wicked anomie: sociology run amok

Current List of Sociology Jobs

2009-07-18T13:25:00.003-04:00

Here's a list of all the jobs available, as of today, that have the following specifications: (1) sociology or related, (2) assistant professor or open, (3) tenure-track, (4) in the United States. So far, none fit me. Bleh.

But it's still early.

Sociology Assistant Prof Jobs

I'm searching the ASA job bank and Inside Higher Ed, btw.

Making SWS meetings greener!

2009-07-16T16:40:00.005-04:00

Are you a member of Sociologists for Women in Society? Are you going to the conference(s) in San Francisco? Do you like to drink? Then you need an SWS Water (ahem*) Bottle!

That's right! AN SWS BEVERAGE BOTTLE OF YOUR VERY OWN!

And it can be yours in exchange for a mere $14 donation to support medical services for San Francisco's sex workers!

What an excellent opportunity to green up the conference AND help sex workers get the medical care they need!

The SWS logo-imprinted bottles are stainless steel, hold 16.9 oz. of your favorite hot or cold beverage and are well-priced at only $14! Profits from the bottle sales will be awarded to St. James Infirmary, a local medical clinic that provides services for sex workers.

According to their website, "St. James Infirmary provides compassionate and non-judgmental healthcare and social services for all sex workers while preventing occupational illnesses and injuries through a comprehensive continuum of services."

Also according to their website, this service is in trouble. They are facing budget cuts, and they need money. Regardless of what you think about the morality of sex work, I think we can all agree that these women need a safe place to get medical care.

And all you need to do to help is buy a beverage bottle (though I doubt they'd turn away direct donations, either.) Do it for the environment. Do it for the SWS bottle. Do it to publicize SWS by carrying around your beverage bottle. Do it for the sex workers. Whatever. Just buy one.

For more information or to pre-register for a bottle, email your request to swssocialaction@gmail.com. Pick-up and pay in San Francisco. A limited number will be available for on-site purchase.

*They call this a water bottle, but it is stainless steel and holds hot AND cold beverages. Personally, I'm going to call it a ~~vodka~~ coffee bottle.

Harry Potter Statistics, revisited

2009-07-14T19:57:00.002-04:00

In light of the new Harry Potter movie coming out, I am reposting my rant against the unilateral depiction of Slytherins as evil, and why this is statistically unlikely.

One thing that bothered me throughout the Harry Potter books is the negative depiction of Slytherin house. I mean, really; can one fourth of the total wizarding population be evil? And can anyone truly be evil? Isn't this a false dichotomy??? I was happy, then, when the books began to introduce the idea of "good" people doing bad things (Percy), and "bad" people doing good things (Draco). No one ever really knew where to place Snape, but even the fact that there was a debate means we still try to force everyone into this dichotomy (anyone else see the Snape is innocent/Snape is a bad, bad man stickers?). So, let's take that and run with it, shall we? And answer the question, once and for all. Are Slytherins evil? Let's settle this with some statistics (and my sad attempt at making tables):

In model 1, all the evil students at Hogwarts are Slytherin. In model 2, the majority of Slytherins are evil, but we also entertain the possibility that someone could be evil and in a different house. Model 1 is fairly straightforward: if you see a Slytherin, you know they're evil. If you see an evil student, you know they're in Slytherin house.

However, how likely is it in the real world for such a simple and clean correlation to exist (despite what some people might try to tell you about those damn Blacks, or women, or whatnot)? Perhaps there is truth to the perception that Slytherins are more evil than the rest. Model 2 clearly shows a greater likelihood of encountering evil within the house of Slytherin. However, note one important fact: of the 142 evil students residing within Hogwarts, only 70 (about half) of them are Slytherin. (*And 50% of all Ravenclaw are evil, I suspect. They're just too clever to get caught.)

Oh, but at this point an astute reader might say, "But doesn't Ron say, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, that there's not an evil witch or wizard who didn't come from Slytherin House?" Indeed. Bearing in mind that Ron may, in fact, be operating under some prejudices of his own, let's assume for a moment that he is right. This is model 3 (yes, I still have 5% evil Ravenclaws--the crafty buggers, I have their numbers!!! Oh, yes, I know they're just slipping under the radar!) Here we can see a more reasonable assessment of the percentage of evil students at Hogwarts. All KNOWN evil stems from that shady Slytherin house. But look again--even though, as Ron says, all the evil seems to stem from Slytherin, not all Slytherins are evil. And we find support for this in the novels, as well. As a matter of fact, the majority of Slytherins are (gasp!) GOOD. Finally, we can drive the point home with a simple 4x4 table (N=100):Take-home point: just because the majority of evil people are Slytherin, that doesn't mean that the majority of Slytherins are evil. They just get a bad rap.

