a fierce resistance to mincing her words:
I hate bikes. Without hesitation or apology.
If you want to be taken seriously on the road, you have to obey the rules handed to you.
I have yet to see the biker who goes with the flow of traffic and actually stops when it's red. Instead of pausing and then darting out across a crowded intersection.
Or the cyclist who, fed up with the road space he fought for, takes the sidewalk, shouting things at you like "Left!" as though you're supposed to know whether that means "Hey, I'm on your left" or "Hey, move to the left". The difference can spell dire consequences for the average pedestrian. Unless you're part of a militia or renegade organization. Both of which probably have the sense to realize no one would take you seriously on a bicycle.
Even Che had a motorcycle.
Not to mention a jaunty hat to which neither car nor bike nor poor, beleaguered pedestrian could have possibly done justice.
First up is a regular reader from my home corner of the state -- we'll call him RK -- who both introduces walkers to the mix and informs us that the same epic battle of riders and rhetoric also rages in Philly:
Here's the thing. Many cyclists, when they are on the road with cars, believe that traffic should yield to them and that cars should just slow down to match their speed until it's safe to pass. And I can kind of see their point. Clearly, they can be very seriously injured if they are stuck by a car, which is far heavier and moves far quicker than they do. So they worry about it, as is only logical for someone in their position.
And yet, when these same cyclists get on a path which does not contain cars, but instead contains slower pedestrians, the same logic no longer seems to apply. Instead, they complain about those fucking joggers and walkers who get in their way, slow them down, and force them to reduce their speed until it's safe to pass.
As further proof of his claims, RK submits this Philadelphia Inquirer article that, appearing in yesterday's editions, tells of chaos and carnage on the Kelly Drive Bike Path at (the always fabulous) Boathouse Row.
Next up is one of TWM's favorite readers and writers -- we'll call her Big N -- who combines a somewhat revolutionary spirit with a fierce resistance to mincing her words:
I hate bikes. Without hesitation or apology.
If you want to be taken seriously on the road, you have to obey the rules handed to you.
I have yet to see the biker who goes with the flow of traffic and actually stops when it's red. Instead of pausing and then darting out across a crowded intersection.
Or the cyclist who, fed up with the road space he fought for, takes the sidewalk, shouting things at you like "Left!" as though you're supposed to know whether that means "Hey, I'm on your left" or "Hey, move to the left". The difference can spell dire consequences for the average pedestrian. Unless you're part of a militia or renegade organization. Both of which probably have the sense to realize no one would take you seriously on a bicycle.
Even Che had a motorcycle.
Not to mention a jaunty hat to which neither car nor bike nor poor, beleaguered pedestrian could have possibly done justice.
Posted at 11:36 AM
Mon - August 18, 2008
OH, DEERE
john.
I told you the whole bike-car-scofflaw debate
would not end anytime soon. Two more letters to the editor yesterday, an op-ed piece today, a bunch of email exchanges
over the weekend, and a front-page article this morning -- well-written
and nicely balanced, as usual, by Rich Lord -- in which I learned, thanks to
Bike Pittsburgh Executive Director Scott Bricker, that Isaac Newton may be to
blame for many cyclists' refusal to obey the rules of the road to which they are legally
bound:
"There's a physics argument on why some bikers don't stop at stop signs," Mr. Bricker said. It takes a lot of energy to get a bicycle from zero to cruising speed, he noted, so if the coast is clear, some cyclists roll on.
I always thought that cyclists were a pretty hearty lot -- I mean, they're riding on city streets, and look at all the exercise they're getting -- but Mr. Bricker seems to have far less confidence in them than I. In part because he makes getting a bike moving again seem tatamount to poor Sisyphus pushing that rock, or maybe a PAT bus, up the hill.
Now. I don't want to muddy the waters -- or is that crowd the roads? -- any more, but an email I received this morning compels me to introduce yet another factor -- or is that farm implement? -- to the great vehicular debate of August 2008. One of TWM's regular readers and favorite comic kibitzers -- we'll call him Mr. Smith -- wrote to share an experience that he and another driver had with a whole other vehicular breed:
I had an interesting one on Friday heading in to work. Not involving a bike though...
Heading down 119S there was one car ahead of me in the left lane. We start down a little straight stretch of the road, and up ahead, a big old John Deere farm tractor, hauling one of its huge field mowers, started to drive ACROSS 119 North, through the median, and then across 119S. Either his Deere didn't have the get-up-and-go it used to, or he underestimated the speed of the car coming at it, because he didn't quite get off the road before we caught up to him.
The driver of the car ahead of me had to swerve into the median, two wheels sending grass and debris flying at my car. He then honked and waved angrily at the man driving the tractor, who proceeded to flick off the car driving legally on, not perpendicular to, the road.
Not even a quarter mile up the road -- an intersection, with a Tractor Crossing sign. But who needs to follow the rules of the road? Certainly not the unlicensed, unregistered vehicles out there.
Not as long as they're beholden to the laws of physics, Mr. Smith. Call it the conservation of energy. And momentum.
And courtesy. And responsibility.
____
[Note to the zealots: I have been remarkably (and at times even pedantically) consistent, over the now-almost-four-year life of this blog, in my bitter condemnations of drivers who resist courtesy and ignore responsibility and do all sorts of silly, stupid, dangerous things. Applying that same scorn, these last few days, to equally discourteous cyclists and the often silly justifications for them does not make me anti-bike any more than those first four years made me anti-car. It just reaffirms that I'm anti-asshole, anti-idiot, and anti-bullshit. No matter the mode of transportation.]
"There's a physics argument on why some bikers don't stop at stop signs," Mr. Bricker said. It takes a lot of energy to get a bicycle from zero to cruising speed, he noted, so if the coast is clear, some cyclists roll on.
I always thought that cyclists were a pretty hearty lot -- I mean, they're riding on city streets, and look at all the exercise they're getting -- but Mr. Bricker seems to have far less confidence in them than I. In part because he makes getting a bike moving again seem tatamount to poor Sisyphus pushing that rock, or maybe a PAT bus, up the hill.
Now. I don't want to muddy the waters -- or is that crowd the roads? -- any more, but an email I received this morning compels me to introduce yet another factor -- or is that farm implement? -- to the great vehicular debate of August 2008. One of TWM's regular readers and favorite comic kibitzers -- we'll call him Mr. Smith -- wrote to share an experience that he and another driver had with a whole other vehicular breed:
I had an interesting one on Friday heading in to work. Not involving a bike though...
Heading down 119S there was one car ahead of me in the left lane. We start down a little straight stretch of the road, and up ahead, a big old John Deere farm tractor, hauling one of its huge field mowers, started to drive ACROSS 119 North, through the median, and then across 119S. Either his Deere didn't have the get-up-and-go it used to, or he underestimated the speed of the car coming at it, because he didn't quite get off the road before we caught up to him.
The driver of the car ahead of me had to swerve into the median, two wheels sending grass and debris flying at my car. He then honked and waved angrily at the man driving the tractor, who proceeded to flick off the car driving legally on, not perpendicular to, the road.
Not even a quarter mile up the road -- an intersection, with a Tractor Crossing sign. But who needs to follow the rules of the road? Certainly not the unlicensed, unregistered vehicles out there.
Not as long as they're beholden to the laws of physics, Mr. Smith. Call it the conservation of energy. And momentum.
And courtesy. And responsibility.
____
[Note to the zealots: I have been remarkably (and at times even pedantically) consistent, over the now-almost-four-year life of this blog, in my bitter condemnations of drivers who resist courtesy and ignore responsibility and do all sorts of silly, stupid, dangerous things. Applying that same scorn, these last few days, to equally discourteous cyclists and the often silly justifications for them does not make me anti-bike any more than those first four years made me anti-car. It just reaffirms that I'm anti-asshole, anti-idiot, and anti-bullshit. No matter the mode of transportation.]
Posted at 10:32 AM
Sat - August 16, 2008
THEY WOULD BREAK THE CHAIN
i can still hear them saying.
After two days' worth of commentary here (and here) at TWM and four days' worth of (86) comments and commentary over at The Burgh Report, the
rhetorical holy war between pro-bikers and pro-drivers (two-wheelers and
four-wheelers? pro-chainers and no-choicers?) rages on.
This morning's Post-Gazette features two letters to the editor -- or are they just straw man arguments from people annoyed by being stuck at a red light? -- that raise the issue of bicyclists wantonly and repeatedly ignoring traffic laws on city streets. The first writer, Brendan O'Donnell of Shadyside, suggests half of what I proposed yesterday; he advocates license plates for the bikes, then adds the nice idea of applying all those fees to the creation of more bicycle lanes, though he stops short of proposing, as I do, that all road-riding cyclists be tested and licensed. The second writer, Tim Zenchak of Baldwin, simply argues for safety and equality -- two sensible, fundamentally American principles that you can bet some corners of the biking community's persecution complex wing are right now writing to protest.
It's fun to imagine what those same corners might do and think if they read the two most recent emails I've received on the subject. The first, from a regular reader of TWM -- we'll call him Mr. T. -- whose experiences, especially on his morning commute, lead him to a clear stance and a fairly hard-line approach:
The one thing you rarely read about, and it's one of the major problems, is bikes' inability to travel at a car's speed; hence, they shouldn't be on the road with cars. I've been behind bikes on the Smithfield Street Bridge going ten miles per hour. "Sharing" the road with a bike sometimes means having the bike dictate that I must travel at one-fifth the speed limit.
The other, from another regular reader of TWM -- we'll call him M.D. -- takes an even clearer, harder approach:
Bicyclists should just stay the fuck off the road. They don't pay fuel tax to build the road, so they don't have a right to use & inconvenience those who do. Additionally they cannot maintain reasonable speed limits on most roads, making them at worst a rolling hazard, and at best an irritation far exceeding their moral superiority. "Look at me... I'm saving the planet..." while simultaneously delaying and threatening the safety of tens or hundreds of my fellow citizens.
Don't get me wrong... I like bicycles as a form of transport. (In fact, I am in LOVE with women riding bicycles [as seen in the Netherlands.]) But there and in the Nordics or Japan, they actually provide dedicated bicycle lanes, which do not transfer the burden of bicycle riding onto non-bicycle riders.
I'm not saying I agree with these emailers. (I've already stated my willingness to share the road with licensed bikers on licensed bikes.) And I'm not saying I disagree with them either. (I do love women riding bicycles, even if I've never been to the Netherlands.) But I thought they were both interesting, and maybe even provocative, additions to a conversation that looks like it could continue to roll on for quite some time.
This morning's Post-Gazette features two letters to the editor -- or are they just straw man arguments from people annoyed by being stuck at a red light? -- that raise the issue of bicyclists wantonly and repeatedly ignoring traffic laws on city streets. The first writer, Brendan O'Donnell of Shadyside, suggests half of what I proposed yesterday; he advocates license plates for the bikes, then adds the nice idea of applying all those fees to the creation of more bicycle lanes, though he stops short of proposing, as I do, that all road-riding cyclists be tested and licensed. The second writer, Tim Zenchak of Baldwin, simply argues for safety and equality -- two sensible, fundamentally American principles that you can bet some corners of the biking community's persecution complex wing are right now writing to protest.
It's fun to imagine what those same corners might do and think if they read the two most recent emails I've received on the subject. The first, from a regular reader of TWM -- we'll call him Mr. T. -- whose experiences, especially on his morning commute, lead him to a clear stance and a fairly hard-line approach:
The one thing you rarely read about, and it's one of the major problems, is bikes' inability to travel at a car's speed; hence, they shouldn't be on the road with cars. I've been behind bikes on the Smithfield Street Bridge going ten miles per hour. "Sharing" the road with a bike sometimes means having the bike dictate that I must travel at one-fifth the speed limit.
The other, from another regular reader of TWM -- we'll call him M.D. -- takes an even clearer, harder approach:
Bicyclists should just stay the fuck off the road. They don't pay fuel tax to build the road, so they don't have a right to use & inconvenience those who do. Additionally they cannot maintain reasonable speed limits on most roads, making them at worst a rolling hazard, and at best an irritation far exceeding their moral superiority. "Look at me... I'm saving the planet..." while simultaneously delaying and threatening the safety of tens or hundreds of my fellow citizens.
Don't get me wrong... I like bicycles as a form of transport. (In fact, I am in LOVE with women riding bicycles [as seen in the Netherlands.]) But there and in the Nordics or Japan, they actually provide dedicated bicycle lanes, which do not transfer the burden of bicycle riding onto non-bicycle riders.
I'm not saying I agree with these emailers. (I've already stated my willingness to share the road with licensed bikers on licensed bikes.) And I'm not saying I disagree with them either. (I do love women riding bicycles, even if I've never been to the Netherlands.) But I thought they were both interesting, and maybe even provocative, additions to a conversation that looks like it could continue to roll on for quite some time.
Posted at 10:16 AM
Thu - August 14, 2008
THE CHAIN OF FOOLS
and the handlebars of futility.
A couple of days ago, Bram Reichbaum over at The
Burgh Report wrote a post in response to a press release about the
city of Pittsburgh's new Bike/Ped Coordinator. In the last paragraph, citing
the city's effort toward greater enforcement of traffic regulations for
automobile drivers and for cyclists, he took an honest, qualified,
not especially dismissive shot at the many cyclists he's seen disregarding
stop signs, blowing through red lights, blowing through red lights to make left
turns, [and] weaving in and out of traffic. Bram and I traded a pair of
emails on the subject, and I told him how surprised I was that, almost two hours
after his post, he'd not been both object and subject of heaping helpings of
scorn from the persecution complex wing of the biking
community.
It is a truth universally noted, but little acknowledged, that daring to criticize any thought, strategy, or aspect of urban bike riding is much like daring to criticize the Pope or Barack Obama; the blind-faithers and the lunatics come roaring -- or, in this case, pedaling -- out of the shadows to rationalize their cause, justify their zealotry, and beat both logic and reason (to say nothing of sense and ethics) to an almost indistinguishable pulp. And so, within a few short hours, my surprise fell, my prediction rose, and the comment thread roared. Two days later, it's expanded to include 67 entries on the subject
There is, as in most debates, both truth and folly to be found on all sides. There is also overstatement, conclusion-jumping, and -- my personal favorite -- misrepresentation (both willful and incidental) of other commenters' arguments. But, for my eye and ear, the most interesting and entertaining aspect of the thread is the clockwork accumulation of silliness, of moral relativism and ethical obfuscation, from the (for lack of a better term) pro-biking commenters. In the end, the pile is as deep as it is wide. And almost as funny as it is infuriating.
Consider this sampling, culled from multiple comments by multiple commenters:
I think you'll find most bicycle commuters obey most laws and certainly try not to take chances.
Well, there's a ringing endorsement if ever I've heard one.
Perhaps the next time the police or the DEA bust a drug ring, the suspects should reassure the authorities that, well, we think you'll find most of our dealers obeyed most laws and certainly tried not to endanger anyone. I think that just might work.
Cars and the drivers of cars are the problem.
That's right, kids: cars and drivers are the problem. On the roads. That were built for them. To drive upon.
You know, if we could just get all the cars and all the drivers off the roads, and then if we could get all the busses off the bus lanes and all the pedestrians off the sidewalks and all the kids off the playgrounds and all the families out of the parks, why, bikers could go anywhere they pleased anytime they wanted without any interference at all! What a wonderful world that would be!
It's a shame that cycling infrastructure doesn't receive anywhere near the same level of detail or even a fraction of the funding that engineering for auto-only design projects do.
Oh, yes. It is a shame that the interests of a very small fraction of the population don't receive anywhere near the same level of detail or even a fraction of the funding that the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population receive. Just like it's a shame that the state spent all those millions of dollars to build a football stadium for the Steelers when it could have been building a new soccer stadium for the Riverhounds and maybe a nice little stadium for the Passion. I mean, they're sports too, you know.
Some communities, like the state of idaho and now (potentially) San Francisco have changed the laws to reflect how cyclists tend to behave, with the idea that they will be a bit more predictable.
That sounds like a great idea. So great, in fact, that maybe states and (potentially) cities should do the same for cars: change all traffic laws to reflect how drivers tend to behave. They could raise the speed limit by at least fifteen miles an hour on every street, make it legal to just slow down and then blow through a stop sign, and make the first three or four seconds after a traffic light turns red fair game to keep right on going without stopping. They could even -- you know, if they really wanted to reflect how drivers tend to behave -- make it a law that you must text-message, or at least blab on your cell phone, while driving. Then they'd really be giving the people what they want.
We'll be turning the whole country into the last half hour of The Road Warrior. And we might all soon die in traffic. But what a happy and predictable time we'd have until we did.
I've seen this said before about cyclists blowing through red lights. In reality, I think this is a straw man argument of drivers who are actually just annoyed at being stuck at a light.
Oh, yes. Drivers only want to complain about cyclists blowing through red lights -- if, you know, that ever really does happen, which I'm sure it doesn't, all those hundreds of times I've seen it notwithstanding -- because they're so embittered by obeying traffic laws. Just like all those people who think that robbers and rapists and murderers should be caught because they're just annoyed that they can't rob or rape or murder.
Those rotten, envious bastards.
On my bike, with the greater visibility I have and the far less impact a bike has on violating any traffic rules, I will go through a red light if I see the way is clear, get a head of the cars behind me and off to the side so they can better pass.
I'm still not sure about the greater visibility part. And I won't even waste your time with the a-bike-is-less-of-a-violation-than-a-car nonsense. But I do enjoy the notion that this is all just a selfless act to help cars better pass the biker.
Note to the commenter: the best way for a car to pass you is to not have to pass you at all. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be biking on the road, of course. But since you're trying to do everything you can to help the cars on the road drive more easily, I just thought you might want to consider it.
Am I disregarding traffic laws? Probably.
Definitely.
Am a following common sense that best allows everyone to get where they need to go? I think so.
Fair enough.
But the same could be said, of course, about cars and trucks and especially motorcycles (great visibility, far less impact!). If they all blow through red lights, aren't they also keeping traffic moving and allowing everyone to get where they need to go? I think so.
Hell, now that you mention it, let's get rid of all traffic lights and stop signs and speed limits. All they're doing is slowing us down from getting where we all need to go.
