sundries

[rm]

Rape and violence against women in post-earthquake Haiti.

kalmn alerts us to the story of a Ghanaian king who rules from Silver Spring, MD. Also, the king's a woman.

Hey, if a woman has ever had sex and then talks about sex professionally it's apparently perfectly reasonable to call her a hooker (and no, the headline's later change to "good time girl" wasn't actually better):

"Last week the Independent ran a feature with the exciting headline 'I was a hooker who became an agony aunt'. Sounded fascinating. Another tart with a heart story, perhaps?

No, reading the piece indicated the headline was wrong.

The feature described blogger and sex writer Zoe Margolis, better known as the Girl with a One Track Mind. It focused in part on Margolis work as an ambassador for sexual health charity Brook, raising issues about sex and relationships with young people.

Zoe Margolis is not, and has never been, a sex worker."

Question: more earthquakes lately or more coverage of earthquakes? Does a 4.4 in LA really merit coverage on this coast, as an example? Being in a non-earthquake prone region (although we do get them sometimes and are technically on a fault like) I can't tell if it's the coverage or the planet lately. Anyone?

The rules for getting an exit-row seat on an airplane are very specific. Which doesn't stop random people from requesting (and getting) them so they can have more legroom. Now some airlines just want to sell the seats at a premium price. Why that's not the best idea.

We've all heard about the private contractor assassination squad thing, right? Or do we have outrage fatigue again? But seriously: "'While no legitimate intelligence operations got screwed up, it’s generally a bad idea to have freelancers running around a war zone pretending to be James Bond,' one American government official said."

Did we all see Hayworth being horrifically condescending and having trouble with the definitions of things like "facts" and "opinions" on Rachel Maddow last night? Seriously: when you say something says "quote-unquote" whatever, the words you are quoting need to actually BE IN THE THING WHICH YOU ARE QUOTING. When you say something is a quote, and those words aren't in the thing you are quoting you are somewhere between incorrect and lying. It is not a difference of opinion.

I'm sorta on a tear lately about people not grokking the difference between opinions and facts. On the one hand, I don't think people should have to say "in my opinion" before stating an opinion. It's obvious, isn't it, when someone says a piece of art is good or bad that they are expressing an opinion and the way it is expressed provides the viewpoint and how informed a perspective said opinion is coming from? Right? We all get that? Okay. But at the same time, between politicians who tell the people who call them on flat-out lies that they merely have a "difference of opinion" and fandom discussions in which people assume that their emotional response not only should be, but is, in fact, true for everyone else, I'm starting to get a little tetchy.

Apparently, this facts vs. opinions confusion is making other people really frustrated too. Via billijean.

Oh hey, here's another example. Fresno prof in trouble for teaching anti-gay opinions as facts. Article, sadly lacks enough details for me to properly outraged, however.

Oh, look at that, action on DADT seems to be languishing.

Our census form came in the mail last night. Must wait to send it in until we get our little Queer the Census sticker though.

Read this White Collar fic last night. I was moved. This may be a case of fic smarter than show. We'll see.

Oh! White Collar realization: Peter and El don't have kids. So I think Neal is supposed to be their Tina the Troubled Teen, but this being the Internet, we're all like "oh man, they are so doing it" as opposed to seeing it all as a parental/mentoring relationship. But they are so doing it.

Actorly people: I'm an AFTRA must-join. I've put off joining AFTRA for YEARS because they keep threatening to merge with SAG, but at this rate I feel like it's never going to happen. More and more of the cool shows that shoot in NYC are AFTRA. Should I just suck it up and pay the horrific AFTRA initiation fees already?

Comments

[andrewducker]

I try to remember to say "In my opinion" purely because there are people out there who do think that you can have objective facts about morality, aesthetics, etc. and I'd like to make it clear that I'm not one of them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

To me, I try to avoid saying "in my opinion." It's a weak way of speaking, and as a woman it can make me look as if I am uncertain or don't have personal authority. If someone can't figure out it's an opinion, it's not my damn problem. Of course, I worked in marketing for years and there's a huge difference between "this is the best dish soap!" and "I think this is the best dish soap." I know what sells dish soap.

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

I also think it's redundant most of the time, but still use it as defusing phrase to avoid arguments/fights over, well, opinion. (Mainly about bands, art, etc.)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

JD Hayworth looks like a horrifying combination of Enzyte Bob and the Trololo guy. DO NOT WANT.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

...and yet both Smilin' Bob and the other chap manage to look somewhat benign compared to Hayworth.