5th Annual ASA Blog Party

2009-07-07T08:25:00.001-04:00

Be there or be square!

Johnny Foley’s Irish House
243 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco, CA
Sunday, August 9
6pm

Tales from the Dissertationside

2009-07-05T20:45:00.002-04:00

They say everyone lives their last year of grad school on perpetual edge, precariously balanced between triumph and blubbering insanity.

Today I got my first taste of the darker side of this liminal state.

It all started when I began doing the recodes for Wave 2 of my dissertation data. I had finally finished merging the two waves--this is harder than it sounds, I might add. Sure, there is a fancy tool in the software that allows you to merge datasets. All you have to do is give it a variable that will be the same in both datasets, then the computer does the rest.

Riiiiight.

The variables I had in common were respondent's first name, last name, and email. Email seemed the best option. So, I merged. But only about 3/4 of the cases merged this way. The rest the computer couldn't match. Some students mistyped their email address (name@school.ed - WHERE'S THE U?!?). Some inexplicably decided to capitalize their address. Some gave me a different address each time. I had to go through manually and match those up.

I still have three respondents for Wave 2 that I can't match to anyone in Wave 1. Which is weird, since the survey request only went out to those who had taken Wave 1. Haven't decided what to do with them.

So, once merged, I went to do the recodes for Wave 2. A lot of it is exactly the same as Wave 1 was, since most of the questions are repeated. So, I brought up my Wave 1 syntax file (SPSS, all I got at home). And I'm going through the file just tweaking the variable names to work for my Wave 2 variable names, and lo - there's a repeated line. An entire set of variables recoded twice! Ack!

So, I had to go back to the raw data for Wave 1 and compare/contrast, see if my variables were actually coded, then coded back again. And they were. So, fixed that. Luckily, I haven't used Wave 1 for much of anything yet.

Finished recoding Wave 2. Ran descriptives. Noticed something funky with the international students. My old descriptives report said I had 73 international students. My newly minted run says I have 83. I am still not sure what happened there. At this point, I am chalking it up to an initial mistype. I mean, the second digit is still the same, right? Still, it's disconcerting.

Other than that, my descriptives look great. I am feeling good. I want to hold my descriptives in my hand, walk around with them, look lovingly at them, and maybe sleep with them under my pillow for good measure. So, I go to print them out.

The. Printer. Is. Out. Of. Ink.

I go to get some ink.

But it's Sunday, and it is after 8pm.

After trying two of my preferred places, I end up at a Big Box Store. Those things are always open. I find ink. I wander around the aisles a bit, in something of a daze.

Pretty towels. Shiny camera. Oooooo.

I pay for my ink. The cashier gives me my receipt, AND a coupon for Starbucks. There's a Starbucks in the store. I think, "OOOooo a fancy caffeinated beverage is EXACTLY what I need to put the mess that was this day behind me!"

The store was closed.

I almost cried then.

A Sociological Film Rating System

2009-07-04T21:16:00.003-04:00

Have you ever pondered our society's choices in what to censor and what to warn us about in film ratings? Like, why are we generally more concerned with sex in films rather than violence? And there are other problems that don't get censored or rated at all. What about those?

The Motion Picture Association of America provides us with our standardized rating system, giving films a G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17, depending on how they measure up to certain criteria. These include, but are not limited to, language (i.e. use of profanity), nudity, sex, violence, drug abuse, sensuality, "adult activities and other elements," and--in the case of NC-17 films--"abborrational behavior."

The overarching themes are language, sexuality, and violence. This is the Triad of Evils; the three things we most need to shelter our kids from. Or are they?

What if the triad were sexism, racism, and heteronormativity? What would the ratings system look like then? And how would the movies get recategorized to fit these new criteria? Based on research by Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin at the University of Michigan, we might hypothesize that Disney would end up with the R rating in this new scheme.

And then I thought further: this would form an excellent basis for an introductory sociology class project. I am SO planning on doing this with my class this fall. It is certainly preferable to grading a bunch of term papers.