When I bike this way, I do so to the betterment of the car traffic I'm in and avoiding.
Once again, so selfless. By which I mean conveniently, selectively selfless.
I only hop through red lights when it's a sensible thing to do. It's every now on then, typically on streets without much car traffic to begin with.
Try that in a car sometime and then see if the explanation works on a police officer who pulls you over for going through a red light. (But, officer, there wasn't much traffic around. It was the sensible thing to do!)
(And it was for the betterment of all the traffic! It best allowed everyone to get where they need to go!)
Oh, yeah. That's a sure-fire winner right there.
I guarantee you that if I counted the violations I see each day, I would count 10 times as many violations from motorists as from bikers.
And I guarantee you that if you counted the modes of transportation you see each day, you'd count (at least) 100 times as many cars as you do bikes. So, by your math, bikers are committing (at least) 10 times as many violations as drivers.
The lack of context here is almost as stunning as the abundance of illogic. And don't even get me started on the moral equivalence.
No one disputes that drivers do dumb, illegal shit. Hell, they do it all the time. That's why I hate cars and most drivers I encounter. But the fact that most cars are dangerous and most drivers are idiots and most combinations of the two break all sorts of traffic laws doesn't mean that it's just fine, then, for the combination of less dangerous bikes and equally idiotic bikers to do the same.
What are you people? Five years old? (But, Mom, all the other kids do it too! Why should I get in trouble?!)
I'm suggesting that bicycles should use discretion when riding among car traffic, obeying traffic laws when appropriate but also steering clear of cars as much as possible. Some times that will lead to laws being "broken" but if done judiciously won't inconvenience anyone in the process.
Yeah. I know. But I swear I'm not making this up. (Really. You can look it up.)
Just to recap: bikers should be able to do whatever the hell they want and obey traffic laws when appropriate. And, yes, some laws may be "broken," but that's okay as long as no one is inconvenienced in the process. Sounds like fun.
So I suggest that drivers use discretion when riding among car traffic, obeying traffic laws when appropriate -- you're in a hurry, and you think you can beat those pedestrians on the corner and all those cars coming the other way, go ahead, Mr. Hummer Driver, ignore that red light! -- but also steering clear of cars as much as possible. Sometimes, you know, that will lead to "laws" being "broken" by "criminals," but as long as you don't do it every time, and as long as no one has to slow down or maybe get in a little ol' accident, well, go for it!
Cyclists will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by drivers - it is a two-way street.
Criminals will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by society.
Thieves will break fewer laws when accorded more money and property by society.
Abusive parents will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by their children.
Rapists will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by their victims.
It's a two-way street, you know.
Shall I continue?
I didn't think so.
Can't we have a basic framework of laws without needing a police state?
Can't we just do what we want, when we want, where we want, as often as we want, no matter what that basic framework of laws says? Can't we just ignore that basic framework of laws (and sense and reason and logic and ethics) as long as we use own very special judgment and promise to try not to inconvenience anyone while we satisfy our own smug and selfish needs?
Answer to your first question: Of course.
Answer to those last two questions, which are what you're really asking: No, you two-wheeled narcissists, you can't.
It is a truth universally noted, but little acknowledged, that daring to criticize any thought, strategy, or aspect of urban bike riding is much like daring to criticize the Pope or Barack Obama; the blind-faithers and the lunatics come roaring -- or, in this case, pedaling -- out of the shadows to rationalize their cause, justify their zealotry, and beat both logic and reason (to say nothing of sense and ethics) to an almost indistinguishable pulp. And so, within a few short hours, my surprise fell, my prediction rose, and the comment thread roared. Two days later, it's expanded to include 67 entries on the subject
There is, as in most debates, both truth and folly to be found on all sides. There is also overstatement, conclusion-jumping, and -- my personal favorite -- misrepresentation (both willful and incidental) of other commenters' arguments. But, for my eye and ear, the most interesting and entertaining aspect of the thread is the clockwork accumulation of silliness, of moral relativism and ethical obfuscation, from the (for lack of a better term) pro-biking commenters. In the end, the pile is as deep as it is wide. And almost as funny as it is infuriating.
Consider this sampling, culled from multiple comments by multiple commenters:
I think you'll find most bicycle commuters obey most laws and certainly try not to take chances.
Well, there's a ringing endorsement if ever I've heard one.
Perhaps the next time the police or the DEA bust a drug ring, the suspects should reassure the authorities that, well, we think you'll find most of our dealers obeyed most laws and certainly tried not to endanger anyone. I think that just might work.
Cars and the drivers of cars are the problem.
That's right, kids: cars and drivers are the problem. On the roads. That were built for them. To drive upon.
You know, if we could just get all the cars and all the drivers off the roads, and then if we could get all the busses off the bus lanes and all the pedestrians off the sidewalks and all the kids off the playgrounds and all the families out of the parks, why, bikers could go anywhere they pleased anytime they wanted without any interference at all! What a wonderful world that would be!
It's a shame that cycling infrastructure doesn't receive anywhere near the same level of detail or even a fraction of the funding that engineering for auto-only design projects do.
Oh, yes. It is a shame that the interests of a very small fraction of the population don't receive anywhere near the same level of detail or even a fraction of the funding that the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population receive. Just like it's a shame that the state spent all those millions of dollars to build a football stadium for the Steelers when it could have been building a new soccer stadium for the Riverhounds and maybe a nice little stadium for the Passion. I mean, they're sports too, you know.
Some communities, like the state of idaho and now (potentially) San Francisco have changed the laws to reflect how cyclists tend to behave, with the idea that they will be a bit more predictable.
That sounds like a great idea. So great, in fact, that maybe states and (potentially) cities should do the same for cars: change all traffic laws to reflect how drivers tend to behave. They could raise the speed limit by at least fifteen miles an hour on every street, make it legal to just slow down and then blow through a stop sign, and make the first three or four seconds after a traffic light turns red fair game to keep right on going without stopping. They could even -- you know, if they really wanted to reflect how drivers tend to behave -- make it a law that you must text-message, or at least blab on your cell phone, while driving. Then they'd really be giving the people what they want.
We'll be turning the whole country into the last half hour of The Road Warrior. And we might all soon die in traffic. But what a happy and predictable time we'd have until we did.
I've seen this said before about cyclists blowing through red lights. In reality, I think this is a straw man argument of drivers who are actually just annoyed at being stuck at a light.
Oh, yes. Drivers only want to complain about cyclists blowing through red lights -- if, you know, that ever really does happen, which I'm sure it doesn't, all those hundreds of times I've seen it notwithstanding -- because they're so embittered by obeying traffic laws. Just like all those people who think that robbers and rapists and murderers should be caught because they're just annoyed that they can't rob or rape or murder.
Those rotten, envious bastards.
On my bike, with the greater visibility I have and the far less impact a bike has on violating any traffic rules, I will go through a red light if I see the way is clear, get a head of the cars behind me and off to the side so they can better pass.
I'm still not sure about the greater visibility part. And I won't even waste your time with the a-bike-is-less-of-a-violation-than-a-car nonsense. But I do enjoy the notion that this is all just a selfless act to help cars better pass the biker.
Note to the commenter: the best way for a car to pass you is to not have to pass you at all. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be biking on the road, of course. But since you're trying to do everything you can to help the cars on the road drive more easily, I just thought you might want to consider it.
Am I disregarding traffic laws? Probably.
Definitely.
Am a following common sense that best allows everyone to get where they need to go? I think so.
Fair enough.
But the same could be said, of course, about cars and trucks and especially motorcycles (great visibility, far less impact!). If they all blow through red lights, aren't they also keeping traffic moving and allowing everyone to get where they need to go? I think so.
Hell, now that you mention it, let's get rid of all traffic lights and stop signs and speed limits. All they're doing is slowing us down from getting where we all need to go.
When I bike this way, I do so to the betterment of the car traffic I'm in and avoiding.
Once again, so selfless. By which I mean conveniently, selectively selfless.
I only hop through red lights when it's a sensible thing to do. It's every now on then, typically on streets without much car traffic to begin with.
Try that in a car sometime and then see if the explanation works on a police officer who pulls you over for going through a red light. (But, officer, there wasn't much traffic around. It was the sensible thing to do!)
(And it was for the betterment of all the traffic! It best allowed everyone to get where they need to go!)
Oh, yeah. That's a sure-fire winner right there.
I guarantee you that if I counted the violations I see each day, I would count 10 times as many violations from motorists as from bikers.
And I guarantee you that if you counted the modes of transportation you see each day, you'd count (at least) 100 times as many cars as you do bikes. So, by your math, bikers are committing (at least) 10 times as many violations as drivers.
The lack of context here is almost as stunning as the abundance of illogic. And don't even get me started on the moral equivalence.
No one disputes that drivers do dumb, illegal shit. Hell, they do it all the time. That's why I hate cars and most drivers I encounter. But the fact that most cars are dangerous and most drivers are idiots and most combinations of the two break all sorts of traffic laws doesn't mean that it's just fine, then, for the combination of less dangerous bikes and equally idiotic bikers to do the same.
What are you people? Five years old? (But, Mom, all the other kids do it too! Why should I get in trouble?!)
I'm suggesting that bicycles should use discretion when riding among car traffic, obeying traffic laws when appropriate but also steering clear of cars as much as possible. Some times that will lead to laws being "broken" but if done judiciously won't inconvenience anyone in the process.
Yeah. I know. But I swear I'm not making this up. (Really. You can look it up.)
Just to recap: bikers should be able to do whatever the hell they want and obey traffic laws when appropriate. And, yes, some laws may be "broken," but that's okay as long as no one is inconvenienced in the process. Sounds like fun.
So I suggest that drivers use discretion when riding among car traffic, obeying traffic laws when appropriate -- you're in a hurry, and you think you can beat those pedestrians on the corner and all those cars coming the other way, go ahead, Mr. Hummer Driver, ignore that red light! -- but also steering clear of cars as much as possible. Sometimes, you know, that will lead to "laws" being "broken" by "criminals," but as long as you don't do it every time, and as long as no one has to slow down or maybe get in a little ol' accident, well, go for it!
Cyclists will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by drivers - it is a two-way street.
Criminals will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by society.
Thieves will break fewer laws when accorded more money and property by society.
Abusive parents will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by their children.
Rapists will break fewer laws when accorded more respect by their victims.
It's a two-way street, you know.
Shall I continue?
I didn't think so.
Can't we have a basic framework of laws without needing a police state?
Can't we just do what we want, when we want, where we want, as often as we want, no matter what that basic framework of laws says? Can't we just ignore that basic framework of laws (and sense and reason and logic and ethics) as long as we use own very special judgment and promise to try not to inconvenience anyone while we satisfy our own smug and selfish needs?
Answer to your first question: Of course.
Answer to those last two questions, which are what you're really asking: No, you two-wheeled narcissists, you can't.
Posted at 11:43 AM
Tue - August 12, 2008
THE BROTHERS OF CHARITY
and the state of concession.
Imagine this, if you
will.
I want to build a $1 million state-of-the-cinematic-and-technological-arts movie theater in your city. I have assets worth more than $78 million, but I'm only willing to invest $667,000 of my own money in the project. I'd like the state to give me the rest.
Some state officials will likely object. So I'll explain that the state grant is needed to make the economics of the proposed project work.
Some local politicians are also likely to object. And I'll simply explain that when the project was conceptualized, it was conceptualized with a subsidy, and that nothing has changed.
Some taxpayers will surely object. But I'll tell them that I just can't do any of this stuff without a subsidy.
When all three of those groups get together and suggest this might not be such a good idea, I'll suggest that my new theater will be a source of income and property and sales tax revenues for the city, county, and state. I'll suggest that they should be thankful for this money, even as I conveniently neglect to mention that, based on my own revenue projections, the only way I can turn a profit on this venture is with their subsidy, and so I want to treat them like an angel investor, except, of course, that they won't have any actual ownership equity in my business.
Did I mention that I bought the land on which I intend to build from a public authority at a small fraction of its open-market cost? And did I also mention that the headquarters of my other business, located next door to where I plan to build, had 73% of its costs paid for by public funds and taxpayer dollars? I didn't? Well, shame on me.
Now. Just to recap: I want to fund a new business venture that will cost roughly 1/78th of what my current business is worth, and I want the state to fund one-third of my new business, because that's what I need to make the economics work, and because when I dreamed up this new business, I always imagined the state would pay for one third of it, and because, well, if they don't, then I can't -- or, more accurately, won't -- do it myself.
So, what do you think? Sound like a good deal? Like something you, as a state official, or a local politician, or a state and/or local taxpayer, could rally behind and really support?
What if these numbers were actually much higher? Say, about 1200% higher? What if I really wanted the state to pony up $4 million of a $12 million business venture? And what if my primary business were worth, at least according to Forbes magazine, about $929 million? Would my request, my attitude, my sheer fucking audacity make any sense to you whatsoever? Would you, living in an overtaxed city in an overtaxed county in an overtaxed state, think that would be a fine and fitting investment of your hard-earned, too-easily-taken money? Or would you laugh in my face, tell me to use my own damned money, and remind me that the last people in the world who ought to feed (once more) at the public trough are rich, arrogant, always-thinking-you're-entitled people like me?
Oh, yeah. One more question: would you change your mind about any of this, and especially about my unmitigated greed and gall, if I just happened to own your favorite football team?
Here in Pittsburgh, we're about to find out.
I want to build a $1 million state-of-the-cinematic-and-technological-arts movie theater in your city. I have assets worth more than $78 million, but I'm only willing to invest $667,000 of my own money in the project. I'd like the state to give me the rest.
Some state officials will likely object. So I'll explain that the state grant is needed to make the economics of the proposed project work.
Some local politicians are also likely to object. And I'll simply explain that when the project was conceptualized, it was conceptualized with a subsidy, and that nothing has changed.
Some taxpayers will surely object. But I'll tell them that I just can't do any of this stuff without a subsidy.
When all three of those groups get together and suggest this might not be such a good idea, I'll suggest that my new theater will be a source of income and property and sales tax revenues for the city, county, and state. I'll suggest that they should be thankful for this money, even as I conveniently neglect to mention that, based on my own revenue projections, the only way I can turn a profit on this venture is with their subsidy, and so I want to treat them like an angel investor, except, of course, that they won't have any actual ownership equity in my business.
Did I mention that I bought the land on which I intend to build from a public authority at a small fraction of its open-market cost? And did I also mention that the headquarters of my other business, located next door to where I plan to build, had 73% of its costs paid for by public funds and taxpayer dollars? I didn't? Well, shame on me.
Now. Just to recap: I want to fund a new business venture that will cost roughly 1/78th of what my current business is worth, and I want the state to fund one-third of my new business, because that's what I need to make the economics work, and because when I dreamed up this new business, I always imagined the state would pay for one third of it, and because, well, if they don't, then I can't -- or, more accurately, won't -- do it myself.
So, what do you think? Sound like a good deal? Like something you, as a state official, or a local politician, or a state and/or local taxpayer, could rally behind and really support?
What if these numbers were actually much higher? Say, about 1200% higher? What if I really wanted the state to pony up $4 million of a $12 million business venture? And what if my primary business were worth, at least according to Forbes magazine, about $929 million? Would my request, my attitude, my sheer fucking audacity make any sense to you whatsoever? Would you, living in an overtaxed city in an overtaxed county in an overtaxed state, think that would be a fine and fitting investment of your hard-earned, too-easily-taken money? Or would you laugh in my face, tell me to use my own damned money, and remind me that the last people in the world who ought to feed (once more) at the public trough are rich, arrogant, always-thinking-you're-entitled people like me?
Oh, yeah. One more question: would you change your mind about any of this, and especially about my unmitigated greed and gall, if I just happened to own your favorite football team?
Here in Pittsburgh, we're about to find out.
Posted at 11:09 AM
Tue - August 5, 2008
ATTACK OF THE CLONES
playing dog.
I just read a news
item at MSNBC about a California woman who sold her house and paid
$50,000 of the proceeds to a South Korean biotech firm that produced five clones
of Booger, her dead pit bull. I dream of the day, she said, when
everyone can afford to clone their pet because losing a pet is a terrible,
terrible loss to anyone.
I know what she means about losing a pet. But I also know that pets and their personalities are more than just the sum total of their genetic codes. And I dream of the day when those clones turn on her, and attack, and teach her -- and, by extension, all of us -- a valuable lesson in the perils of building dog and playing God.
I know what she means about losing a pet. But I also know that pets and their personalities are more than just the sum total of their genetic codes. And I dream of the day when those clones turn on her, and attack, and teach her -- and, by extension, all of us -- a valuable lesson in the perils of building dog and playing God.
Posted at 01:20 PM
Mon - July 28, 2008
THE MISFIT
further explained.
Those nagging questions from Saturday afternoon have
generated a lot of email. Some of it thoughtful, much of it thoughtless. (Why
I continue to be amazed at the lengths to which people will slink to take or
invent perceived offense at things I did not actually write, I do not know.)
But enough of all types has arrived that I thought it worthwhile, both for the
fans and for the critics, to further explain at least a few
points.
The target of any scorn or criticism in that post was not Professor Pausch, but the maudlin, university- and media-fueled hero worship that whipped up around him. And the people -- not everyone, of course, but still plenty of them -- who, failing to find inspiration in their own lives, found it instead on YouTube.
That said, the Last Lecture was, by any objective measure, a self-indulgent cliché-fest. Professor Pausch talked about himself most of the time, dwelling on his own life and his own accomplishments and occasionally offering up advice that anyone who's been living and paying attention for more than fifteen years has already heard. The lessons labored. The language meandered. The length should have been cut by a third. And don’t even get me started on the PowerPoint.
It was not a great speech. It's perceived greatness came from the tragedy of Professor Pausch's situation, and from the admirable fearlessness he showed in the face of it. If that same speech had been delivered by someone who was not dying, no one would have paid any attention to it at all. You can not separate the speech from the situation, of course, but neither can one alter the grim realities of the other.
I don't, of course, fault Randy Pausch for the lecture or for its focus; it was, as he freely admitted, not intended for a massive audience at all. It was intended for his wife and his friends and his students and especially for his kids. And so it should have been all about him and his life and accomplishments. For millions of people -- even in our introspection-free, reality-TV culture -- to pretend it was for their benefit is silly. For anyone to pretend it was a unique and profound statement on life well-lived is sillier still.