[gairid.livejournal.com]

Jeez. He does!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Good to see that, after USAir 1549, people *do* get why the rules on exit-seat rows are important. (I didn't know the weight of an emergency exit hatch; that's quite a consideration.)

more earthquakes lately or more coverage of earthquakes?

I get the impression, possibly slightly more earthquakes, but certainly more coverage of them.

Outrage fatigue combined with low expectations of the American military/inudistrial complex, I greatly fear.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

For the earthquake question, see the USGS earthquake facts and statistics page.

If you scroll down to the table of data for the last 10 years, you'll see that the overall number of earthquakes is roughly constant. The totals vary from ~22k to ~32k per year, but most of the noise is down in the 3rd and 4th magnitude area. There've been 13 mag 8 or greater earthquakes in the last 10 years. 2007 had four of those. No other year had more than two.

[gairid.livejournal.com]

Hayworth spoke to Rachel Maddow as though she were a child throughout that entire interview and in doing so made himself look like a condescending idiot. When called on the fact that his so-called quote regarding the Massachuseetts law did not, in fact, appear within the document, he tried backpedaling by saying he and Rachel would just have to have differing opinions on that detail.

You can have an opinion about a fact, but it doesn't change the actual fact, Mr. Moron Hayworth.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I'm sorta on a tear lately about people not grokking the difference between opinions and facts. On the one hand, I don't think people should have to say "in my opinion" before stating an opinion. It's obvious, isn't it, when someone says a piece of art is good or bad that they are expressing an opinion and the way it is expressed provides the viewpoint and how informed a perspective said opinion is coming from? Right? We all get that? Okay.

It ought to be obvious, but it often isn't, even to the person expressing that opinion. Possibly this is an educational quirk of mine, but I tend interpret judgements of good and bad as reflecting on wider artistic/cultural merit rather than personal enjoyment (ie sometimes I can see something is good and still not personally like it, just as I can sometimes see things are, objectively, quite bad, and yet still enjoy them). In that sense, I do read a distinction between someone saying "I didn't like X" and someone saying "X is no good".

This is all semantics, obviously, but then I like semantics better than food, love and people ;)

[rm.livejournal.com]

I have this too (the sense of something being of quality but my not having the receptor sites for it) and do often make those distinctions in conversation.

I am, however, as I mentioned elsewhere, wary of saying "in my opinion" because anything I say automatically has reduced authority in most settings because I am female-bodied. Minimizing my words by reminding people they are merely my opinion doesn't get me what I want. Of course, the fact that I'm pretty good at getting what I want is why I tend to rub people the wrong way as much as I do.

[gement.livejournal.com]

As a highly suggestible person, I start getting tense in conversations where people do not qualify their opinions in some way. It's one of the That Guy markers for me.

That's only in cases where I feel there's no... gah, how do I put it, importance to being right?

"Lost is the best show ever in the history of ever." (Doesn't bother me.)

"Stephen Moffat is just a better writer than Russell T. Davies." (Kind of gets under my skin because it sounds close enough to a statement of objective fact that if I disagree or have different taste, I feel like I have to call you a liar.)

"That is an offensive thing to say." (Same level of absolutism, but as it is important and you really do want to challenge anyone's reality who disagrees, I stand by it and it doesn't bug me.)

I don't tend to use "in my opinion," but the couple of people I know who don't add qualifiers or some kind of room for the fact that people disagree tend to be prone to making me feel mansplained* or run over by the force of their opinion.

You don't make me feel mansplained. You have found some more elegant way of including that space for disagreement. I applaud this.


* I really don't like "mansplained" because it is a group stereotype pejorative and I'm really trying to avoid those. Does anyone have a less inflammatory short term for this kind of jerkiness?

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I was telling a friend about the concept of mansplaining the other day, and we've been finding just "splaining" a very useful term since, and have identified many variations (Cissplaining! Straightsplaining! Whitesplaining! Amerisplaining! Houndsplaining!) since, yeah, it's definitely not just maleness that can be guilty of that kind of conversational bowling over. Our working definition was simply that a) there is that attempted steamrollering effect and b) that it's usually directed at someone who understands the issue just as well if not better than you do.