Option 1: The project is to put together and try out a new rating system. Their assignment would be to review the Motion Picture Association of America's descriptions for each level. Each student would work individually to come up with a new system based on sociological concepts. They would have to include 5 concepts from the readings in their new rating system. They would devise a way to break down each concept into G, PG, R, and NC-17 levels. What would be R-level racism?

Turn in: (1) A worksheet raters can use to rate a movie, filled out using their all-time favorite movie (so they already know it well and can really focus on the rating criteria when they watch it) (2) A page or so describing their rating system, and (3) one page or so in which they describe what rating they gave their movie and why.

Option 2: I put together a worksheet for them to use and give them a description of the rating system. I pick the criterion, etc. Then, they have to select a movie that's come out in the last five years and rate it.

Turn in: (1) A completed worksheet, (2) a paragraph synopsis of the rating and why, like you would give the press to publish, and (3) a 3-page description of details from the movie supporting their decision. I would then compile everyone's synopses and post them as a group.

Thoughts? Option 1 is more work for them, option 2 is more work for me. But with Option 2, I can build on it year after year since the ratings are standardized. However, they might learn more with option 1, and they'd have more freedom to pick their own criteria....

Old People Food

2009-07-01T19:16:00.003-04:00

I recently tried out a new restaurant, only to discover it served old people. The restaurant was full of them. Even the young people look old. Heck, even the the teenagers looked elderly! Like they were just waiting to grey.

And the food was old people food.

Has anyone else noticed the phenomenon that is old people food? And does the cuisine of the American elderly cross racial and geographic boundaries?

When I think of old people food, what comes to mind is the kind of food they serve at cafeteria-style restaurants: baked cod (sprinkled with paprika, of course!), salisbury steak, meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, green beans, mashed potatoes, applesauce, grapefruit, etc. But it's not just these dishes. It's something about the way they're prepared. I got steamed veggies as a side- something I'd find anywhere- but the way these steamed veggies tasted gave them the flavor of old people steamed veggies.

I can't even describe it.

But it got me to wondering - if there is a phenomenon of old people food, is it a cohort effect or an age effect? Will I slowly begin to develop a taste for cafeteria food? Start craving mushy green beans cooked in animal fat? Sprinkle paprika on my cod? Will I start eating cod???

Or will the foods of my generation, whatever they may be, become the old people food of tomorrow?

Keeping Track of Your Examples for Teaching II

2009-06-15T17:38:00.009-04:00

Behold, I have decided upon a method for keeping track of potentially useful resources for teaching sociology!

First, I want to thank all of you who have provided excellent advice on this topic. If you, dear reader, are seeking a method but are not inspired by the one I shall outline below, it may behoove you to check out the comments on this post.

Social bookmarking sites are great, as I've mentioned. But I don't stick with them. Partly this is because I can't rely on browser plug-ins, add-ons, desktop applications, or whatever. I do not use the same computer religiously. It just doesn't work for me. And that extra step of saving things to Evernote, Delicious, Diigo, or whatever the fad of the moment is just gets to be too much. And I could just carry a flash drive or external hard drive or something and always plug it into computers not my own, thereby bringing my desktop and personalized browser with me. But I don't.

Here's what I've settled on.

I get most of my incoming from Google Reader. Google Reader, for the uninitiated, is an excellent platform for keeping track of your subscriptions to blogs and websites and whatnot. Now, if you're reading this and thinking "whoa - you can subscribe to blogs?!?", you might want to look into that first then get back to this.

Most people who use Google Reader are well aware that they can organize their subscriptions by folder. In addition to this, you can tag items in your feed. The option is at the bottom of each item - just click "edit tags." I have created special tags for various topics that I teach (race, gender, class, environment, identity, etc). Whenever I come across something that I think is useful for teaching, I tag it with something specific about the content. If I had my syllabi put together with all my lectures labeled, I might even tag it with the lecture title. But I don't. So I don't.

In addition to these tags, I have also tagged all teaching-related items with "sociology." This is where the "social" aspect of bookmarking comes in. You see, if I were just interested in collecting, I could just stop with my content-specific tags. Google Reader organizes everything by tag, and I can search only within a certain tag, in addition to searching all items. As a matter of fact, I've gotten to the point where if I want to find something to use as a sociological example, I'll search my reader instead of Google. It searches every blog and site I'm subscribed to, and nothing else.

But I digress.