There are thousands of Randy Pauschs all over the world, facing death with the same kind of courage and dignity and fierce resolve. But they haven't been pimped by their employers, or by Diane Sawyer and Oprah Winfrey, or by a mass media looking for one more ratings-boosting sob story to tell and tell and tell and finally milk dry, so we don't know about them. And I take great exception to the popular, oft-repeated notion that Professor Pausch was any more special or enlightening or inspiring than any of them. Just as I find great sadness in a culture that needed the sad story of an impending, untimely death shoved down its throat before many of its denizens could muster a fresh appreciation for the beauties and possibilities of their own lives.
Professor Pausch was a good guy — I met him once on campus, and liked him — and a loving husband and father. I’m terribly sorry for him, and especially for his family and friends who must live with his loss. But I’m not sorry for finding the frenzy that frothed up around him regrettable on almost every level. And neither am I sorry for lamenting, nor for calling out, all the people who read about him and watched his video and now want to pretend it's their loss too.
I imagine that the people who actually knew Professor Pausch will continue to be inspired by him for the rest of their lives. Just as I imagine that most of the people from across the country or around the world who've felt compelled, these past few days, to write on internet forums about themselves, and about how much his death affects and means to them, and about how inspired they are by his life and death, and about how anyone who doesn’t feel as they do must necessarily be some sort of cold, heartless asshole who lacks their abundant heart and insight and compassion, will give precious little thought to him or to his legacy one year from now. Much less five years from now. I also imagine that many people claiming now to be so moved and so altered will be hard-pressed to remember his name a decade from now. If only because they and their insatiable, self-righteous narcissism will have by then moved on to many more tales and tragedies and heartfelt inspirations to which they will look and see only themselves.
If some of those people do remember, and if they are still truly inspired, that's great. I'll be glad for them, even as I'll stand by my contention that it's a shame they were not so moved and inspired to live well long before they'd heard of Professor Pausch — if not by themselves and the lives they live, then at least by the people they actually know and love.
You know -- just as Professor Pausch was.
The target of any scorn or criticism in that post was not Professor Pausch, but the maudlin, university- and media-fueled hero worship that whipped up around him. And the people -- not everyone, of course, but still plenty of them -- who, failing to find inspiration in their own lives, found it instead on YouTube.
That said, the Last Lecture was, by any objective measure, a self-indulgent cliché-fest. Professor Pausch talked about himself most of the time, dwelling on his own life and his own accomplishments and occasionally offering up advice that anyone who's been living and paying attention for more than fifteen years has already heard. The lessons labored. The language meandered. The length should have been cut by a third. And don’t even get me started on the PowerPoint.
It was not a great speech. It's perceived greatness came from the tragedy of Professor Pausch's situation, and from the admirable fearlessness he showed in the face of it. If that same speech had been delivered by someone who was not dying, no one would have paid any attention to it at all. You can not separate the speech from the situation, of course, but neither can one alter the grim realities of the other.
I don't, of course, fault Randy Pausch for the lecture or for its focus; it was, as he freely admitted, not intended for a massive audience at all. It was intended for his wife and his friends and his students and especially for his kids. And so it should have been all about him and his life and accomplishments. For millions of people -- even in our introspection-free, reality-TV culture -- to pretend it was for their benefit is silly. For anyone to pretend it was a unique and profound statement on life well-lived is sillier still.
There are thousands of Randy Pauschs all over the world, facing death with the same kind of courage and dignity and fierce resolve. But they haven't been pimped by their employers, or by Diane Sawyer and Oprah Winfrey, or by a mass media looking for one more ratings-boosting sob story to tell and tell and tell and finally milk dry, so we don't know about them. And I take great exception to the popular, oft-repeated notion that Professor Pausch was any more special or enlightening or inspiring than any of them. Just as I find great sadness in a culture that needed the sad story of an impending, untimely death shoved down its throat before many of its denizens could muster a fresh appreciation for the beauties and possibilities of their own lives.
Professor Pausch was a good guy — I met him once on campus, and liked him — and a loving husband and father. I’m terribly sorry for him, and especially for his family and friends who must live with his loss. But I’m not sorry for finding the frenzy that frothed up around him regrettable on almost every level. And neither am I sorry for lamenting, nor for calling out, all the people who read about him and watched his video and now want to pretend it's their loss too.
I imagine that the people who actually knew Professor Pausch will continue to be inspired by him for the rest of their lives. Just as I imagine that most of the people from across the country or around the world who've felt compelled, these past few days, to write on internet forums about themselves, and about how much his death affects and means to them, and about how inspired they are by his life and death, and about how anyone who doesn’t feel as they do must necessarily be some sort of cold, heartless asshole who lacks their abundant heart and insight and compassion, will give precious little thought to him or to his legacy one year from now. Much less five years from now. I also imagine that many people claiming now to be so moved and so altered will be hard-pressed to remember his name a decade from now. If only because they and their insatiable, self-righteous narcissism will have by then moved on to many more tales and tragedies and heartfelt inspirations to which they will look and see only themselves.
If some of those people do remember, and if they are still truly inspired, that's great. I'll be glad for them, even as I'll stand by my contention that it's a shame they were not so moved and inspired to live well long before they'd heard of Professor Pausch — if not by themselves and the lives they live, then at least by the people they actually know and love.
You know -- just as Professor Pausch was.
Posted at 09:43 AM
Sat - July 26, 2008
NAGGING QUESTIONS FOR A SATURDAY AFTERNOON
when a good man is hard to
find.
What does it say about us a people that it took a
dying man's self-indulgent cliché-fest of a lecture, and the ego-stroking,
maudlin media attention that followed, to inspire millions of people to live
better, more fulfilling lives? And what will it say about us when, a year or
two from now, precious few of those millions will still be so inspired,
forgetting once more the lessons they've already learned so many times
before?
I suppose it says, to paraphrase Flannery O'Connor's Misfit, that we would have been a good people, if there'd been someone there to die for us every minute of our lives.
I suppose it says, to paraphrase Flannery O'Connor's Misfit, that we would have been a good people, if there'd been someone there to die for us every minute of our lives.
Posted at 12:50 PM
Mon - July 7, 2008
SEIZURES CAN STRIKE EVERYWHERE
especially in squirrel hill.
So I'm driving down Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill
this afternoon, on my way to some fabulously exciting errands like paying the
mortgage and depositing an insurance company reimbursement check before moving
on to the main event of the day, grocery shopping at the Squirrel Hill Geriatric
Giant Eagle, when I realize that trees and light poles and street sign poles and
maybe even a couple of tall men who hadn't moved for the last few minutes were,
on both sides of the street and also around the corner, plastered with white,
big-tortilla-wrap-sized white discs. Once I'd parked and begun the trek to
Dollar Bank -- where, by the way, I have not seen so much as a single employee
crack a smile in the past four years; it's like going to Gringotts,
but with taller tellers -- I stopped for closer inspection and, of course, a
quick click of an iPhone
photo:
They were, as you can (almost) see, some sort of public-awareness-cum-propaganda campaign fueled by the Epilepsy Foundation Western/Central Pennsylvania. They were also supremely annoying. And at least a little offensive.
Because this photograph doesn't begin to do justice to their presence on the streets of the Squirrel Hill business district. You can see, with the help of a few Photoshopped arrows, at least eight in a half-block stretch on the south side of Forbes, but there were more out ahead of the camera's range, still more behind me, and at least twenty on the north side of the street. And this block paled in comparison to the 17- and 1800 blocks of Murray Avenue, where, in some spots, you could have stood still, extended your arms at your sides, and touched at least a dozen if you'd bothered to swivel your hips. If I'd had more time -- by which I mean, if I hadn't been racing an ominous sky and the even more ominous rumblings of thunder on my way home -- I would have stopped and taken a picture on those blocks too. But trust me when I say they were everywhere. And that they were supremely annoying.
(Did I mention they were supremely annoying? And at least a little offensive? Good.)
The Seize Back web site -- please don't go there; I did, if only for a little pre-post-writing research, but I'd hate to reward thiscampaign nuisance with even one more web
hit -- explains what I already expected: that these road signs to hell are paved
with good (if insufferably pretentious)
intentions:
The Epilepsy Foundation Western/Central Pennsylvania has just launched an integrated multi-media advertising campaign to increase awareness and encourage greater involvement from the community. Tagged "Seize Back," the campaign is all about inspiring people with epilepsy to seize control of their lives by not losing another moment to epilepsy.
Of course it's an integrated multimedia campaign. These days, what isn't? It's the new advertising codespeak for grating, intrusive, inescapable presence in your life that wins accolades from other advertising professionals but makes you want to hate us and, in this case, maybe even some otherwise innocent epileptics. It's the self-important, (allegedly) feel-good doublespeak for we're gonna plaster these things in your face and on the street and all over your favorite local neighborhoods, then hide behind the nobility of our cause and the edginess of our guerilla drip marketing plan with a litterbug twist.
One of the campaign's goals is to increase awareness. Of what? Epilepsy? (Raise your hand if, until you read this blog post, you weren't aware of epilepsy. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) You'll notice, of course, that the ad copy doesn't even bother to specify of what it wants to raise awareness. Maybe that's edgy, economical prose. Or maybe it's just sloppy writing and even sloppier editing.
And anyway -- now that I'm aware, what am I supposed to do? Just be pissed off? Hope that someone comes along and cleans up my neighborhood? Or should I spring into action? Hang a few signs of my own? (Assholes can strike anywhere. Get pissed. Fightback.com) Start a petition drive to prevent other well-intentioned, ill-mannered people from defacing our neighborhood? (Sign here to tell these foundations that citizens, like seizures, can strike anywhere. Especially at them.) Maybe cover my neighbor's car in epilepsy awareness leaflets? (Oh, come on, Erin. I'm raising awareness!) After all...
...another of the campaign's goals is to encourage greater involvement from the community. Still to be answered is the question of how blighting a community with what amounts to artful litter and well-intentioned graffiti -- maybe the Epilepsy Foundation could employ Daniel Montano on a work-release program; when he's done, they could exhibit his work at The Mattress Factory and Waste Management Facility -- encourages the members of that community to rally behind your cause. If it really does work, I'm afraid they'll start dumping trash on our lawns next. Or maybe setting little Epilepsy-Foundation-branded bags of dog shit aflame on our front porch. That'll get us involved!
Perhaps just participating in some of these mischievous pranks will be enough to inspire those epilepsy-suffering scamps to seize control of their lives and spread some litter on their own. After all, we wouldn't want them to lose another moment to epilepsy when they could be out turning their community into one big integrated collage of multimedia waste paper.
This isn't advertising, folks. It's littering. It's vandalizing. (Excuse me, I mean graffiti artisting.) It's filling a simple, lovely public space with your simple, irritating refuse. And then hiding behind both the alleged nobility of your cause and the alleged creativity of your (ahem) campaign.
Are we supposed to tolerate this affront -- this inconsiderate assault on our streets and our senses -- simply because we pity epileptics? Really? Great. Then I look forward to the day when the Cystic Fybrosis foundation comes to spray paint its propaganda all over the sidewalks of Squirrel Hill. And to that glorious morning when we awaken to find that, if only to increase awareness and encourage greater involvement from a stunned and suddenly stinking community, the Pediatric AIDS foundation has littered the sidewalks and storefronts of Murray Avenue with several hundred shit-filled diapers. (All, of course, from the asses of those poor, suffering little babies, so how could you possibly complain?)
Within days, I am sure, we'd have a cure. For everything. If only to protect the sanctity of our community and the sensibilities of our neighborhood, where rallying cries and mass movements in service to sufferers of seizure disorders do not make us suffer these little aesthetic seizures of our own, much less make us want to strike back, and maybe watch a few Wang Chung videos, while deciding never again to donate our time or money to a cause that, had it stopped short of carpetbombing our business district, would have deserved, and almost certainly would have received, our support.
They were, as you can (almost) see, some sort of public-awareness-cum-propaganda campaign fueled by the Epilepsy Foundation Western/Central Pennsylvania. They were also supremely annoying. And at least a little offensive.
Because this photograph doesn't begin to do justice to their presence on the streets of the Squirrel Hill business district. You can see, with the help of a few Photoshopped arrows, at least eight in a half-block stretch on the south side of Forbes, but there were more out ahead of the camera's range, still more behind me, and at least twenty on the north side of the street. And this block paled in comparison to the 17- and 1800 blocks of Murray Avenue, where, in some spots, you could have stood still, extended your arms at your sides, and touched at least a dozen if you'd bothered to swivel your hips. If I'd had more time -- by which I mean, if I hadn't been racing an ominous sky and the even more ominous rumblings of thunder on my way home -- I would have stopped and taken a picture on those blocks too. But trust me when I say they were everywhere. And that they were supremely annoying.
(Did I mention they were supremely annoying? And at least a little offensive? Good.)
The Seize Back web site -- please don't go there; I did, if only for a little pre-post-writing research, but I'd hate to reward this
The Epilepsy Foundation Western/Central Pennsylvania has just launched an integrated multi-media advertising campaign to increase awareness and encourage greater involvement from the community. Tagged "Seize Back," the campaign is all about inspiring people with epilepsy to seize control of their lives by not losing another moment to epilepsy.
Of course it's an integrated multimedia campaign. These days, what isn't? It's the new advertising codespeak for grating, intrusive, inescapable presence in your life that wins accolades from other advertising professionals but makes you want to hate us and, in this case, maybe even some otherwise innocent epileptics. It's the self-important, (allegedly) feel-good doublespeak for we're gonna plaster these things in your face and on the street and all over your favorite local neighborhoods, then hide behind the nobility of our cause and the edginess of our guerilla drip marketing plan with a litterbug twist.
One of the campaign's goals is to increase awareness. Of what? Epilepsy? (Raise your hand if, until you read this blog post, you weren't aware of epilepsy. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) You'll notice, of course, that the ad copy doesn't even bother to specify of what it wants to raise awareness. Maybe that's edgy, economical prose. Or maybe it's just sloppy writing and even sloppier editing.
And anyway -- now that I'm aware, what am I supposed to do? Just be pissed off? Hope that someone comes along and cleans up my neighborhood? Or should I spring into action? Hang a few signs of my own? (Assholes can strike anywhere. Get pissed. Fightback.com) Start a petition drive to prevent other well-intentioned, ill-mannered people from defacing our neighborhood? (Sign here to tell these foundations that citizens, like seizures, can strike anywhere. Especially at them.) Maybe cover my neighbor's car in epilepsy awareness leaflets? (Oh, come on, Erin. I'm raising awareness!) After all...
...another of the campaign's goals is to encourage greater involvement from the community. Still to be answered is the question of how blighting a community with what amounts to artful litter and well-intentioned graffiti -- maybe the Epilepsy Foundation could employ Daniel Montano on a work-release program; when he's done, they could exhibit his work at The Mattress Factory and Waste Management Facility -- encourages the members of that community to rally behind your cause. If it really does work, I'm afraid they'll start dumping trash on our lawns next. Or maybe setting little Epilepsy-Foundation-branded bags of dog shit aflame on our front porch. That'll get us involved!
Perhaps just participating in some of these mischievous pranks will be enough to inspire those epilepsy-suffering scamps to seize control of their lives and spread some litter on their own. After all, we wouldn't want them to lose another moment to epilepsy when they could be out turning their community into one big integrated collage of multimedia waste paper.
This isn't advertising, folks. It's littering. It's vandalizing. (Excuse me, I mean graffiti artisting.) It's filling a simple, lovely public space with your simple, irritating refuse. And then hiding behind both the alleged nobility of your cause and the alleged creativity of your (ahem) campaign.
Are we supposed to tolerate this affront -- this inconsiderate assault on our streets and our senses -- simply because we pity epileptics? Really? Great. Then I look forward to the day when the Cystic Fybrosis foundation comes to spray paint its propaganda all over the sidewalks of Squirrel Hill. And to that glorious morning when we awaken to find that, if only to increase awareness and encourage greater involvement from a stunned and suddenly stinking community, the Pediatric AIDS foundation has littered the sidewalks and storefronts of Murray Avenue with several hundred shit-filled diapers. (All, of course, from the asses of those poor, suffering little babies, so how could you possibly complain?)
Within days, I am sure, we'd have a cure. For everything. If only to protect the sanctity of our community and the sensibilities of our neighborhood, where rallying cries and mass movements in service to sufferers of seizure disorders do not make us suffer these little aesthetic seizures of our own, much less make us want to strike back, and maybe watch a few Wang Chung videos, while deciding never again to donate our time or money to a cause that, had it stopped short of carpetbombing our business district, would have deserved, and almost certainly would have received, our support.
Posted at 06:59 PM
Tue - July 1, 2008
WHILE I WAS AWAY (AGAIN)
there was always something to say
(again).
Last year, I took a ten-day break, came home, sat
down at my keyboard, and felt like I hadn’t missed a thing; the world, it
seemed, had decided to take a vacation along with me. But this year, just as it
did two years ago, the world kept on turning. And
spinning. And making us all at least a little dizzy. Every time I picked up a
Philadelphia Inquirer or USA Today or Washington Post,
every time I watched a little bit of local or national news, something was going
on or picking up or coming down that made me wish I'd picked another time to put
away my keyboard.
A presidential candidate who once lamented that politics has become so gummed up by money decided to keep on chewing as much of it as he could stuff into the mouth of his campaign, popping the bubble of his word and hoping the residue would not long stick to the face of his reputation. Columnists and editorial boards who'd fallen all over themselves to praise his new kind of politics tripped all over themselves and their rationalizations to excuse his old kind of hypocrisy. Bloggers and journalists who've been writing about it for months were reminded again of 2000. And of 1984.
That same candidate, the one who every day promises to unite us, did everything he could to divide himself from Muslims. His aides removed two Muslim women in head scarves from seats where television cameras might have seen them. His campaign continued to ignore invitations from Muslim and Arab-American groups. And so his Christianity, brandished at once as both sword and sceptre, threatened to make literal what had thus far been only a metaphorical crusade.