I agree it does take a certain amount of linguistic elegance and care to be able to express yourself with certainty but without 'splaining. It's interesting how people sometimes respond to that, though; there seems to be an inherent suspicion in some circles of people who argue well, like there's something manipulative about it (which - hi politicians and the press! - not entirely unfounded). I have no sympathy with anti-intellectualism, but at the same time, I think this relates to x_tricks point below about dealing in emotional truths rather than facts - I think often news outlets and politicians do the public a huge disservice in presenting information to them in such a way that it requires so much unpacking to get at any kind of truth.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I do read a distinction between someone saying "I didn't like X" and someone saying "X is no good".

Oh man, there's a guy I used to hang out with who was incapable of grokking that distinction, especially when it came to any kind of artistic endeavor — music, movies, books, anything. I'd say, "[X] is not my thing," and he simply could not believe that I wasn't trying to find a polite way to say, "X stinks on toast."

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Hehe, yeah I know someone like that too. The way I see it "I don't like X" is an irrefutable statement. It's not like someone can come along and argue that actually you do like it; at best, they can tell you why they like it, but that's pretty harmless. Whereas if you're going to make a statement like "X stinks on toast"... that's fighting talk, as far as I'm concerned ;)

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's not like someone can come along and argue that actually you do like it

I would like to say that on the subject of CoE, I have absolutely, positively had people explicitly tell me that I didn't like it, when I've absolutely, positively, have said that I did. And it's like "what just happened there?"

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Haha, perhaps I should have phrased that as "ought to be irrefutable". Of course there's no accounting for the apparent belief that people who liked CoE are suffering from a weird kind of Stockholm's Syndrome and need intervention.

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

I think we are in an upswing of seismic activity. My Little Boss is getting in the habit of checking an earthquake site daily and there are 2-to-3 of them somewhere in the Aleutian chain every single day this month.

Earthquakes

[nysidra.livejournal.com]

Driven by twitter. I'm willing to go all-in on that one.

The USGS was an early adopter of twitter, and I remember looking at their updates and truly realizing how much the earth was shaking all the time. Then, as twitter grew in popularity, people would auto-retweet anything that shook greater than a 4.0. Mostly it was only California getting the attention. "Another city in the desert trembles, yawn."

But after a few well places news stories about how twitter was spreading the word on what happened and where with regard to geological events, then people really wanted to be the first to spread the news (more retweeting).

So, whenever there's an earthquake of even minor regard, "Earthquake" trends on twitter, and the rich get richer because people want to know: Earthquake? Where?

And this "paid off" in that we actually had major earthquakes this year.

I have the same theory about Gun violence. The ability to easily report on minor, yet devastating, news allows it to get repeated, and thus, noticed, far more.

Re: Earthquakes

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

Nice icon. :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

The worst thing for me is that when I cite facts, its often thrown back in my face as opinion, as though there really isn't anything objective.

Bah, I remember someone tried to argue with me that post-modernism was wrong because it allowed opinion to over-throw fact. They used the example of is being "objective" that humans can't fly. I really did my best to simply reply "No, it's a fact that humans can't fly unassisted". I dunno, what was happening there.

But this really relates to the whole matter of disbelief of women, children, people of colour, disabled people, queers and everyone else who doesn't have the cultural currency to "create" facts.

I do my best not to do the "in my opinion" thing, because as you say it reduces my authority which is already reduced due to gender and age (being a young woman in her 20's doesn't convey a whole lot of authority).

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

The general consensus among emergency prevention orgs is that there are no more earthquakes, it's just that a: news covers things in clusters to try and get readers attention and b: more people are living in urban areas, which have a tendnecy (for various reasons) to be built on fault lines. And, finally, technology has allowed us to sense smaller and smaller earthquakes, so if you look for one, you're likely to find one at this point. The Earth is always wiggling around.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

My sense about the whole opinion thing (through various experiments at managing my authority/lack thereof) is that there's an increasing … over reaction to any form of conflict in our culture right now, down to anyone claiming they know something 'for fact'. Facts are often used, now to prove an argument ie: to tell someone they're wrong and we've gotten hyper sensative to confrontation. I've been flabbergasted by the way the current administration simply doesn't say 'you're wrong' and then relay the factual information, about many of the factual untruths going on about the health care, or the financial rescue or whatever but no one seems to want to actually confront all the morons who are like 'giant government takeover' or whatever.