I have added the "sociology" tag so that all teaching examples can be together under one feed. Then, I went into my settings and shared that feed. You can find it here. Subscribe to this, and you'll have instant and easy access to everything I find. Kinda like having an unpaid TA doing the legwork for you, eh?

In addition, I have put a widget of the feed on the sidebar of this blog. If you're reading this remotely, go look. I'll wait.

Why yes, it does look a bit like an AdSense block! Alas, there weren't many style options, and I'm not quite savvy enough to spiff it up. But I'll share the code with you if you want to put a widget on your blog. Just email me (it also takes a lot of legwork and tech savvy to post code on Blogger, which just tries to read it rather than post it as-is).

I'll let you know how this system works out. But right now I'm feeling pretty good about it.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the limitations. Of course, I don't get EVERYTHING from Google Reader. And this is where the add-on comes into play (there's no escape!). Google Reader offers a bookmarklet, "Note in Reader," which allows you to save, share, tag, star, or note anything you come across on the web. It's rather handy. And if I'm away from my computer, I can email myself the link. I always have Gmail up, after all.

Are Car Washes Sexist?

2009-06-13T17:39:00.003-04:00

I drove past a car wash today, and it made me uncomfortable.

I don't mean one of those automatic car washes where you drive your car onto this conveyor belt of sorts and ride through this complicated system of sprays and giant fluffy cylinders that rub against the sides of your car.

Those are AWESOME.

They're like the poor person's haunted ride at a carnival. My sister and I used to call these "monster car washes," and our mom would take us to them as a special treat.

No, I mean the bikini washes that are starting to sprinkle the local parking lots. The ones where school groups or other such organizations need money and decide to hold a car wash fundraiser. I remember partaking in one for the high school band once. I remember feeling inadequate because I didn't get selected to stand on the streetcorner in a bikini waving a sign and shaking my ass. Though it was never presented that way to us, it was common knowledge that this was a job reserved for pretty girls.

Hmmm... a tradition in which skantily-clad, often dripping wet, attractive underage girls stand on street corners dancing, shimmying, hollering, singing, and whatever else they can do to entice passersby to give them money. The car washes are "free," mind you.

Donations accepted.

Am I getting prudish in my old age, or does this sound remarkably like another, much more illegal, activity? And why is this acceptable? If it were really as innocent as people say, we'd see just as many boys out there holding signs.

I'm not saying bikini car washes don't have their place. I'm just saying that it is a common narrative in our society. One which has a very specific meaning. And having underage girls in bikinis advertising car washes draws upon this narrative.

As does the following. But this I find funny, not irksome. Go figure.

Free Car Wash - The funniest home videos are here

Keeping Track of Your Examples for Teaching

2009-06-11T13:24:00.003-04:00

Now that the time for me to start teaching again is drawing nigh, I'm reading everything I come across with an eye toward future lectures. I have a habit of inundating my students with examples of everything I teach -- "Oh, and here's a news story that illustrates this phenomenon;" "Did any of you see the episode of that television sitcom in which x occured? This is what I'm talking about," etc. My lectures are very multimedia, just because I'm always coming across things I want to share with my students.

Problem is, I never really settled on an efficient means of keeping track of these examples when I come across them. My current (might I add inefficient?) method is to star the items in Google Reader when I see them. Then, for a while I was saving them to Delicious. Then I decided I liked Diigo better. Then I started using Evernote. And I briefly fiddled with Zotero. Sometimes I just blog them. Here lately, I've just been posting them all to Facebook (pity my poor Facebook friends who are not in academia - my contribution to their newsfeed must make them feel like they're taking a sociology class over Facebook).

Why just throw all my examples on Facebook? Because it's quick and easy. It will be cumbersome to retrieve all of them later, but that's beside the point. I want to capture these media morsels before I forget they exist. Those other sites can be quick and easy capturing tools--if you're on your home computer and have the fancy browser add-ons, Firefox extensions, and desktop publication tools and whatnot set up. But if I'm not on my personal computer, then I find it a lot more cumbersome.

So, I now have a host of examples, strewn about the web. I need to pick a method and stick with it. But which one? Any bright ideas, oh internet?

Updating my Blogging Sociology list

2009-06-10T15:18:00.001-04:00

I realized it had been ages since I updated my list of blogging sociologists, found in the sidebar. I think it is up-to-date now. The list is of people I read, who at least occasionally post about sociology. If you think you should be included and aren't, just let me know!