The other candidate reversed field on offshore drilling, continued to pretend that a gas tax holiday constitutes an energy policy, and delivered at least three more speeches that cemented his status as the most stilted, cringe-worthy teleprompter user in modern American history.
Mayor Michael Nutter stood up to casino owners and stepped up support for revitalizing the Delaware River waterfront in Philadelphia. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl stood up to fireworks and stepped up patrols to restrict anything that goes boom in Pittsburgh. Supporters of both men applauded the moves, proving once and for all that we really do get the government, and so the city, we deserve.
Biblical floods receded in the midwest. Biblical fires came to California. The East Coast braced itself for locusts but saw only hailstones. And Dunkin Donuts.
Michael Beasley, listed at 6-10 in college but measured at 6-7 during the NBA's predraft camp, declared, It's a little disappointing, but it's not a big deal... I don't think I'm 6-7, no doubt bringing the same relativity to his height that Kansas State brought to his ACT score.
Wesley Clark turned into a sinner. George Carlin turned into a saint. Tim Russert turned into Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Marian Hossa, momentarily forgetting that he would take less money to play on a good team, decided $7 million a year might not be enough to live on. Ryan Malone, momentarily imagining a power play with Vincent Lecavalier on his right, Martin St. Louis on his left, and Dan Boyle at his point, decided $4.5 million will do just fine. Penguins fans, wistfully remembering the days when they debated which player they wanted to keep, began to face the grim realities of keeping neither.
Entertainment Weekly declared Edward Scissorhands, Moulin Rouge, and The Naked Gun classic modern films greater than Unforgiven, L.A. Confidential and No Country for Old Man, then declared Fiona Apple's Tidal a classic modern album greater than U2's The Joshua Tree and Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. Discerning readers weren't sure whether to cancel their subscriptions or gouge out their corneas.
The gentle geniuses at Pixar, having long ago proven that live action and sophisticated plotting are unnecessary to modern moviemaking art, proved that rapid-fire pacing and even dialogue are unnecessary to big summer blockbusters. It is tempting to imagine that their next film will have no sound at all. And that the one after that will be simply be a series of ideas and images, of poignant dreams and poetic moments, emanating from their hearts and minds and downloaded directly to our souls.
If I don't post again tomorrow, you'll know I'm already in line for tickets.
A presidential candidate who once lamented that politics has become so gummed up by money decided to keep on chewing as much of it as he could stuff into the mouth of his campaign, popping the bubble of his word and hoping the residue would not long stick to the face of his reputation. Columnists and editorial boards who'd fallen all over themselves to praise his new kind of politics tripped all over themselves and their rationalizations to excuse his old kind of hypocrisy. Bloggers and journalists who've been writing about it for months were reminded again of 2000. And of 1984.
That same candidate, the one who every day promises to unite us, did everything he could to divide himself from Muslims. His aides removed two Muslim women in head scarves from seats where television cameras might have seen them. His campaign continued to ignore invitations from Muslim and Arab-American groups. And so his Christianity, brandished at once as both sword and sceptre, threatened to make literal what had thus far been only a metaphorical crusade.
The other candidate reversed field on offshore drilling, continued to pretend that a gas tax holiday constitutes an energy policy, and delivered at least three more speeches that cemented his status as the most stilted, cringe-worthy teleprompter user in modern American history.
Mayor Michael Nutter stood up to casino owners and stepped up support for revitalizing the Delaware River waterfront in Philadelphia. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl stood up to fireworks and stepped up patrols to restrict anything that goes boom in Pittsburgh. Supporters of both men applauded the moves, proving once and for all that we really do get the government, and so the city, we deserve.
Biblical floods receded in the midwest. Biblical fires came to California. The East Coast braced itself for locusts but saw only hailstones. And Dunkin Donuts.
Michael Beasley, listed at 6-10 in college but measured at 6-7 during the NBA's predraft camp, declared, It's a little disappointing, but it's not a big deal... I don't think I'm 6-7, no doubt bringing the same relativity to his height that Kansas State brought to his ACT score.
Wesley Clark turned into a sinner. George Carlin turned into a saint. Tim Russert turned into Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Marian Hossa, momentarily forgetting that he would take less money to play on a good team, decided $7 million a year might not be enough to live on. Ryan Malone, momentarily imagining a power play with Vincent Lecavalier on his right, Martin St. Louis on his left, and Dan Boyle at his point, decided $4.5 million will do just fine. Penguins fans, wistfully remembering the days when they debated which player they wanted to keep, began to face the grim realities of keeping neither.
Entertainment Weekly declared Edward Scissorhands, Moulin Rouge, and The Naked Gun classic modern films greater than Unforgiven, L.A. Confidential and No Country for Old Man, then declared Fiona Apple's Tidal a classic modern album greater than U2's The Joshua Tree and Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. Discerning readers weren't sure whether to cancel their subscriptions or gouge out their corneas.
The gentle geniuses at Pixar, having long ago proven that live action and sophisticated plotting are unnecessary to modern moviemaking art, proved that rapid-fire pacing and even dialogue are unnecessary to big summer blockbusters. It is tempting to imagine that their next film will have no sound at all. And that the one after that will be simply be a series of ideas and images, of poignant dreams and poetic moments, emanating from their hearts and minds and downloaded directly to our souls.
If I don't post again tomorrow, you'll know I'm already in line for tickets.
Posted at 07:07 PM
Tue - June 17, 2008
TUESDAY MORNING IRONY
on wilkins avenue.
A guy in a blue Volvo. Heading west. Shouting at
a pedestrian who'd crossed the street in front of him. Then gunning his engine,
veering into the oncoming lane to swerve around a car that wasn't turning right
fast enough for his liking. Gesticulating madly all the
while.
With a Coexist bumper sticker on his car.
With a Coexist bumper sticker on his car.
Posted at 08:40 AM
Sat - June 7, 2008
EBERT ON THE CLASSICS
and the currents.
Yesterday's Answer Man column demonstrated yet again why
Roger Ebert deserved that Pulitzer, and why, forty years after he began, he's
more worth reading than ever:
Q. I am 14 years old, and I personally love great movies, but I can't get friends that are my age to sit down and enjoy these classics with me. They claim they are boring. They didn't even like "The Godfather," stating, and I quote, "There was, like, no action." I was wondering, is there a certain age where people are suddenly awakened and realize they enjoy great movies -- and if so, why is it that younger people tend not to like the classics? - Randy Rosdahl, Gastonia, N.C.
A. I think it has something to do with how interested you are in other people in general. Many of the truly great movies involve a close look at human life and behavior. To appreciate them, you have to be able to step outside yourself and empathize with someone else. That's the opposite of instant gratification. Some of your friends may not have reached that level of maturity. Some never will.
That's great film insight, great human insight, and great cultural insight too. It's all the more astute, and indeed even lamentable, in an era when fewer and fewer people -- not just movie watchers -- seem able to, or even interested in, reaching that level of maturity.
Q. I am 14 years old, and I personally love great movies, but I can't get friends that are my age to sit down and enjoy these classics with me. They claim they are boring. They didn't even like "The Godfather," stating, and I quote, "There was, like, no action." I was wondering, is there a certain age where people are suddenly awakened and realize they enjoy great movies -- and if so, why is it that younger people tend not to like the classics? - Randy Rosdahl, Gastonia, N.C.
A. I think it has something to do with how interested you are in other people in general. Many of the truly great movies involve a close look at human life and behavior. To appreciate them, you have to be able to step outside yourself and empathize with someone else. That's the opposite of instant gratification. Some of your friends may not have reached that level of maturity. Some never will.
That's great film insight, great human insight, and great cultural insight too. It's all the more astute, and indeed even lamentable, in an era when fewer and fewer people -- not just movie watchers -- seem able to, or even interested in, reaching that level of maturity.
Posted at 12:09 PM
Mon - June 2, 2008
SOME NAGGING QUESTIONS FOR A MONDAY AFTERNOON
in texas.
Now that Judge Barbara Walther has signed the order allowing the 400+ children
seized from that polygamist compound to be returned to the custody of their
parents, and now that those parents could start picking up those kids as early
as 10am this morning, how long do you think it will be -- if it hasn't already
been -- before the next child is sexually abused? A day? A week? Or do you
think, emboldened by this decision and figuring it'll be a while before the
first unannounced Family and Protective Services visit comes along, they'll just
go ahead and get right back at it this afternoon?
After all, it's been more than a month, and those men have urges just like the rest of us.
Well, not exactly like the rest of us. But close enough for Judge Walther, I suppose.
After all, it's been more than a month, and those men have urges just like the rest of us.
Well, not exactly like the rest of us. But close enough for Judge Walther, I suppose.
Posted at 12:20 PM
Sun - May 25, 2008
I DO HAVE SOMETHING
after all.
The more I think about that a healthy divorce
may even be more important than a healthy marriage aphorism, the more pissed I get. And the more
pissed I get, the more I realize that I do have something to say about it after
all. It is, as I suggested at the time, almost certainly already redundant, but
I am nevertheless compelled to note that such advice is akin to -- and no less
stupid than -- saying that a good funeral may even be more important than a
good life.
Posted at 12:35 PM
Mon - May 19, 2008
A MESSAGE FROM VIKRAM
for which i'm still waiting.
Over the weekend, I got a couple of interesting
emails here at TWM HQ that I will, over the course of the next few days, be
trotting out for your amusement. We'll start at the top, with one I received
Friday morning.
Titled A Message from Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citi, and featuring a lovely little photo of its subject-line-namesake leaning against his great, oval, paper-strewn desk, it unfolded thusly:
I want you to be among the first to know about the bold steps we are taking at Citi to be the premier, global, fully integrated financial services firm. Our objective is to create for our customers an experience in which services are seamless, payments and transfers effortless, and distances meaningless. My commitment - and the commitment of everyone at Citi - is to work tirelessly around the world and around the clock to deliver outstanding value and service as we continue to earn your trust and that of every customer we serve.
We are proud of our enduring strength as a global financial institution, striving to successfully meet the needs of clients like you in more than 100 countries. As always, we look forward to continuing to serve you - wherever you are and wherever you need to be.
Sincerely,
Vikram Pandit
CEO, Citi
And that was it. No link to more information, no Click to find out more, not even some useful nugget of information buried in the fine print at the bottom. Just an assurance that Vikram wanted me to be among the first to know about the bold steps he and the company are taking, followed by not one single bit of information about any of them. For all I know, he and Citi are really just standing still.
I think I'll try this next month when my credit card payment is due. Along with the payment stub, I'll send a little note titled A Message from Chad Hermann, Cardholder of Citi, in which I assure Vikram and the rest of his team that I want them to be among the first to receive the big checks I am sending to pay off this month's debts, and that I am proud of my enduring strength as financial customer wherever I am and wherever I need to be. When they realize I haven't actually included the check and come after me for non-payment, I'll just tell them I was following Vikram's lead, and that I thought it was important for us to keep the lines of communication and remuneration open, even if nothing ever passes along them.
Because this, my friends, is what passes for marketing and customer outreach and good communication in an industry, and indeed an era, of seeming sincerity and pandering positivity, when the now-quaint notions of meaning what you say and then actually delivering upon it have given way to the bland, soulless copy of PR flacks and the executives too corrupt or lazy or indifferent ever to see through them. A time when CEOs of global financial institutions send 140-word emails that say no more, and perhaps even less, than a blank computer monitor viewed for the same length of time.
Titled A Message from Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citi, and featuring a lovely little photo of its subject-line-namesake leaning against his great, oval, paper-strewn desk, it unfolded thusly:
I want you to be among the first to know about the bold steps we are taking at Citi to be the premier, global, fully integrated financial services firm. Our objective is to create for our customers an experience in which services are seamless, payments and transfers effortless, and distances meaningless. My commitment - and the commitment of everyone at Citi - is to work tirelessly around the world and around the clock to deliver outstanding value and service as we continue to earn your trust and that of every customer we serve.
We are proud of our enduring strength as a global financial institution, striving to successfully meet the needs of clients like you in more than 100 countries. As always, we look forward to continuing to serve you - wherever you are and wherever you need to be.
Sincerely,
Vikram Pandit
CEO, Citi
And that was it. No link to more information, no Click to find out more, not even some useful nugget of information buried in the fine print at the bottom. Just an assurance that Vikram wanted me to be among the first to know about the bold steps he and the company are taking, followed by not one single bit of information about any of them. For all I know, he and Citi are really just standing still.
I think I'll try this next month when my credit card payment is due. Along with the payment stub, I'll send a little note titled A Message from Chad Hermann, Cardholder of Citi, in which I assure Vikram and the rest of his team that I want them to be among the first to receive the big checks I am sending to pay off this month's debts, and that I am proud of my enduring strength as financial customer wherever I am and wherever I need to be. When they realize I haven't actually included the check and come after me for non-payment, I'll just tell them I was following Vikram's lead, and that I thought it was important for us to keep the lines of communication and remuneration open, even if nothing ever passes along them.
Because this, my friends, is what passes for marketing and customer outreach and good communication in an industry, and indeed an era, of seeming sincerity and pandering positivity, when the now-quaint notions of meaning what you say and then actually delivering upon it have given way to the bland, soulless copy of PR flacks and the executives too corrupt or lazy or indifferent ever to see through them. A time when CEOs of global financial institutions send 140-word emails that say no more, and perhaps even less, than a blank computer monitor viewed for the same length of time.
Posted at 03:56 PM
Thu - May 15, 2008
WEAR PITTSBURGH BASEBALL
and a little bit of twm.
It began as a Burgh Blog comment. It became a TWM post. It became an occasional, recurring joke. And now, ladies and gents, it
becomes the latest, gotta-have-it, totally cool piece of
WearPittsburgh
wear:
Thanks to the always tireless efforts of Pittsburgh's Guru of Tech and Blogging and T-Shirts and All Other High Holy Hipness, Mr. Mike Woycheck, and to the damned fine design work of Ms. Rachel Carson Sager, a little, simple bit of (honest, accurate) snark has now become a part of Pittsburgh sports, fashion, and entrepreneurial history.
You can buy one (or two, or ten) right here, in your choice of 129 different (no, I'm not kidding) styles and colors. I receive no money, no commissions or vacations, no Cadillac El Dorados or sets of steak knives if you do. Just the satisfaction that comes from a small burst of inspiration, a chance to help a friend build his business, and a dream that someday, sometime, someone will wear one of these shirts to PNC Park on a night the sky is clear and the stars align and the Pirates, after putting together a nice, modest little win streak, get thoroughly shellacked by whomever they're playing.
Thanks to the always tireless efforts of Pittsburgh's Guru of Tech and Blogging and T-Shirts and All Other High Holy Hipness, Mr. Mike Woycheck, and to the damned fine design work of Ms. Rachel Carson Sager, a little, simple bit of (honest, accurate) snark has now become a part of Pittsburgh sports, fashion, and entrepreneurial history.
You can buy one (or two, or ten) right here, in your choice of 129 different (no, I'm not kidding) styles and colors. I receive no money, no commissions or vacations, no Cadillac El Dorados or sets of steak knives if you do. Just the satisfaction that comes from a small burst of inspiration, a chance to help a friend build his business, and a dream that someday, sometime, someone will wear one of these shirts to PNC Park on a night the sky is clear and the stars align and the Pirates, after putting together a nice, modest little win streak, get thoroughly shellacked by whomever they're playing.
Posted at 10:43 AM
Mon - March 31, 2008
MY (SLIGHTLY REVISED) PLAN TO SAVE THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE
in honor of pittsburgh blog for equality
day.
Like swallows to Capistrano, George Lucas to new
versions of the original Star Wars trilogy, or dogs to their own vomit,
so, in a contentious election year, do intellectually bankrupt demagogues return
to the issue of same-sex marriage. Because there's nothing quite like
demonizing gays to galvanize the base -- especially when gas prices are up,
poll numbers are down, and political minds are otherwise empty.
Much as George Bush and Bill Frist and all the rest of the devout, compassionate, love-thy-(straight)-neighbor crowd did in 2004 and in 2006, the festering bigots -- by which I mean, blithering idiots -- of our Pennsylvania State Senate Judiciary Committee have, by a 10-4 vote, decided it's time to worry about what horrors might befall us if two men or women in love were allowed to marry and claim a couple of extra tax deductions. Our economy's sputtering, our infrastructure's going to hell, and our state legislature is still the size of mainland China -- don't even get me started on the state's pension fund crisis -- but these folks think the real threat to the health and welfare of the commonwealth is the prospect that gays might somehow destabilize the sacred institution of marriage.
Maybe it's natural instinct. Maybe its cynical exploitation. Maybe it's just some vile, insatiable hunger to fuck with the people whose kind of fucking they don't like. But whatever the reason, it's a compulsion that our elected officials, who must have better things to do than worry about who's saying I do, lately can not seem to resist vomiting up deep, dark colons of their own closed minds.
Still, in some strange, benefit-of-the-doubt sort of way, in the gracious spirits of tolerance and of acceptance, let's try to understand what our (ahem) esteemed state senators are thinking. If the name of this new bill -- the Marriage Protection Amendment -- is any indication, it seems they don't really want to discriminate against an entire class of people; they just want to save what little is left of the rapidly diminishing sanctity of marriage. And for that, who can blame them?
After all, the institution of marriage is already less stable than the San Andreas Fault; one more tectonic shift, and the whole concept might just crumble into a bleak and sinful sea of indifference. When American marriages last, on average, less than two full Gubernatorial terms, and when the number of American divorces in a year is roughly the same as the number of dollars you can win on Deal or No Deal (now with a bonus round: Custody or No Custody!), maybe it's time to do something radical to save it.
If that's what they really want to do -- not, you know, marginalize a whole class of people -- then I have the perfect plan to do it. We'll just see, as they say on all the big-game sports telecasts, who wants it more.
First, we keep heterosexual marriage as is. Then we legalize homosexual marriage. Then, for a period of five years, we track the status and chart the progress of all new marriages, both homosexual and heterosexual, in the commonwealth. Who's living happily? Who's having trouble? Who's seeking help? Who's beyond help? Who's separated? Who's divorced? Who's killed their spouses and dumped their bodies in the nearest body of water? We could even go national and solve this infernal, infuriating, every-damned-election-year problem once and for all.