And, because so many topics now are so complicated that 'fact' can be swung based on the particular set of statistics you're using (and how you manipulate them etc), we've also become suspicoius of 'facts', plus, so many authority figures have been flat out lying lately (weapons of mass destruction, death panels, government takeover, socialism, I will get rid of DADT) that we've become suspicous of anyone who makes any factual claim.

And, in the US at least, facts have become unimportant in comparison to emotional truths, which are not based on fact at all.

[humascot97.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminder about ordering the census sticker. Hubby wants to fill it out this weekend, so I hope that it shows up before the weekend. Failing that, I'll offer to mail it and hold out until it does.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Regarding the census, I'd also like to put out the word that (to the best of my current research) participants are allowed to select their gender based on self-identification. I'm an enumerator this year, so I'll know more after I've been through training, but I've seen a lot out there about same-sex couples being able to register as spouses but not the choices available to the transgendered. It's still just a M/F choice and I'm pretty sure that leaving it blank is not a legal option, but there is some progress there all the same.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I think everyone is still waiting to see us fall into the sea. And part of the I5 dropped, so that's a mess - no, really. You go to Disneyland, you've been on the I5. FLAIL! (Jim works at a hospital in Downey. The evening report from him tonight should be a corker.)

People can't tell the difference between a review and a critique, either. *sighs*

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Yep, Manhattan has four fault lines I think.

The Broadway fault running most of the length of Manhattan. And three across it. One of them at 204th/Dykeman Street. I use to live up there and remember after some article in the Daily News after a big quake somewhere. Might have been the World Series quake in SF years ago.

Even felt one while I lived there. Early one Sunday morning, a 1.3 or 1.4.

[copyright1983.livejournal.com]

Re: earthquakes, it's definitely more coverage. Though the idea of covering disasters is nothing new.

This would've been around '98 or so. My dad and I took off for a few days to Disneyland (I used to live in San Fran, so a 6-hour drive), just the two of us. (We'd been as a family a few years previous.) On our last night there, around 2:30am, there was a sizable quake, a 7.0 if I recall right, about 100 miles east. Dad felt it, woke up, and tried to rouse me, but I was a sound sleeper (and still am).

So Dad turned on the news to get reports and see whether we would have to do anything crazy like evacuate the hotel (we didn't). All the local news outlets were on the story, of course. Except...there was no story. No buildings collapsed, no people were killed. The big stories were potential minor gas leaks, dishes falling off walls, and a train that went slightly off the tracks, injuring a few people.

Yet the news stations kept covering the non-story, because none could afford (for PR purposes) to be the first to break away. "There's nothing to report, really...but we will stay with you JUST IN CASE something breaks." It was quite amusing to watch these reporters trying to cover the story that wasn't there.

I'm not sure what the point of that was, except that I like telling the story, and the coverage of disasters is certainly nothing new--but there's more now than there was before, for all the reasons others have stated above.

[joemorf.livejournal.com]

As for AFTRA, I'd wait until your next AFTRA gig, join, and then let the initiation get sucked out of your check... or checks, as the case may be.

It kinda sucks the way they do it though - my sister got a nasty surprise when she received a check for 0.00 after initiation dues. Much different from AGVA which will take a percentage until the balance is met.

~j

[rm.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of doing that, but a lot of people don't want to even call me in for an audition because of crap like that because some people are whiners about it. I had no idea AGVA was so humane.

[joemorf.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of in the same boat with SAG. I'm SAG eligible, which would be awesome if I had $2335 just laying around waiting for me to plunk down on initiation fees if I got a union gig. (And this is where the rarely enforced "no working for other 4A Sister Unions once you've joined one of them" rule really chaps my hide.)

And that initiation policy may be the only category where AGVA does not suck. In the decade or so that I've been a member I've found them to be completely anemic when dealing with Disney (which is where most of the West Coast AGVAs perform).

I don't even know where to start.

Part of the problem is that there are very few performers who are around for the long haul - because no one comes to California to spend their whole lives performing in Anaheim - the company is only just starting to be supportive of the notion, but they also encourage folks to move on by pulling crap like, for instance, in a show that runs 7 days a week, with performers required to work 25 hours/week to qualify for minimal benefits, casting 7 people in 1 day slots (Which happened most recently with the last incarnation of the High School Musical show).