Dog ate my file

2009-06-05T08:34:00.003-04:00

There's a new homework excuse on the market - yes, on the market. For A mere $3.95 (soon to be $5.95), you can purchase a corrupt file in the document size you need. Simply submit the corrupt file and say it is your homework, then work on your actual assignment until the professor emails you and explains that they can't open your file, could you please send it again?

Okay, first: how hard is it to corrupt your own file? I mean, really, save yourself some money.

Second: know that it's not going to work as a valid excuse for everyone. Right now, I'm teaching online for the University of Phoenix. They have a very strict late policy (strict in that I have to enforce it; not strict in the leeway it gives the students).

All assignments are due by midnight Arizona time. If they are a day late (and even 12:01am is late), they get a 10% deduction. It continues at 10% per day for 4 days, after which the assignment cannot be accepted. There are NO exceptions - no dead grandmothers, no "forgotten" attachments, no corrupt files. However, there is a clause stating that any student can negotiate a later due date with the instructor IF and ONLY IF they do so BEFORE THE DEADLINE.

I like this policy, and I think I'll implement it when I teach at a ~~real~~ (ahem)* brick-and-mortar university in the fall.

Crooked Timber is collecting people's favorite homework excuses in the comments of their post on this topic. Sadly (or not), I don't have any good ones yet. I've had some people forget their attachments, submit an assignment from a different class, cite power outages, and yes - there have been some dead grandmothers. However, all of these seem pretty run-of-the-mill.

You know what I find interesting, though? When they give these excuses, I always respond back sympathetically ("Oh, I've forgotten attachments before, too - happens to the best of us!" or "So sorry to hear about your grandmother."), but I also apply the late penalty. More than half the time, they thank me for my understanding.

*University of Phoenix is totally real. It is not a diploma mill. And I actually like the curriculum for the class I'm teaching. Really. It actually reminds me a lot of how a grad student seminar would look if ran completely online.

Informal Social Control and Power

2009-05-18T12:40:00.003-04:00

My daughter's school recently had a program on the Evils of Smoking. They offered booklets and pamphlets to the students, saying that if they knew anyone who smoked, they should give the smokers these books.

My daughter took home two. She very excitedly told me that she got some Important Books at school today, then she took them out of her backpack. At this point her demeanor totally changed into that of determined schoolmarm, and she puffed up and declared that she was going to give these books to her Mamaw and Pat (my mom and her husband). Because they smoke and they shouldn't.

And she did give them these books, along with a very determined and stern lecture about the Perils of Smoking.

They are now trying to quit.

And OH MY GODS my daughter is now feeling a grand sense of power and accomplishment. But the story does not end here. Oh, no.

The next week, we had a doctor's appointment. While waiting in the exam room, I noticed a small book on diabetes. So, we read it. It contained information on diabetes and all the complications that can arise when a person's diabetes goes unchecked. I told her that Papaw (my dad) has diabetes, as does his mom, who is experiencing some of the complications.

She has since brought up that book twice, now. With the same determined air, "We need to buy one of those books and give it to Papaw!" I always imagine her at a podium with her fist raised when she says such things.

She is feeling empowered and ready to change the world, one health issue at a time. I'm proud, and a little scared.

Things Men Don't Want Their Women to Do

2009-05-15T13:52:00.003-04:00

Have you seen those Likeness quizzes on Facebook? I've taken a few. They can be fun.

But I was quite curious - and wary - when this one showed up in my notifications: "Things Men Don't Want Their Women to Do."

And I've always had a problem with the phrases "their women," "my woman," etc. I understand that so-called "possessive" pronouns do not always indicate actual possession (e.g., "OMG I missed my turn!"). I do not own that turn. "My" can also often indicate relationship. We have girlfriends, wives, mistresses, friends, and mothers, but it just doesn't sound right to say we have women. Does this bother anyone else? Or is it just me? Maybe it's the heteronormativity of it. Maybe it's just that the only people I hear use such phrases in real life are those I already know to have sexist attitudes.

Anyway. So what are we ranking, pray tell?

-wear nightgowns
-shop in house slippers
-wear jean capri pants
-dress up our dogs
-start scrap booking
-make us wear xmas clothes
-let ur mother move in
-pick matching outfits
-cut your hair
-gain weight

Of course. I feel like running out and doing ALL THESE THINGS. AT ONCE. Just for the hell of it.