Think of the drama. Think of the intrigue. Think of the ratings.
It could become our next great pop culture, infotainment obsession. Instead of just covering celebrity marriages, the morning shows and news magazines could track all marriages: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got divorced yesterday, Matt, but there's good news from Scranton, Pennsylvania: Lisa Williams and Mary Johnson just celebrated their second anniversary together!
We could even turn it into a new reality show: American Marriage. Or maybe Survivor: Wedding Bed Edition. Ryan Seacrest could host. Charlie Sheen, Elizabeth Taylor, and Simon Cowell could be the celebrity judges. The show would start with, say, six heterosexual and six homosexual couples. Each week, viewers could call in and eliminate one couple based on their appearance, their taste in clothes, their ability to sing show tunes, or their intimate knowledge of each other's annoying personal habits. It would be like a new-age Newlywed Game, but with better production values and a (far) more annoying host. The show's web site could offer at-home, behind-the-scenes video (watch Adam and Steve fight over who left the seat up!) of all the contestants, and we could even keep track of all the stats in a special newspaper section: Couples, sort of a cross between the Sports and the Obituaries.
All those things would, of course, be mere window dressing. Happy diversions to keep us entertained until we come to the truly important competition. Because we know that the real threat to the sanctity of marriage isn't who's getting married; it's who's getting divorced.
The true test -- and so the great cultural impact -- of this plan would come at the end of those five years. We'd do one final status check of every couple married during the trial period, then tabulate the statistics. Whichever group -- The Happy Heteros or The Hellacious Homos -- produced the lowest divorce rate would be crowned the winners. The Ultimate Matrimonial Champions. The true and shining guardians of our most sacred cultural institution. And then, after a little time, a lot of fun, and some simple arithmetic, the great debate and demonization would finally be over. Because we would know for certain which kind of couple is the real threat to the sanctity of marriage.
To make it really interesting, and to be sure the debate never flared up again -- you know, the next time some do-nothing politician needed to throw a little red meat to the open-mouthed, closed-minded masses -- the competition would be winner take all.
If The Happy Heteros win, we amend not just the state but the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as the most high and holy union of a man and a woman. If The Hellacious Homos prove victorious, we amend the Constitution to define marriage as a grand and glorious same-sex union. It would be a neat, clean, field-tested, results-oriented, can't-argue-with-the numbers, they-left-it-all-on-the-court-and-in-the-bedroom, that's-why-they-play-the-game-and-test-the-orientations kind of resolution. It would be fun, it would be fair, and it would be final. End of debate. End of story. End of relentless political pandering.
What do you say, state senators? U.S. Senators? All you other fire-breathing cultural caretakers? Wanna put your marriages where your mouths are?
I'm guessing you don't. For many reasons. Not the least of which is that, if we actually held such a competition, we all know who would win.
(Hint: It wouldn't be the side that has already driven marriage so far into disrepair that an influx of loving, monogamous homosexual couples may be the only chance of saving it.)
Much as George Bush and Bill Frist and all the rest of the devout, compassionate, love-thy-(straight)-neighbor crowd did in 2004 and in 2006, the festering bigots -- by which I mean, blithering idiots -- of our Pennsylvania State Senate Judiciary Committee have, by a 10-4 vote, decided it's time to worry about what horrors might befall us if two men or women in love were allowed to marry and claim a couple of extra tax deductions. Our economy's sputtering, our infrastructure's going to hell, and our state legislature is still the size of mainland China -- don't even get me started on the state's pension fund crisis -- but these folks think the real threat to the health and welfare of the commonwealth is the prospect that gays might somehow destabilize the sacred institution of marriage.
Maybe it's natural instinct. Maybe its cynical exploitation. Maybe it's just some vile, insatiable hunger to fuck with the people whose kind of fucking they don't like. But whatever the reason, it's a compulsion that our elected officials, who must have better things to do than worry about who's saying I do, lately can not seem to resist vomiting up deep, dark colons of their own closed minds.
Still, in some strange, benefit-of-the-doubt sort of way, in the gracious spirits of tolerance and of acceptance, let's try to understand what our (ahem) esteemed state senators are thinking. If the name of this new bill -- the Marriage Protection Amendment -- is any indication, it seems they don't really want to discriminate against an entire class of people; they just want to save what little is left of the rapidly diminishing sanctity of marriage. And for that, who can blame them?
After all, the institution of marriage is already less stable than the San Andreas Fault; one more tectonic shift, and the whole concept might just crumble into a bleak and sinful sea of indifference. When American marriages last, on average, less than two full Gubernatorial terms, and when the number of American divorces in a year is roughly the same as the number of dollars you can win on Deal or No Deal (now with a bonus round: Custody or No Custody!), maybe it's time to do something radical to save it.
If that's what they really want to do -- not, you know, marginalize a whole class of people -- then I have the perfect plan to do it. We'll just see, as they say on all the big-game sports telecasts, who wants it more.
First, we keep heterosexual marriage as is. Then we legalize homosexual marriage. Then, for a period of five years, we track the status and chart the progress of all new marriages, both homosexual and heterosexual, in the commonwealth. Who's living happily? Who's having trouble? Who's seeking help? Who's beyond help? Who's separated? Who's divorced? Who's killed their spouses and dumped their bodies in the nearest body of water? We could even go national and solve this infernal, infuriating, every-damned-election-year problem once and for all.
Think of the drama. Think of the intrigue. Think of the ratings.
It could become our next great pop culture, infotainment obsession. Instead of just covering celebrity marriages, the morning shows and news magazines could track all marriages: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got divorced yesterday, Matt, but there's good news from Scranton, Pennsylvania: Lisa Williams and Mary Johnson just celebrated their second anniversary together!
We could even turn it into a new reality show: American Marriage. Or maybe Survivor: Wedding Bed Edition. Ryan Seacrest could host. Charlie Sheen, Elizabeth Taylor, and Simon Cowell could be the celebrity judges. The show would start with, say, six heterosexual and six homosexual couples. Each week, viewers could call in and eliminate one couple based on their appearance, their taste in clothes, their ability to sing show tunes, or their intimate knowledge of each other's annoying personal habits. It would be like a new-age Newlywed Game, but with better production values and a (far) more annoying host. The show's web site could offer at-home, behind-the-scenes video (watch Adam and Steve fight over who left the seat up!) of all the contestants, and we could even keep track of all the stats in a special newspaper section: Couples, sort of a cross between the Sports and the Obituaries.
All those things would, of course, be mere window dressing. Happy diversions to keep us entertained until we come to the truly important competition. Because we know that the real threat to the sanctity of marriage isn't who's getting married; it's who's getting divorced.
The true test -- and so the great cultural impact -- of this plan would come at the end of those five years. We'd do one final status check of every couple married during the trial period, then tabulate the statistics. Whichever group -- The Happy Heteros or The Hellacious Homos -- produced the lowest divorce rate would be crowned the winners. The Ultimate Matrimonial Champions. The true and shining guardians of our most sacred cultural institution. And then, after a little time, a lot of fun, and some simple arithmetic, the great debate and demonization would finally be over. Because we would know for certain which kind of couple is the real threat to the sanctity of marriage.
To make it really interesting, and to be sure the debate never flared up again -- you know, the next time some do-nothing politician needed to throw a little red meat to the open-mouthed, closed-minded masses -- the competition would be winner take all.
If The Happy Heteros win, we amend not just the state but the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as the most high and holy union of a man and a woman. If The Hellacious Homos prove victorious, we amend the Constitution to define marriage as a grand and glorious same-sex union. It would be a neat, clean, field-tested, results-oriented, can't-argue-with-the numbers, they-left-it-all-on-the-court-and-in-the-bedroom, that's-why-they-play-the-game-and-test-the-orientations kind of resolution. It would be fun, it would be fair, and it would be final. End of debate. End of story. End of relentless political pandering.
What do you say, state senators? U.S. Senators? All you other fire-breathing cultural caretakers? Wanna put your marriages where your mouths are?
I'm guessing you don't. For many reasons. Not the least of which is that, if we actually held such a competition, we all know who would win.
(Hint: It wouldn't be the side that has already driven marriage so far into disrepair that an influx of loving, monogamous homosexual couples may be the only chance of saving it.)
Posted at 08:31 AM
Thu - March 20, 2008
ROOMFUL DISGUST
or, buying a new
barf-o-lounger.
Last night, about ten minutes into the ten o'clock
news (on Pittsburgh's CW!), I saw a commercial for Roomful Express Furniture
that featured a bumbling, easily confused, not-very-bright male character.
Typical, I know, so I was prepared to let it go. But then, about twenty seconds
into it, came a female voice-over that vaulted the commercial way over the
stereotypical top and straight to new heights (or is that depths?) of
offensiveness:
Oh, it's okay. You're a guy. You're supposed to be clueless.
Imagine, if you will, a prime time television commercial that features a bumbling, easily confused, not-very-bright female character. Now imagine, near the end of the ad, a male voice-over that declares:
Oh, it's okay. You're a girl. You're supposed to be stupid.
Or:
Oh, it's okay. You're a girl. You're supposed to be a bitch.
Or:
Oh, it's okay. You're a girl. You're supposed to be a whore.
Or...
...oh, never mind. You get the idea.
And I hope you hate it.
Oh, it's okay. You're a guy. You're supposed to be clueless.
Imagine, if you will, a prime time television commercial that features a bumbling, easily confused, not-very-bright female character. Now imagine, near the end of the ad, a male voice-over that declares:
Oh, it's okay. You're a girl. You're supposed to be stupid.
Or:
Oh, it's okay. You're a girl. You're supposed to be a bitch.
Or:
Oh, it's okay. You're a girl. You're supposed to be a whore.
Or...
...oh, never mind. You get the idea.
And I hope you hate it.
Posted at 07:27 AM
Wed - March 12, 2008
WHY WOULD SHE GO THROUGH THAT?
because she chose to.
Right there on the front page of the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette this morning, next to that great, big, brand-spanking-new
1-in-4 headline, was a headline no less surprising or predictable:
Wives put through ringer in public scandals. Beneath it -- and, indeed,
beneath all of us -- was a feature that would have missed the point had
it not already missed the mark.
Consider these excerpts:
Another scandalized politician. Another shell-shocked wife.
Another front-page story with little-to-no news value.
Following the crisis playbook that says "thou shalt be dragged to the podium and stand by your husband," New York first lady Silda Wall Spitzer grimaced next to her husband, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, during his mea culpa news conference Monday in the face of a call-girl scandal.
Thou shalt be dragged to the podium? What, by the hair? Was Eliot Spitzer wearing a loincloth -- feel free to fill in your own jokes -- and dragging his knuckles on the ground and brandishing a club over his shoulder en route to the rostrum? Whatever happened to the human playbook that says "thou shalt exercise thine own free will and do whatever the Hell thy want, even when thy husband hath just confessed to egregiously overpaying for sex with someone other than thou"?
This theme -- the hapless, helpless wife dragged and/or compelled Bataan Death March her way to the podium -- will sound throughout the feature, just as it has throughout most of the discussion of Silda Wall Spitzer these past twenty-four hours. And I'm here to tell you that, in the real world or real people with real emotions and even realer freedoms of choice, it's a crock.
The Harvard-educated Mrs. Spitzer looked so shattered that political consultant Cathy Allen could barely watch.
I'm not sure what her Harvard education has to do with that podium moment, unless, of course, it's to note that even Harvard educated women will choose to do stupid things for the sake of ambition and/or political expediency.
"Enough already -- get her out of there!" said Ms. Allen, communications chairwoman for the American Association of Political Consultants.
Get her out of there? Was she drugged? (I know she looked it, but then you probably would too, if you'd decided, of your own free will, to walk out there with Client 9.) Was she brainwashed? Were her feet chained to the floor? She could have gotten herself out of there anytime she wanted.
Or, better still, she could have not gone out there at all.
"Why, oh why they make the wives pay with such public humiliation is beyond me.
They make? Who's they, and how do they make? Were they holding a gun to her head? Were they holding the Spitzer children at knifepoint just off camera? Don't the wives have minds or spines of their own?
It only works to make women feel the guy is even more stupid."
It doesn't make me feel the guy is even more stupid; it makes me feel the wife is even more stupid. He's just flushed her down the emotional toilet, but he and his handlers want her to come out and stand by him for the sake of his political career, so she does it? Please. If she had any self-respect, she wouldn't be caught within five miles of a lectern, a microphone, or a flash bulb.
That spectacle does, however, make me think the guy is even more of an ass who doesn't give a damn about his wife except as a political prop.
Ms. Allen believes the strategy has backfired as the public has grown weary of one too many wives who look like they are being walked to an executioner's chair during their husband's scandal.
This member of the public has surely grown weary of the sight. But he's grown even more weary of commentators who act as if Harvard-educated First Ladies must necessarily do whatever their philandering husbands and political consultants tell them.
Men interviewed by political consultants often remarked on how stupid it was for Mr. Spitzer to sacrifice his career, while women were outraged that he would trot his wife out for a photo op designed to salvage his career.
What is she, a horse? She just ducks her head and heads out to the pasture or to the podium whenever her husband tugs on the reins? If those women -- or anyone else -- want to be outraged, about her appearance at that press conference, they have only one person to blame: Silda Wall Spitzer.
She surely did not want or deserve the whole, sorry, sordid scandal, and she is surely not to blame for any little bit of it. But until someone produces evidence that she was drugged or physically coerced into standing by her man before all those cameras, she's the one who bears the responsibility of trotting on out.
Stanley Renshon, professor of political science and a psychoanalyst at the City University of New York, said he also thinks the strategy of bringing out a devastated wife backfires.
"Anyone with a modicum of judgment says, 'Why is this guy doing this?' It adds insult to injury. It is a testimony to his lack of sensitivity," Dr. Renshon said. "She looks likes she got hit over a head by a sledgehammer."
Why is this guy doing it? To cover his ass, of course! We know why he's doing it. The real question here -- and, no, it's not why she's doing it, though that's a good one -- is why all these experts assume the betrayed wife, a scorned woman with considerable intelligence and dignity and a precious free will of her own, has no say in the mater?
Why is she allowing it to be done to her? Why doesn't poor Silda tell whoring Eliot to go out there alone?
Is it the fault of the patriarchy? Of political consultants? Of this nasty, petty political climate?
Or of her own personal and ethical decision-making?
But why would Mrs. Spitzer, an intelligent lawyer, agree to such a humiliating photo op?
Good question. Too bad we don't get a good answer. Or even a good "expert"...
"As much as she probably would like to whack him over the head with a purse, it is damage control," said Ruth Houston, the New York City-based founder of infidelityadvice.com and the author of "Is He Cheating on You: 829 Telltale Signs."
First: go check out that web site. And see if you'd trust its author to comment on the weather, much less on the biggest political scandal of the week.
Now: damage control for whom, Ms. Houston? Both people in the relationship? Or for her husband, whose actions have just shattered the lives of her entire family?
Oh, and finally: it's 2008, and she's an intelligent and accomplished professional woman. She's far more likely to whack him over the head with her BlackBerry or her iPhone than with her purse. It's time, I think, to update your outdated rhetoric. And your outdated thinking. Speaking of which...
The woman can stay home if she knows she is going to bolt, Ms. Houston said.
Ignoring what seems to me to be a tremendous undercurrent of good, old-fashioned sexism -- a woman can't take a principled stand for her own good if she wants to try to save the marriage? Ms. Houston, you have a problem -- let's just make one thing clear one more time: the woman can stay home no matter what, because the woman is a smart and vital and dignified human being possessed of her own free will.
But if there is any chance the marriage can be salvaged -- something she may not know for many months -- the wife has to go through the excruciating process of standing by her man, she said.
In private, yes. In public, at a podium, at a press conference? No.
"There you are in front of the whole world being humiliated," she said. "How many people could go through that?"
The short, simple, Silda answer: everyone who chooses to.
Consider these excerpts:
Another scandalized politician. Another shell-shocked wife.
Another front-page story with little-to-no news value.
Following the crisis playbook that says "thou shalt be dragged to the podium and stand by your husband," New York first lady Silda Wall Spitzer grimaced next to her husband, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, during his mea culpa news conference Monday in the face of a call-girl scandal.
Thou shalt be dragged to the podium? What, by the hair? Was Eliot Spitzer wearing a loincloth -- feel free to fill in your own jokes -- and dragging his knuckles on the ground and brandishing a club over his shoulder en route to the rostrum? Whatever happened to the human playbook that says "thou shalt exercise thine own free will and do whatever the Hell thy want, even when thy husband hath just confessed to egregiously overpaying for sex with someone other than thou"?
This theme -- the hapless, helpless wife dragged and/or compelled Bataan Death March her way to the podium -- will sound throughout the feature, just as it has throughout most of the discussion of Silda Wall Spitzer these past twenty-four hours. And I'm here to tell you that, in the real world or real people with real emotions and even realer freedoms of choice, it's a crock.
The Harvard-educated Mrs. Spitzer looked so shattered that political consultant Cathy Allen could barely watch.
I'm not sure what her Harvard education has to do with that podium moment, unless, of course, it's to note that even Harvard educated women will choose to do stupid things for the sake of ambition and/or political expediency.
"Enough already -- get her out of there!" said Ms. Allen, communications chairwoman for the American Association of Political Consultants.
Get her out of there? Was she drugged? (I know she looked it, but then you probably would too, if you'd decided, of your own free will, to walk out there with Client 9.) Was she brainwashed? Were her feet chained to the floor? She could have gotten herself out of there anytime she wanted.
Or, better still, she could have not gone out there at all.
"Why, oh why they make the wives pay with such public humiliation is beyond me.
They make? Who's they, and how do they make? Were they holding a gun to her head? Were they holding the Spitzer children at knifepoint just off camera? Don't the wives have minds or spines of their own?
It only works to make women feel the guy is even more stupid."
It doesn't make me feel the guy is even more stupid; it makes me feel the wife is even more stupid. He's just flushed her down the emotional toilet, but he and his handlers want her to come out and stand by him for the sake of his political career, so she does it? Please. If she had any self-respect, she wouldn't be caught within five miles of a lectern, a microphone, or a flash bulb.