So the performers have a tendency to be much more involved with their SAG or AFTRA contracts, or to a limited extent AEA - if they're politically minded at all - because here's no incentive to stick around longer than a couple of years. So when contract renewal negotiations come around there is very little tribal memory of what went on before, which makes negotiations go rather poorly for our side... so things like grandfathering get voted in, which gives the company even more incentive to shuffle the veterans out.

I don't know how much sense I'm making here, I have a tendency to get a bit wound up on the subject.

I'll leave you with one other example of why AGVA sucks. We don't have working dues, instead we have quarterly dues which are assessed on the work you did in the previous year. If you're diligent enough to sock this money away when you're making it, awesome. But if you're like most of the people on the planet, then you're gonna get a $248 bill based on the full time work you did a year ago, when you might be working less than 1 day per month as a sub and hustling other gigs wherever you can.

So, yeah. It's frustrating, and it's a big part of why people try to avoid getting sucked into it for very long out here.

All that said, I've always maintained that the performance parts of the job are awesome. 100% fun, and a big reason why people are willing to let themselves get sucked into it for very long.

It's the backstage B.S. that sucks, just like everywhere else.

~j

[rm.livejournal.com]

The SAG dues thing is like that too (but it's twice a year, so it's a little easier to remember it's coming and not as big of a chunk at once.

And HOLY FUCK the SAG initiation dues are that high now? I think it was like $1300 when I joined. I'm AEA eligible if I get own the damn paperwork and should probably deal with that chunk of change too, but the whole thing just sucks. That said, what I should really do is just use my next residuals check to take care of one of those (AFTRA OR AEA) things as opposed to being all "ooooo, shopping."

[delchi.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I don't think people should have to say "in my opinion" before stating an opinion. It's obvious, isn't it

Not always. It can depend on the person that you are dealing with. I have to deal with people who generate " facts " that are nothing but converted opinions - because what they think is 'right'.

For example when people tell me " Gays are bad - the bible says so therefore it's a fact" I say no. That's an opinion based on a narrow interpretation of a book that's been translated - re-translated, edited and re-written at the whim of kings, theologists or anyone who wants to take a crack at it.

What makes a fact for a person like yourself - who deals in facts and the accurate reporting of them , or myself when I 'show my work' by citing sources is quite different from facts as delivered by people who are more passionate than accurate when they state things as fact.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I think people either need to be educated about what a ' sex worker ' is or maybe a more clear term coined to describe people who make a study of human sexuality from a social or medical perspective vs prostitution.

This digs at me because I fully support legalized prostitution on many fronts - both educational , social, and from a human rights perspective.

When I say human rights, part of that is that a person should be able to enjoy legal protection against discrimination or undue influence if they choose to work in the sex industry - no more "pimps" or forced prostitution rings.

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

I hate the use of 'race' for 'ethnicity' or other more accurate term. I will be filling in 'Homo Spaiens' for race. The only interracial couples I know are Amanda & Sarek, and Sheridan & D'Lenn.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I know I use "in my opinion" at times, but I also seem to use "I think" a lot. I suppose "I think" could be similar to "IMO" insofar as it's acknowledging that you're making a subjective statement, but it doesn't risk the perceived weakness of the word "opinion".

I once had someone "accuse" me of not being a biological female because of the way I express myself online (yeah, this person was rather transphobic), which surprised me, because I'm very aware that I often moderate the modality of my statements with "probably", "maybe", etc (which is something that women are socialised to do far more than men).

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I'm stunned that I'm saying this, but Hayworth and his incredible patronizing smugness actually makes John McCain almost palatable.

Having typed that, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, and yes. I continue to hope that the rise of the deeply scary wing-nuts means more people who win Republican primaries and lose general elections. McCain is no gem, but he's not as scary as that creep, but I'd rather have Hayworth win is he's actually too creepy to win the general election.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

I think we're doing more coverage of earthquakes right now; a 4.4 in CA is a mid-size quake for us, and significantly west of downtown LA (I didn't notice at all). But there seems to be a pattern of increasingly frequent medium-large quakes in the Pacific Basin and the nearby fault systems (yes, Haiti falls into this system too).

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/ and http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/region/N_America.php show a lot of quakes.

I think both the geologists to a small extent and the non-Californians are worried that these indicate a few more 5-6 quakes are on the way as things re-align, plus possible increased volcanic and tsunami activity as well.

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

Lots of interesting things here, but I'm mostly tickled that every time I tell someone I live in Silver Spring I can now say that it is fit for a king!