That spectacle does, however, make me think the guy is even more of an ass who doesn't give a damn about his wife except as a political prop.
Ms. Allen believes the strategy has backfired as the public has grown weary of one too many wives who look like they are being walked to an executioner's chair during their husband's scandal.
This member of the public has surely grown weary of the sight. But he's grown even more weary of commentators who act as if Harvard-educated First Ladies must necessarily do whatever their philandering husbands and political consultants tell them.
Men interviewed by political consultants often remarked on how stupid it was for Mr. Spitzer to sacrifice his career, while women were outraged that he would trot his wife out for a photo op designed to salvage his career.
What is she, a horse? She just ducks her head and heads out to the pasture or to the podium whenever her husband tugs on the reins? If those women -- or anyone else -- want to be outraged, about her appearance at that press conference, they have only one person to blame: Silda Wall Spitzer.
She surely did not want or deserve the whole, sorry, sordid scandal, and she is surely not to blame for any little bit of it. But until someone produces evidence that she was drugged or physically coerced into standing by her man before all those cameras, she's the one who bears the responsibility of trotting on out.
Stanley Renshon, professor of political science and a psychoanalyst at the City University of New York, said he also thinks the strategy of bringing out a devastated wife backfires.
"Anyone with a modicum of judgment says, 'Why is this guy doing this?' It adds insult to injury. It is a testimony to his lack of sensitivity," Dr. Renshon said. "She looks likes she got hit over a head by a sledgehammer."
Why is this guy doing it? To cover his ass, of course! We know why he's doing it. The real question here -- and, no, it's not why she's doing it, though that's a good one -- is why all these experts assume the betrayed wife, a scorned woman with considerable intelligence and dignity and a precious free will of her own, has no say in the mater?
Why is she allowing it to be done to her? Why doesn't poor Silda tell whoring Eliot to go out there alone?
Is it the fault of the patriarchy? Of political consultants? Of this nasty, petty political climate?
Or of her own personal and ethical decision-making?
But why would Mrs. Spitzer, an intelligent lawyer, agree to such a humiliating photo op?
Good question. Too bad we don't get a good answer. Or even a good "expert"...
"As much as she probably would like to whack him over the head with a purse, it is damage control," said Ruth Houston, the New York City-based founder of infidelityadvice.com and the author of "Is He Cheating on You: 829 Telltale Signs."
First: go check out that web site. And see if you'd trust its author to comment on the weather, much less on the biggest political scandal of the week.
Now: damage control for whom, Ms. Houston? Both people in the relationship? Or for her husband, whose actions have just shattered the lives of her entire family?
Oh, and finally: it's 2008, and she's an intelligent and accomplished professional woman. She's far more likely to whack him over the head with her BlackBerry or her iPhone than with her purse. It's time, I think, to update your outdated rhetoric. And your outdated thinking. Speaking of which...
The woman can stay home if she knows she is going to bolt, Ms. Houston said.
Ignoring what seems to me to be a tremendous undercurrent of good, old-fashioned sexism -- a woman can't take a principled stand for her own good if she wants to try to save the marriage? Ms. Houston, you have a problem -- let's just make one thing clear one more time: the woman can stay home no matter what, because the woman is a smart and vital and dignified human being possessed of her own free will.
But if there is any chance the marriage can be salvaged -- something she may not know for many months -- the wife has to go through the excruciating process of standing by her man, she said.
In private, yes. In public, at a podium, at a press conference? No.
"There you are in front of the whole world being humiliated," she said. "How many people could go through that?"
The short, simple, Silda answer: everyone who chooses to.
Posted at 11:03 AM
CONSISTENT INCOMPETENCE
and the occasional, fleeting whiff of
mediocrity.
Because I like it, because many of you may not see
it in the comment threads over at The Burgh Blog, and because it's true, I thought
I would repeat here what I wrote there, in response to an "anonymous Burgher"
who whined that the Pirates should be shown the same love as the Steelers and
the Penguins...
The Steelers and Penguins get it because they deserve it. Because they have highly competent organizations that field regularly competitive teams. When they suck, they suck for a year — or, at worst, a couple of years — and are even then in the process of rebuilding the team, so that they emerge from their suckitude and soon compete again.
In the past 15 — count 'em, 15 — years of Pirates suckitude, the Steelers have had only 3 losing seasons. During that time, they’ve had 10 playoff appearances, including 6 conference championship appearances, 2 Super Bowl appearances, and one Super Bowl victory. The Penguins have had only 4 losing seasons. During that time, they’ve had 10 playoff appearances, including 5 conference semi-finals appearances and two conference finals appearances, are currently a lock to make their 11th playoff appearance, and have assembled what most hockey analysts consider to be the best young team in the game.
We can talk about the Pirates’ glory days of the 70s — when, by the way, the Steelers were winning 4 Super Bowls — or about those three great years in the early 90s — when, by the way, the Penguins were winning 2 Stanley Cups — all we want, but that does not change the grim facts, nor the piss-poor results, of the battlin’ Buccos during the last decade and a half.
That franchise, with a considerable assist from the taxpayers, has built the best ballpark in the country. For that, we should be grateful. Absent that, they have not done one thing — unless, of course, you count bobblehead nights and fireworks displays — to reward their loyal fans with anything more than consistent incompetence and the occasional, fleeting whiff of mediocrity.
If we’re still showing them love after that, our out-of-town friends should have an intervention and force us to get help at a Battered Sports Fans’ Shelter.
The Steelers and Penguins get it because they deserve it. Because they have highly competent organizations that field regularly competitive teams. When they suck, they suck for a year — or, at worst, a couple of years — and are even then in the process of rebuilding the team, so that they emerge from their suckitude and soon compete again.
In the past 15 — count 'em, 15 — years of Pirates suckitude, the Steelers have had only 3 losing seasons. During that time, they’ve had 10 playoff appearances, including 6 conference championship appearances, 2 Super Bowl appearances, and one Super Bowl victory. The Penguins have had only 4 losing seasons. During that time, they’ve had 10 playoff appearances, including 5 conference semi-finals appearances and two conference finals appearances, are currently a lock to make their 11th playoff appearance, and have assembled what most hockey analysts consider to be the best young team in the game.
We can talk about the Pirates’ glory days of the 70s — when, by the way, the Steelers were winning 4 Super Bowls — or about those three great years in the early 90s — when, by the way, the Penguins were winning 2 Stanley Cups — all we want, but that does not change the grim facts, nor the piss-poor results, of the battlin’ Buccos during the last decade and a half.
That franchise, with a considerable assist from the taxpayers, has built the best ballpark in the country. For that, we should be grateful. Absent that, they have not done one thing — unless, of course, you count bobblehead nights and fireworks displays — to reward their loyal fans with anything more than consistent incompetence and the occasional, fleeting whiff of mediocrity.
If we’re still showing them love after that, our out-of-town friends should have an intervention and force us to get help at a Battered Sports Fans’ Shelter.
Posted at 10:18 AM
HERE WE GO AGAIN
maybe.
I haven't looked into the new CDC study or its
methodology yet. And, for all I know, it could be air-tight and rigorous and
statistically sound. (It certainly seems, at first blush, to stand up to
scrutiny, if only because a positive test for an STD is an awfully objective
measure.) But you'll forgive my initial reservations -- my justifiable
skepticism, my here-we-go-again-ism -- when the figure for STD-infected teenage
girls turns out to be...
...one-in-four.
Not one-in-three, or one-in-six, or one-in-four-point-five. One-in-four.
What are the odds of that?
(No, wait. Don't tell me. Let me guess...)
...one-in-four.
Not one-in-three, or one-in-six, or one-in-four-point-five. One-in-four.
What are the odds of that?
(No, wait. Don't tell me. Let me guess...)
Posted at 07:52 AM
Mon - March 10, 2008
TWO MORE QUICK WORK OUTS
from the church of haterade.
So one of my favorite Hindus in all the world --
we'll call her The Artist Formerly Known as The Barmaid -- just emailed and
wants me to add two more pointed bullets to the Today/Harvard/GymRat
shoot-out
below:
• I'm just curious. When Gabriel divulged the Koran to Mohammed, were there specific guidelines about exercise? And gyms?
• What if my religion -- we'll call it the Church of Haterade -- prescribed that I only exercise with men present? Would they set up a time at the Harvard gyms when a man was promised to be present to ogle me throughout my workout?
Excellent questions all, methinks. Me also thinks that observations like this, as much as anything else, are why we're all the poorer for The Barmaid's online absence. And, finally, me especially thinks that, should the Harvard Workout Police not take action on Lucy Caldwell's eminently sensible solution, some group of Harvard men should band together, form a church of their own -- it's really isn't that difficult -- and inform university administrators that, according to the prescriptions of their faith, they can only exercise in the presence of naked women.
Harvard will have to take action, right? After all, it has a moral and ethical responsibility to make sure its students can stay healthy.
• I'm just curious. When Gabriel divulged the Koran to Mohammed, were there specific guidelines about exercise? And gyms?
• What if my religion -- we'll call it the Church of Haterade -- prescribed that I only exercise with men present? Would they set up a time at the Harvard gyms when a man was promised to be present to ogle me throughout my workout?
Excellent questions all, methinks. Me also thinks that observations like this, as much as anything else, are why we're all the poorer for The Barmaid's online absence. And, finally, me especially thinks that, should the Harvard Workout Police not take action on Lucy Caldwell's eminently sensible solution, some group of Harvard men should band together, form a church of their own -- it's really isn't that difficult -- and inform university administrators that, according to the prescriptions of their faith, they can only exercise in the presence of naked women.
Harvard will have to take action, right? After all, it has a moral and ethical responsibility to make sure its students can stay healthy.
Posted at 01:28 PM
IT'LL ALL WORK OUT IN THE END
if harvard will just listen to one of its
own.
By now you've probably heard about the decision of Harvard University
to ban men from one of its gyms for six hours each week so that women --
particularly Muslim women -- can exercise without being ogled by them.
(Something you have not heard is how they plan to prevent women being ogled by
women, but that's another post for another time.) The responses, both for and
against, have been as predictable as the sun rising in the east, the demonizing
of political correctness on the right, and the propagating of hoary melodrama on
the left: it's un-American, because the needs of a whiny few are trampling the
rights of the entitled many; it's holistic and developmental, because Harvard
has a moral and ethical responsibility to make sure our students can stay
healthy. (I'm not making that up. Of course, if you've worked
on a college campus in the last fifteen years, you already knew that. Though
I'll bet you didn't know that Harvard students could only stay healthy by
setting foot and breast in a university-sponosred
gym.)
The story got some prime airtime on the Today Show this morning, demonstrating once again that no issue is too minor for Matt Lauer to moderate, that no controversy can ever by solved in four-and-a-half minutes of sound bites, and that a perfectly fair and reasonably solution to this problem already exists, but no one's paying any attention to it, perhaps because the female Harvard undergrad who proposed it -- in writing! -- is neither shouting at the top of her aggrieved lungs nor publicly grinding her ideological axe. Here are some of the highlights of the broadcast:
• NBC News correspondent Mike Taibbi, who covered the story but missed the point, noted that No one at Harvard is saying how many actual complaints there have been from males who wanted to use that gym during those six segregated hours and couldn’t. As if segregation is only a bad thing if enough people complain about it.
• Taibbi reported that the restrictions are in place so Muslim women can exercise without men present as Mulsim religious guidelines require. That sounds good, and would certainly be a fine defense of the policy if it were true. But it's not.
• Hussein Ibish, executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, corrected Taibbi's claim a few minutes later during the live interview segment, when he wasn't making silly assertions like this one: This is about expanding the range of choices. (Tell me, Mr. Ibish, what range of choices does this expand for Harvard men?) Or this one: You can’t convince me that this is gonna be an onerous discrimination. (The same could be said, of course, about that whole riding-in-the-back-of-the-bus thing. I mean, those folks were still allowed on the bus, and they still got to go where they wanted to go, right? That doesn't sound too onerous to me.) Or this one: [This is about] expanding the range of freedoms. (Well, except for the freedoms of the men at Harvard. But that's only for six hours a week, so hey, I guess it really isn't that onerous. Suck it up, boys!)
• An unidentified female Harvard student, demonstrating she's at the right school but still has a lot to learn, suggested that the policy wasn't a problem because it's open to any woman at all, even Christians and Jews. (No word on Hindus or atheists, but we figure they're good too. As long as they're women.)
• Another female Harvard student, Lucy Caldwell, spoke on camera and was not identified, presumably because NBC did not want to single her out as the only person in the story making complete and total sense, defused the problem so deftly that -- once again -- no one seemed to notice: In my column, I suggested that Harvard implement men’s only hours during the same hours that there are women’s only hours in a different gym.
What Ms. Caldwell proposed, in short, was a policy of fairness and equality for all. So you can see, of course, why no one's paying any attention to her.
The story got some prime airtime on the Today Show this morning, demonstrating once again that no issue is too minor for Matt Lauer to moderate, that no controversy can ever by solved in four-and-a-half minutes of sound bites, and that a perfectly fair and reasonably solution to this problem already exists, but no one's paying any attention to it, perhaps because the female Harvard undergrad who proposed it -- in writing! -- is neither shouting at the top of her aggrieved lungs nor publicly grinding her ideological axe. Here are some of the highlights of the broadcast:
• NBC News correspondent Mike Taibbi, who covered the story but missed the point, noted that No one at Harvard is saying how many actual complaints there have been from males who wanted to use that gym during those six segregated hours and couldn’t. As if segregation is only a bad thing if enough people complain about it.
• Taibbi reported that the restrictions are in place so Muslim women can exercise without men present as Mulsim religious guidelines require. That sounds good, and would certainly be a fine defense of the policy if it were true. But it's not.
• Hussein Ibish, executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, corrected Taibbi's claim a few minutes later during the live interview segment, when he wasn't making silly assertions like this one: This is about expanding the range of choices. (Tell me, Mr. Ibish, what range of choices does this expand for Harvard men?) Or this one: You can’t convince me that this is gonna be an onerous discrimination. (The same could be said, of course, about that whole riding-in-the-back-of-the-bus thing. I mean, those folks were still allowed on the bus, and they still got to go where they wanted to go, right? That doesn't sound too onerous to me.) Or this one: [This is about] expanding the range of freedoms. (Well, except for the freedoms of the men at Harvard. But that's only for six hours a week, so hey, I guess it really isn't that onerous. Suck it up, boys!)
• An unidentified female Harvard student, demonstrating she's at the right school but still has a lot to learn, suggested that the policy wasn't a problem because it's open to any woman at all, even Christians and Jews. (No word on Hindus or atheists, but we figure they're good too. As long as they're women.)
• Another female Harvard student, Lucy Caldwell, spoke on camera and was not identified, presumably because NBC did not want to single her out as the only person in the story making complete and total sense, defused the problem so deftly that -- once again -- no one seemed to notice: In my column, I suggested that Harvard implement men’s only hours during the same hours that there are women’s only hours in a different gym.
What Ms. Caldwell proposed, in short, was a policy of fairness and equality for all. So you can see, of course, why no one's paying any attention to her.
Posted at 11:33 AM
Tue - March 4, 2008
MORE LIES, DAMNED LIES, & STATISTICS ABOUT RAPE (AND/OR ATTEMPTED RAPE)
or, grinding, fudging, and juicing your way to
one-in-four.
As a follow-up to last week's posts about the
oft-repeated, oft-discredited, always fantastical one-in-four figures on
rape/sexual assault/whatever they want to call it to make it sound most
disturbing, my Carbolic Smoke Ball and Pittsburgh Men's Blogging Society
colleague Judge Peckham has uncovered, and I am now compelled to unpack, yet
another Department of Justice report to which the
axe-grinding, intellectually dishonest types like to point as evidence of their
unfounded, unfortunate fairy tale. Taking a closer look at this report —
which is, in fact, one of the more honest and up-front example of these things
I’ve ever seen; go figure — gives us yet another insight into how
that magical number is not just manipulated but often aspired
to.
The methodology here (assuming they actually followed it closely) seems solid. Though, once again, it never actually asks the women, point blank, whether or not they’ve been raped -- why, exactly, are we so afraid to do that, if it’s not to pad and fudge the numbers? does anyone really think a woman could be raped and NOT know it? -- it does at least make clear distinctions between completed rape, attempted rape, completed sexual coercion, and attempted sexual coercion (among others). Which means, of course, that the sort of pestering/verbal pressure that we all know is a part of the foreplay/make-out/here’s-where-we-draw-the-line process does not, this time, count among attempted rapes. Thank goodness for small favors and occasional common sense.
But they will come back to haunt us, and the report, eventually, because the authors of the report can’t resist juicing the numbers anyway. When they get to the money section — titled, How extensive is rape among college women? -- they stop making distinctions between completed rape and attempted rape and lump them all together. This would be alright, I suppose, if they went for the more inclusive, less-specific sexual assault nomenclature. But rape is rape and, now for the purpose of this study, attempted rape is rape too.
Got that? Good.
Agree with it? Not so much. But we’ll play along anyway. Because even when you lump the two offenses together, the numbers are still several hemispheres away from the figure we all know and (should) hate:
The victimization rate was 27.7 rapes per 1,000 female students.
I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t look like one-in-four to me. In fact, it looks a hell of a lot like one-in-thirty-six.
(I know it’s been a while since I took a math class, but I’m pretty sure that, for the figure to be one-in-four, there would have to be 250 rapes per 1,000 female students. Not 27.7. But I could be wrong.)
(Oh, no. I’m right. Okay. Now...)
The fun doesn’t stop there, of course. I mean, how can it? You have to get to that blessed one-in-four figure somehow, right? So...
At first glance, one might conclude that the risk of rape victimization for college women is not that high...
Why? Because it’s not?
Such a conclusion, however, misses critical, and potentially disquieting, implications.
Of course it does. Especially if you want to light a fire under one-in-thirty-six and boil it all the way up to one-in-four.
You will notice, of course, that this is the point where the real numbers, the real responses, the actual, factual data that they compiled in the study, stops. Henceforth, there will be grinding, fudging, juicing, massaging, and speculating. Another term for these things might be obfuscating. A better one might be lying.
The figures measure victimization for slightly more than half a year (6.91) months.
This figure comes from the amount of time that elapsed between the time these young women started school and the time they were surveyed. Which means, of course, that the for which they were surveyed includes the dreaded before Thanksgiving of their freshman year period, a period that we've already seen -- even if we've not seen it substantiated as such -- that researchers claim is the time that young women in college are most at risk of sexual assault. Which means, of course, that this victimization number should be as high as it could possibly get. And that numbers for the rest of the year should actually be lower. And so an overall figure -- an average, say, for a full year at college -- should actually be slightly below this. Think that's gonna happen here? Exactly.
Projecting results beyond this reference period is problematic for a number of reasons, they admit, then proceed to do so anyway, extrapolating these figures -- which again, according to conventional wisdom, are situationally inflated -- for a full year, assuming an equal risk no matter where these young women happen to be, not factoring in the lower risk throughout the rest of the year and then, to top it all off, nonsensically multiplying this probability for the rest of the year. As if the first (almost) seven months weren't a representative enough sample to calculate. And as if the risk would just keep multiplying itself for the following five months. So, in other words, having asked questions for the entire period and finding those numbers not nearly high enough, the researchers move the goal posts even farther and more frequently than Hillary Clinton leading up to today, and find a whole new endzone. Several stadiums, a couple of parking lots, and one or two sports over.
Even at this point, after all this numerical sleight-of-truth, the figure only climbs to 4.9 percent. Which is, of course, just one-in-twenty. But don't worry, they’re not through yet.
Next — and even though they questioned these women, and thus based their original findings, on an experience through all four years of college — they take these numbers and decide to multiply them yet again: times four this time, one for each year that a women will spend in college. As if these young women can somehow -- once again-- accumulate risk (that is already artificially inflated). As if, after every year of assuming the same risk, that risk suddenly adds up and doubles, then triples, then quadruples your chances. (By this logic, of course, then all women who went to college would, by age 53, have a 100% chance of being raped, because they would have proceeded with 25 years’ worth of accumulated 4% risk. Or, as Judge Peckham so rightly notes, the authors of this study [must] believe that if they roll a die six times they are guaranteed to get a six.)
My God. Besides rape researchers and uncritical ideologues, who does math like this? I wish I could hire these people as my accountants. I’d be loaded in about five years. At least on paper. But I digress...
So, once that 4.9% figure is nonsensically multiplied by four — maybe each one of these women actually has four personalities, and each one of them is at equal risk of being raped during their college careers — it’s time for one last leap of absurdity. After all, multiplying 4.9 by four produces a (thrice-inflated) figure of 19.6. Which is, by any measure, a figure just below 20, which is just below one-fifth. So you can see why the final, multiply multiplied conclusion, reads: Over the course of a college career — which now lasts an average of 5 years — the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter.
Did you catch those last two inventions?
The claim that the average college career in 2000 lasted 5 years, when, in fact, it actually lasted 4.58 years? And the matter-of-fact suggestion that the number might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter? Which does, of course, after all that fudging and juicing and massaging and speculating, finally get us to a point where people reading this report can, so long as they have no sense of fact or reason or truth, cite this study as an example of the one-in-four figure.
And yet, even after all that duplicity, the report's authors still aren’t adept enough to sustain the ruse for so much as another page. The very next sentence, leading off the first paragraph of next page, returns a bit to sense and reality and -- what's that stuff called? oh, right -- data, noting that college administrators might be disturbed to learn that for every 1,000 women attending their institutions, there may well be 35 incidents of rape in a given academic year. And so all the mathematical acrobatics and ideological histrionics disappear, even more quickly and easily than they came, returning us to reality and so a hell of a lot closer to that original -- by which I mean, factually supported -- figure: a nice, simple 3.5%. Which is, for those of you who’ve lost track at home, about one-in-twenty-eight-and-a-half.
Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?
Nor does this: For a campus with 10,000 women this would mean the number of rapes could exceed 350.
The operative word here, of course, is could. And all the more so since, as we have already seen, the 18,000-women-strong University of Pittsburgh could, by these figures, have exceeded a rape total of 630 in 2006, yet reported only 1.
And, while those instances are almost certainly under-reported. it's almost impossible to believe that they were under-reported by 63,000%. And it's even harder to believe, as the axe-grinders and numbers-juicers would like, that they were under-reported by 450,000%.
No number of iPods -- or delusions -- in the world could close that gap.
The methodology here (assuming they actually followed it closely) seems solid. Though, once again, it never actually asks the women, point blank, whether or not they’ve been raped -- why, exactly, are we so afraid to do that, if it’s not to pad and fudge the numbers? does anyone really think a woman could be raped and NOT know it? -- it does at least make clear distinctions between completed rape, attempted rape, completed sexual coercion, and attempted sexual coercion (among others). Which means, of course, that the sort of pestering/verbal pressure that we all know is a part of the foreplay/make-out/here’s-where-we-draw-the-line process does not, this time, count among attempted rapes. Thank goodness for small favors and occasional common sense.
But they will come back to haunt us, and the report, eventually, because the authors of the report can’t resist juicing the numbers anyway. When they get to the money section — titled, How extensive is rape among college women? -- they stop making distinctions between completed rape and attempted rape and lump them all together. This would be alright, I suppose, if they went for the more inclusive, less-specific sexual assault nomenclature. But rape is rape and, now for the purpose of this study, attempted rape is rape too.
Got that? Good.
Agree with it? Not so much. But we’ll play along anyway. Because even when you lump the two offenses together, the numbers are still several hemispheres away from the figure we all know and (should) hate:
The victimization rate was 27.7 rapes per 1,000 female students.
I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t look like one-in-four to me. In fact, it looks a hell of a lot like one-in-thirty-six.
(I know it’s been a while since I took a math class, but I’m pretty sure that, for the figure to be one-in-four, there would have to be 250 rapes per 1,000 female students. Not 27.7. But I could be wrong.)
(Oh, no. I’m right. Okay. Now...)
The fun doesn’t stop there, of course. I mean, how can it? You have to get to that blessed one-in-four figure somehow, right? So...
At first glance, one might conclude that the risk of rape victimization for college women is not that high...
Why? Because it’s not?
Such a conclusion, however, misses critical, and potentially disquieting, implications.
Of course it does. Especially if you want to light a fire under one-in-thirty-six and boil it all the way up to one-in-four.
You will notice, of course, that this is the point where the real numbers, the real responses, the actual, factual data that they compiled in the study, stops. Henceforth, there will be grinding, fudging, juicing, massaging, and speculating. Another term for these things might be obfuscating. A better one might be lying.
The figures measure victimization for slightly more than half a year (6.91) months.
This figure comes from the amount of time that elapsed between the time these young women started school and the time they were surveyed. Which means, of course, that the for which they were surveyed includes the dreaded before Thanksgiving of their freshman year period, a period that we've already seen -- even if we've not seen it substantiated as such -- that researchers claim is the time that young women in college are most at risk of sexual assault. Which means, of course, that this victimization number should be as high as it could possibly get. And that numbers for the rest of the year should actually be lower. And so an overall figure -- an average, say, for a full year at college -- should actually be slightly below this. Think that's gonna happen here? Exactly.
Projecting results beyond this reference period is problematic for a number of reasons, they admit, then proceed to do so anyway, extrapolating these figures -- which again, according to conventional wisdom, are situationally inflated -- for a full year, assuming an equal risk no matter where these young women happen to be, not factoring in the lower risk throughout the rest of the year and then, to top it all off, nonsensically multiplying this probability for the rest of the year. As if the first (almost) seven months weren't a representative enough sample to calculate. And as if the risk would just keep multiplying itself for the following five months. So, in other words, having asked questions for the entire period and finding those numbers not nearly high enough, the researchers move the goal posts even farther and more frequently than Hillary Clinton leading up to today, and find a whole new endzone. Several stadiums, a couple of parking lots, and one or two sports over.
Even at this point, after all this numerical sleight-of-truth, the figure only climbs to 4.9 percent. Which is, of course, just one-in-twenty. But don't worry, they’re not through yet.
Next — and even though they questioned these women, and thus based their original findings, on an experience through all four years of college — they take these numbers and decide to multiply them yet again: times four this time, one for each year that a women will spend in college. As if these young women can somehow -- once again-- accumulate risk (that is already artificially inflated). As if, after every year of assuming the same risk, that risk suddenly adds up and doubles, then triples, then quadruples your chances. (By this logic, of course, then all women who went to college would, by age 53, have a 100% chance of being raped, because they would have proceeded with 25 years’ worth of accumulated 4% risk. Or, as Judge Peckham so rightly notes, the authors of this study [must] believe that if they roll a die six times they are guaranteed to get a six.)
My God. Besides rape researchers and uncritical ideologues, who does math like this? I wish I could hire these people as my accountants. I’d be loaded in about five years. At least on paper. But I digress...
So, once that 4.9% figure is nonsensically multiplied by four — maybe each one of these women actually has four personalities, and each one of them is at equal risk of being raped during their college careers — it’s time for one last leap of absurdity. After all, multiplying 4.9 by four produces a (thrice-inflated) figure of 19.6. Which is, by any measure, a figure just below 20, which is just below one-fifth. So you can see why the final, multiply multiplied conclusion, reads: Over the course of a college career — which now lasts an average of 5 years — the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter.
Did you catch those last two inventions?
The claim that the average college career in 2000 lasted 5 years, when, in fact, it actually lasted 4.58 years? And the matter-of-fact suggestion that the number might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter? Which does, of course, after all that fudging and juicing and massaging and speculating, finally get us to a point where people reading this report can, so long as they have no sense of fact or reason or truth, cite this study as an example of the one-in-four figure.
And yet, even after all that duplicity, the report's authors still aren’t adept enough to sustain the ruse for so much as another page. The very next sentence, leading off the first paragraph of next page, returns a bit to sense and reality and -- what's that stuff called? oh, right -- data, noting that college administrators might be disturbed to learn that for every 1,000 women attending their institutions, there may well be 35 incidents of rape in a given academic year. And so all the mathematical acrobatics and ideological histrionics disappear, even more quickly and easily than they came, returning us to reality and so a hell of a lot closer to that original -- by which I mean, factually supported -- figure: a nice, simple 3.5%. Which is, for those of you who’ve lost track at home, about one-in-twenty-eight-and-a-half.
Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?
Nor does this: For a campus with 10,000 women this would mean the number of rapes could exceed 350.
The operative word here, of course, is could. And all the more so since, as we have already seen, the 18,000-women-strong University of Pittsburgh could, by these figures, have exceeded a rape total of 630 in 2006, yet reported only 1.
And, while those instances are almost certainly under-reported. it's almost impossible to believe that they were under-reported by 63,000%. And it's even harder to believe, as the axe-grinders and numbers-juicers would like, that they were under-reported by 450,000%.
No number of iPods -- or delusions -- in the world could close that gap.
Posted at 09:14 AM
Tue - February 26, 2008
LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS ON RAPE
or, how many ones in how many
fours?
There's a long -- by which I mean loooooooong --
and fascinating and more than occasionally infuriating -- at least if you happen
to value things like truth and fact and reason -- article over at the City
Journal website about the often-Orwellian absurdities of The Campus Rape Myth/Industry/Obsession.
Contributing editor Heather Mac Donald crafts a far-ranging and effective
piece that picks up where Christina Hoff Sommers left off about a
decade ago and updates both the contradictions and the condemnations of what she
likes to call the campus rape industry, a none-too-loose affiliation of
advocacy and bureaucracy that is as hostile toward men as it is toward
truth.
The early sections of the piece take renewed aim at the oft-repeated, long-discredited claim that one-in-four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. (In case you missed the discrediting -- and Lord knows many people did -- here's the short version: ambiguous surveys, unscientific methodologies, deeply massaged numbers, and the inconvenient truths that 73% of the women Mary Koss identified as victims of rape didn't think they'd been raped, and that 42% of them had sex with their alleged rapists at least once more after the "assault.") Nara Schoenberg and Sam Roe of the Toledo Blade got there first, and Dr. Hoff Sommers and Berkeley professor Neil Gilbert got there best, but Ms. Mac Donald sums it up nicely:
If the one-in-four statistic is correct -- it is sometimes modified to “one-in-five to one-in-four" -- campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No crime, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20 or 25 percent, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in America, was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants—a rate of 2.4 percent. The one-in-four statistic would mean that every year, millions of young women graduate who have suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience.
But, of course, they don't.
And yet that doesn't stop the claim, nor the one-in-four figure, from being repeated -- even, as you will soon see, in wildly contradictory ways -- over and over and over again, as if it were the indisputable, gospel truth. As if it were handed down from a righteous and angry (female) God whose only commandment, short of Thou shalt fear all men, were to Go forth and multiply both the use and abuse of it.
Before I cite a few examples of my own, here's Mac Donald again:
None of the obvious weaknesses in the research has had the slightest drag on the campus rape movement, because the movement is political, not empirical... You don’t need evidence for the rape culture; you simply know that it exists. But if you do need evidence, the underreporting of rape is the best proof there is...
...Federal law requires colleges to publish reported crimes affecting their students. The numbers of reported sexual assaults -- the law does not require their confirmation -- usually run under half a dozen a year on private campuses and maybe two to three times that at large public universities. You might think that having so few reports of sexual assault a year would be a point of pride; in fact, it’s a source of gall for students and administrators alike. Yale’s associate general counsel and vice president were clearly on the defensive when asked by the Yale alumni magazine in 2004 about Harvard’s higher numbers of reported assaults; the reporter might as well have been needling them about a Harvard-Yale football rout. “Harvard must have double-counted or included incidents not required by federal law,” groused the officials. The University of Virginia does not publish the number of its sexual-assault hearings because it is so low. “We’re reticent to publicize it when we have such a small ‘n’ number,” says Nicole Eramu, Virginia’s associate dean of students.
Just let the last sentence sink in for a moment. University of Virginia administrators are reticent to publish their extremely low number of sexual assault cases. They are, in essence, afraid to note how safe, how relatively free from sexual assault, their campus really is. Even though colleges and universities across the country do everything they can to bury their crime reports and minimize their crime statistics. Even though these schools want to seem, to prospective students and especially to the parents of current and prospective students, like tremendously safe and happy and crime-free places, UVA's associate dean of students practically apologizes for her campus' low number of sexual assaults. Meanwhile, Yale officials are pissy, and sound almost envious, because Harvard reports more sexual assaults than they do.
Try to imagine, if you will, a mayor reluctant to report his city's incredibly low crime rate. Imagine President Bush upset because he couldn't report more American casualties in Iraq this year. Imagine a mother and father -- in loco parentis, right? -- angry that more of their daughters had not been raped. Imagine... oh, forget it.
Anyone have a headache yet? Anyone not sure whether we're at war with Eurasia or Eastasia? Everyone see what I mean?
I once had a discussion, which turned into a debate, which turned into an argument, on this very subject with an especially passionate -- which is to say, well-intentioned but obviously ill-informed -- undergrad who'd been trained as a sexual assault advisor at Carnegie Mellon. I used the one-in-four figure in class as an example of the shocking statistical grabber: something that makes you sit up and take notice and want to hear more from a presenter. Then I noted that it was, in fact, a bogus statistic that also demonstrated the tremendous powers of rhetorical craft and simple repetition: something that, said over and over and over again, becomes commonplace enough to be accepted as truth even though it is not. The young man, who did nothing but repeat the one-in-four statistic over and over and over again -- without, of course, ever seeing the irony of his performance nor the proof of my point -- refused to accept the studies I quoted or the sources I cited (including, of course, all the names I note above: Schoenberg, Roe, Sommers, and Gilbert). He merely got angrier and angrier until I asked him, "What are you so angry about? Shouldn't you be happy that there are far fewer sexual assaults than you think? Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what we all want? It's almost as if you wish there were more sexual assaults."
He had no idea how to respond to that. And in the several times I've had occasion to ask those same questions of other one-in-four-ites, I've never met anyone who did.
And yet that number -- that damned, damnable, utterly unsubstantiated number -- keeps making the rounds, cropping up here, there, and everywhere, now so ubiquitous that it's even creeping into other, inherently contradictory statistics. One-in-four has become a virus, some X-Files-style black oil that oozes from report to pamphlet to news article, from workshop to seminar to rally, from story to story to story, until it lives and breathes and reproduces on it own, leaving a trail of cold, dead reason in its ever-diseased and disgusting wake.
Think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. (I am amplifying, of course, but that's another matter.)
To prove it, let's follow a simple, serpentine statistical trail that begins, en medias res, at a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette feature profiling three Shaler High School students identified as Jefferson-Award-Winning Community Champions for their work in empowering other young women against sexual assault. And by empowering, of course, we actually mean deceiving. Here's the impetus for their work, repeated (of course) as fact in the Post-Gazette profile:
All three girls couldn't quite believe this shocking statistic: One in four girls will be raped or sexually assaulted by Thanksgiving break of their freshman year in college.
You will notice, of course, that the black oil has mutated already. The figure, as it was originally and most famously presented, is that one-in-four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Here, these well-intentioned but obviously ill-informed young women have been told that one-in-four girls will be sexually assaulted by late November of their freshman year of college. (Whether this means that anyone who makes it past Thanksgiving of her freshman year has zero probability of ever being sexually assaulted, or that no woman is ever sexually assaulted after she turns 19, or that the spirit of the upcoming holidays just puts rapists in a better mood and makes them less likely to strike in December, remains a mystery.)
What's not a mystery is that the one-in-four mutation already presents a delightful statistical -- and, of course, actual -- contradiction. But let's hold those thought and move to another passage from the PG story:
Nearly 200 girls attended the program, during which PAAR gave a presentation, and the girls handed out more than 200 hand-painted "m-powering" armbands bearing the rape-prevention message "1:4."
It's unclear whether these young women's armbands were meant to m-power their peers with the lifetime figure or the Thanksgiving figure or both. It is clear, however, that they're working with PAAR (Pittsburgh Action Against Rape). So, assuming that they're also getting their statistics from PAAR, or at least that the organization knows what they're saying and agrees with it, I scoured the PAAR web site for a source of the claims. The best I could come up with, on PAAR's statistics page, were:
Female freshman are at the highest risk for sexual or physical assault from the day they arrive on campus until Thanksgiving break. (Campus Outreach Services, 2003)
and
An estimated 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will experience a sexual assault within their lifetime. (Rennison, C., U.S. Dept. of Justice, 2000)
There is, of course, a big difference between saying that female freshman are at the highest risk for sexual assault during their first three months on campus and saying that one-in-four female freshman will be sexually assaulted before Thanksgiving. A tremendous difference, in fact. The difference, for instance, between saying that all 600 of Carnegie Mellon's incoming freshman women should be especially careful about their behaviors and their surroundings as they adjust to their first few months of college life, and saying that, if they have not already been, 150 of them will be sexually assaulted before they go home for turkey and stuffing.
Already, the one-in-four-before Thanksgiving stat -- which, by the way, I could not find, much less verify, in that same form on any site to which I surfed or Googled -- has been exposed as an absurdity. And a hoax. Whether the breakdown occurred with a PAAR representative, with the Shaler High students, or with Gretchen McKay's reporting in the PG, I don't know. And, at least for our purposes here, it doesn't matter. Because the who and the how are not nearly as important as the what: one more example of how the one-in-four black oil can immediately and unfortunately infect almost anything with which it comes in contact.
Now. That first, already diminished claim cites Campus Outreach Services as a source. So I went to the Campus Outreach Services web site, which sells an awful lot of expensive sexual assault resources -- didn't Heather Mac Donald call this an industry? -- but does not quote, nor cite, nor even mention the pre-Thanksgiving statistic. Which leaves just the one-in-four lifetime figure, yet again. Only this time, it's sourced not to the famously discredited Koss/Ms. report but to an eight-year-old U.S. Department of Justice report. So I decided to check that out. And I discovered one minor problem.
The study doesn't include the one-in-four figure. Anywhere. At all.
So I did a little more digging. And I discovered that many other sites for many other non-profits and education-and-advocacy groups do cite numbers from that Rennison Department of Justice report -- you know, ones that actually appear in it -- but do not cite the one-in-four. Perhaps because it's not included in the report. And perhaps because those groups, at least, still feel beholden to some quaint notion of truth.
Now. I could have just stopped here. After all, I'd already proven my point: after two simple Googlings and a little bit of reading, I'd found no proof for either of the one-in-four claims on the very web sites the claimants named as their sources. But I decided to do a little more digging. And Googling. And reading. Just for fun. And because, by now, I was having flashbacks to grad school and getting pissed all over again.
Yale -- you know, the university that wishes its sexual assault numbers were as high as Harvard's -- does not cite the one-in-four number but does, right here, claim that female freshman are at the highest risk of assault between the first day of school and Thanksgiving break. (What do you think happens at Thanksgiving? Is it something in the turkey? The stuffing? The football? Is it just the chance to be far enough away from all those predatory boys that the self-defense mechanisms finally kick in? Why isn't it Christmas? Or Kwaanza? Or New Year's Eve? Maybe Halloween, when all those scary things oughta fire at least a few synapses of self-defense?) The Yale claim cites FactsOnTap.org as the source of the claim. But that site, even on its stone-cold-sobering college-sex-and-alochol stats page, makes no mention of it. At all.
This is the second time we've come up against a dead-end when looking for a simple source of the broadest and most obviously alarming of these initial claims. You'd think a figure like that would be so well-sourced and so fully documented that you could find dozens, even hundreds of clear, iron-clad references to the factual basis for it. Hell, you'd think you'd at least find one. But you don't. All you get is a whole lot of chasing your own tails. And their tall ones.
But at least along the way you get the joys of discovering a whole new one-in-four mutation, courtesy of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault:
One in Four college women report surviving rape (15%) or attempted rape (12%) since their fourteenth birthday.
And then another at the Kapi'olani Medical Center Sex Abuse Treatment Center:
One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by age 18.
This claim is sourced to a 1990 study by David Finkelhor, et al., that, available only in abstract, explains how things could be even worse:
Higher rates of abuse were found among men who grew up in unhappy families, lived for some period with only their mothers, who were currently residing in the West and who came from English or Scandinavian heritage. Higher rates of abuse were found among women who grew up in unhappy families, lived for some period without one of their natural parents, received inadequate sex education, were currently residing in the West or who were born after 1925.
(A pretty exhaustive list, I'd say. Though they seem to have missed who went to Harvard and before Thanksgiving.)
The abstract does not detail the methodology for such an exhaustive study. But another Finkelhor abstract does:
Two thousand children aged 10 to 16 were interviewed in a national telephone survey.
Sounds pretty reliable to me.
In another, Finkelhor essentially cites himself:
Considerable evidence exists to show that at least 20% of American women and 5% to 10% of American men experienced some form of sexual abuse as children.
Which is, I think, both fitting end and fitting metaphor for this wild goosing chase: most of these sites and groups and surveys and seminars, while recklessly citing and sourcing each other, and by willfully citing and sourcing numbers that do not have a basis in fact, may as well by citing themselves. Or God. Or the little green womyn on the moon. You know -- the ones who landed at Area 51 and stayed underground for thirty years and surfaced with the black oil just in time to infect Mary Koss and her one-in-four fiction with a virus that would spread and mutate and regurgitate itself until, twenty years after that, the facts are so distorted and misreported that, in the space of a half-hour on the web, you can find, Scully-and-Mulder like, evidence of all sorts of infection:
One-in-Four...
...women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.
...freshmen women will be sexually assaulted before Thanksgiving.
...girls will have been sexually assaulted by age 18.
...college women will have been sexually assaulted sometime since their fourteenth birthday.
The list goes on. The contagion spreads. The antidote -- the truth -- is out there.
But good luck finding it. Or, the occasional Christina Hoff Sommers and Heather Mac Donalds of the world aside, ever seeing it reported.
The early sections of the piece take renewed aim at the oft-repeated, long-discredited claim that one-in-four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. (In case you missed the discrediting -- and Lord knows many people did -- here's the short version: ambiguous surveys, unscientific methodologies, deeply massaged numbers, and the inconvenient truths that 73% of the women Mary Koss identified as victims of rape didn't think they'd been raped, and that 42% of them had sex with their alleged rapists at least once more after the "assault.") Nara Schoenberg and Sam Roe of the Toledo Blade got there first, and Dr. Hoff Sommers and Berkeley professor Neil Gilbert got there best, but Ms. Mac Donald sums it up nicely:
If the one-in-four statistic is correct -- it is sometimes modified to “one-in-five to one-in-four" -- campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No crime, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20 or 25 percent, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in America, was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants—a rate of 2.4 percent. The one-in-four statistic would mean that every year, millions of young women graduate who have suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience.
But, of course, they don't.
And yet that doesn't stop the claim, nor the one-in-four figure, from being repeated -- even, as you will soon see, in wildly contradictory ways -- over and over and over again, as if it were the indisputable, gospel truth. As if it were handed down from a righteous and angry (female) God whose only commandment, short of Thou shalt fear all men, were to Go forth and multiply both the use and abuse of it.
Before I cite a few examples of my own, here's Mac Donald again:
None of the obvious weaknesses in the research has had the slightest drag on the campus rape movement, because the movement is political, not empirical... You don’t need evidence for the rape culture; you simply know that it exists. But if you do need evidence, the underreporting of rape is the best proof there is...
...Federal law requires colleges to publish reported crimes affecting their students. The numbers of reported sexual assaults -- the law does not require their confirmation -- usually run under half a dozen a year on private campuses and maybe two to three times that at large public universities. You might think that having so few reports of sexual assault a year would be a point of pride; in fact, it’s a source of gall for students and administrators alike. Yale’s associate general counsel and vice president were clearly on the defensive when asked by the Yale alumni magazine in 2004 about Harvard’s higher numbers of reported assaults; the reporter might as well have been needling them about a Harvard-Yale football rout. “Harvard must have double-counted or included incidents not required by federal law,” groused the officials. The University of Virginia does not publish the number of its sexual-assault hearings because it is so low. “We’re reticent to publicize it when we have such a small ‘n’ number,” says Nicole Eramu, Virginia’s associate dean of students.
Just let the last sentence sink in for a moment. University of Virginia administrators are reticent to publish their extremely low number of sexual assault cases. They are, in essence, afraid to note how safe, how relatively free from sexual assault, their campus really is. Even though colleges and universities across the country do everything they can to bury their crime reports and minimize their crime statistics. Even though these schools want to seem, to prospective students and especially to the parents of current and prospective students, like tremendously safe and happy and crime-free places, UVA's associate dean of students practically apologizes for her campus' low number of sexual assaults. Meanwhile, Yale officials are pissy, and sound almost envious, because Harvard reports more sexual assaults than they do.
Try to imagine, if you will, a mayor reluctant to report his city's incredibly low crime rate. Imagine President Bush upset because he couldn't report more American casualties in Iraq this year. Imagine a mother and father -- in loco parentis, right? -- angry that more of their daughters had not been raped. Imagine... oh, forget it.
Anyone have a headache yet? Anyone not sure whether we're at war with Eurasia or Eastasia? Everyone see what I mean?
I once had a discussion, which turned into a debate, which turned into an argument, on this very subject with an especially passionate -- which is to say, well-intentioned but obviously ill-informed -- undergrad who'd been trained as a sexual assault advisor at Carnegie Mellon. I used the one-in-four figure in class as an example of the shocking statistical grabber: something that makes you sit up and take notice and want to hear more from a presenter. Then I noted that it was, in fact, a bogus statistic that also demonstrated the tremendous powers of rhetorical craft and simple repetition: something that, said over and over and over again, becomes commonplace enough to be accepted as truth even though it is not. The young man, who did nothing but repeat the one-in-four statistic over and over and over again -- without, of course, ever seeing the irony of his performance nor the proof of my point -- refused to accept the studies I quoted or the sources I cited (including, of course, all the names I note above: Schoenberg, Roe, Sommers, and Gilbert). He merely got angrier and angrier until I asked him, "What are you so angry about? Shouldn't you be happy that there are far fewer sexual assaults than you think? Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what we all want? It's almost as if you wish there were more sexual assaults."
He had no idea how to respond to that. And in the several times I've had occasion to ask those same questions of other one-in-four-ites, I've never met anyone who did.
And yet that number -- that damned, damnable, utterly unsubstantiated number -- keeps making the rounds, cropping up here, there, and everywhere, now so ubiquitous that it's even creeping into other, inherently contradictory statistics. One-in-four has become a virus, some X-Files-style black oil that oozes from report to pamphlet to news article, from workshop to seminar to rally, from story to story to story, until it lives and breathes and reproduces on it own, leaving a trail of cold, dead reason in its ever-diseased and disgusting wake.
Think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. (I am amplifying, of course, but that's another matter.)
To prove it, let's follow a simple, serpentine statistical trail that begins, en medias res, at a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette feature profiling three Shaler High School students identified as Jefferson-Award-Winning Community Champions for their work in empowering other young women against sexual assault. And by empowering, of course, we actually mean deceiving. Here's the impetus for their work, repeated (of course) as fact in the Post-Gazette profile:
All three girls couldn't quite believe this shocking statistic: One in four girls will be raped or sexually assaulted by Thanksgiving break of their freshman year in college.
You will notice, of course, that the black oil has mutated already. The figure, as it was originally and most famously presented, is that one-in-four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Here, these well-intentioned but obviously ill-informed young women have been told that one-in-four girls will be sexually assaulted by late November of their freshman year of college. (Whether this means that anyone who makes it past Thanksgiving of her freshman year has zero probability of ever being sexually assaulted, or that no woman is ever sexually assaulted after she turns 19, or that the spirit of the upcoming holidays just puts rapists in a better mood and makes them less likely to strike in December, remains a mystery.)
What's not a mystery is that the one-in-four mutation already presents a delightful statistical -- and, of course, actual -- contradiction. But let's hold those thought and move to another passage from the PG story:
Nearly 200 girls attended the program, during which PAAR gave a presentation, and the girls handed out more than 200 hand-painted "m-powering" armbands bearing the rape-prevention message "1:4."
It's unclear whether these young women's armbands were meant to m-power their peers with the lifetime figure or the Thanksgiving figure or both. It is clear, however, that they're working with PAAR (Pittsburgh Action Against Rape). So, assuming that they're also getting their statistics from PAAR, or at least that the organization knows what they're saying and agrees with it, I scoured the PAAR web site for a source of the claims. The best I could come up with, on PAAR's statistics page, were:
Female freshman are at the highest risk for sexual or physical assault from the day they arrive on campus until Thanksgiving break. (Campus Outreach Services, 2003)
and
An estimated 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will experience a sexual assault within their lifetime. (Rennison, C., U.S. Dept. of Justice, 2000)
There is, of course, a big difference between saying that female freshman are at the highest risk for sexual assault during their first three months on campus and saying that one-in-four female freshman will be sexually assaulted before Thanksgiving. A tremendous difference, in fact. The difference, for instance, between saying that all 600 of Carnegie Mellon's incoming freshman women should be especially careful about their behaviors and their surroundings as they adjust to their first few months of college life, and saying that, if they have not already been, 150 of them will be sexually assaulted before they go home for turkey and stuffing.
Already, the one-in-four-before Thanksgiving stat -- which, by the way, I could not find, much less verify, in that same form on any site to which I surfed or Googled -- has been exposed as an absurdity. And a hoax. Whether the breakdown occurred with a PAAR representative, with the Shaler High students, or with Gretchen McKay's reporting in the PG, I don't know. And, at least for our purposes here, it doesn't matter. Because the who and the how are not nearly as important as the what: one more example of how the one-in-four black oil can immediately and unfortunately infect almost anything with which it comes in contact.
Now. That first, already diminished claim cites Campus Outreach Services as a source. So I went to the Campus Outreach Services web site, which sells an awful lot of expensive sexual assault resources -- didn't Heather Mac Donald call this an industry? -- but does not quote, nor cite, nor even mention the pre-Thanksgiving statistic. Which leaves just the one-in-four lifetime figure, yet again. Only this time, it's sourced not to the famously discredited Koss/Ms. report but to an eight-year-old U.S. Department of Justice report. So I decided to check that out. And I discovered one minor problem.
The study doesn't include the one-in-four figure. Anywhere. At all.
So I did a little more digging. And I discovered that many other sites for many other non-profits and education-and-advocacy groups do cite numbers from that Rennison Department of Justice report -- you know, ones that actually appear in it -- but do not cite the one-in-four. Perhaps because it's not included in the report. And perhaps because those groups, at least, still feel beholden to some quaint notion of truth.
Now. I could have just stopped here. After all, I'd already proven my point: after two simple Googlings and a little bit of reading, I'd found no proof for either of the one-in-four claims on the very web sites the claimants named as their sources. But I decided to do a little more digging. And Googling. And reading. Just for fun. And because, by now, I was having flashbacks to grad school and getting pissed all over again.
Yale -- you know, the university that wishes its sexual assault numbers were as high as Harvard's -- does not cite the one-in-four number but does, right here, claim that female freshman are at the highest risk of assault between the first day of school and Thanksgiving break. (What do you think happens at Thanksgiving? Is it something in the turkey? The stuffing? The football? Is it just the chance to be far enough away from all those predatory boys that the self-defense mechanisms finally kick in? Why isn't it Christmas? Or Kwaanza? Or New Year's Eve? Maybe Halloween, when all those scary things oughta fire at least a few synapses of self-defense?) The Yale claim cites FactsOnTap.org as the source of the claim. But that site, even on its stone-cold-sobering college-sex-and-alochol stats page, makes no mention of it. At all.
This is the second time we've come up against a dead-end when looking for a simple source of the broadest and most obviously alarming of these initial claims. You'd think a figure like that would be so well-sourced and so fully documented that you could find dozens, even hundreds of clear, iron-clad references to the factual basis for it. Hell, you'd think you'd at least find one. But you don't. All you get is a whole lot of chasing your own tails. And their tall ones.
But at least along the way you get the joys of discovering a whole new one-in-four mutation, courtesy of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault:
One in Four college women report surviving rape (15%) or attempted rape (12%) since their fourteenth birthday.
And then another at the Kapi'olani Medical Center Sex Abuse Treatment Center:
One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by age 18.
This claim is sourced to a 1990 study by David Finkelhor, et al., that, available only in abstract, explains how things could be even worse:
Higher rates of abuse were found among men who grew up in unhappy families, lived for some period with only their mothers, who were currently residing in the West and who came from English or Scandinavian heritage. Higher rates of abuse were found among women who grew up in unhappy families, lived for some period without one of their natural parents, received inadequate sex education, were currently residing in the West or who were born after 1925.
(A pretty exhaustive list, I'd say. Though they seem to have missed who went to Harvard and before Thanksgiving.)
The abstract does not detail the methodology for such an exhaustive study. But another Finkelhor abstract does:
Two thousand children aged 10 to 16 were interviewed in a national telephone survey.
Sounds pretty reliable to me.
In another, Finkelhor essentially cites himself:
Considerable evidence exists to show that at least 20% of American women and 5% to 10% of American men experienced some form of sexual abuse as children.
Which is, I think, both fitting end and fitting metaphor for this wild goosing chase: most of these sites and groups and surveys and seminars, while recklessly citing and sourcing each other, and by willfully citing and sourcing numbers that do not have a basis in fact, may as well by citing themselves. Or God. Or the little green womyn on the moon. You know -- the ones who landed at Area 51 and stayed underground for thirty years and surfaced with the black oil just in time to infect Mary Koss and her one-in-four fiction with a virus that would spread and mutate and regurgitate itself until, twenty years after that, the facts are so distorted and misreported that, in the space of a half-hour on the web, you can find, Scully-and-Mulder like, evidence of all sorts of infection:
One-in-Four...
...women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.
...freshmen women will be sexually assaulted before Thanksgiving.
...girls will have been sexually assaulted by age 18.
...college women will have been sexually assaulted sometime since their fourteenth birthday.
The list goes on. The contagion spreads. The antidote -- the truth -- is out there.
But good luck finding it. Or, the occasional Christina Hoff Sommers and Heather Mac Donalds of the world aside, ever seeing it reported.
Posted at 10:07 AM
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Published On: Mar 13, 2009 07:27 AM
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Published On: Mar 13, 2009 07:27 AM