So if you see some crazy-looking short-haired fat lady out shopping for scrapbooking gear while wearing a nightgown and houseslippers (with capri jeans underneath), accompanied by a man wearing a xmas sweater, capri jeans, and houseslippers, while walking a sweater-wearing dog, then know it is me. Oh, and my mother will be with us, as well.

My Prediction for Big Bang Theory

2009-05-12T11:14:00.004-04:00

Big Bang Theory recently aired its season finale. For those who don't watch, here's a rundown: We have the main character, Leonard, who is in love with Penny, the woman across the hall. They had a brief fling, but it was awkward and didn't work and now they're just friends. Except Leonard is still in love with Penny. So, in the season finale, Penny finally realizes her feelings for Leonard...just in time for him to leave for a summer at the North Pole.

Of course.

She didn't tell him how she felt before he left (but she did give him a Snuggie and a 5-Mississippi hug, when everyone knows a normal friend hug lasts for only 2 Mississippis!). Maybe she she was scared, or maybe she knew he wouldn't go had she spilled. Either way, the season ended at a potential turning point. But this is a sitcom, folks, so of course their budding romance will be thwarted. How?

I predict something akin to the Ross-Rachel-Emily debacle from Friends.

After all, the basic stories are starting out pretty similarly. Boy loves girl. Girl is either blithely ignorant or uninterested. Boy goes away on a trip. Girl realizes she loves boy. Girl is ready to profess her love upon boy's return. However, boy returns with girlfriend. Boy seems to have forgotten about old crush.

Mark my words, internet! Leornard is coming back from the North Pole with a girlfriend. And the tables will turn as Penny pines after a blithely ignorant Leonard. The unrequited love story gets just enough of a boost to keep it interesting to viewers while still maintaining some suspenseful storyline to keep viewers tuning in - Will Leonard and Penny ever get together? For real this time?

Personally, I think Penny and Sheldon should hook up. That would be an interesting dynamic. Anyways, I'm getting bored with Leonard. His sidekick friends are much more interesting. They need to get some storylines of their own. And a Penny-Sheldon focus would be awesome.

(Why yes, I did just write a post about a television show. And you know what? I might write one about Dollhouse, too. Because that Paul Ballard guy really annoys me, and I'd like to further explore this dislike.)

A Sad and Angry Day

2009-05-07T06:47:00.005-04:00

Plagiarizer-

I regret to inform you that I have found some questionable wording in your paper. I have attached a Turnitin.com originality report that was conducted on your paper. It finds that 45% of its contents can also be found in other sources. Of course, these percentages are run by a computer program, so I took a closer look at its findings. Unfortunately, my own research found that, in fact, more than 45% of the paper's content is available in other sources:

1. The first chunk of the paper (in red on the report) is a direct citation from Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia is not listed as a source (nor is any of the other websites that include this same paragraph).

2. Immediately following this chunk is an orange sentence that was taken directly from [redacted], just changed to be in the first person and to include a grammar error (Colonist instead of colony). Then, you'll see that the blue sentences further down in your paper were taken from the same source. Turnitin.com only found other student papers with this wording, but a quick Google search turned up this site for me.

3. Immediately following this is a sentence partially in burgundy, followed by a gap, then some more burgundy. You'll note that the entire main answer on this site: [redacted] is replicated in this section of your paper, but with minor changes to include grammar errors. Turnitin.com only found matches to other student papers, but again, a quick Google brought up this site.

4. The same thing is evident with the purple sections, which, with changes to make it from a first-person perspective, can be found at [redacted].

5. The light blue is also directly taken from the site indicated on the Turnitin document, just reformatted to remove the bullet points.

Given these findings, I fear I must submit an Academic Violations report. Also, you will not receive credit for this assignment. Far too much is plagiarized.

Before I take this step, however, I would like to give you a chance to respond to these allegations. Your response will be included in the Academic Violations report.

In the future, please note I'm not a dumbass. Changing plagiarized work to include grammar errors is a big risk. If you don't get caught, it's clever. If you do, you've lost your option of pretending the plagiarism was "an accident."

Pie Charts and Bar Charts

2009-05-05T08:46:00.002-04:00

“This is a pie chart describing my favorite bars. And this is a bar graph describing my favorite pies.”

If you're not watching How I Met Your Mother, you're missing out.

[via pilot]

Why you shouldn't curse

2009-05-04T19:53:00.005-04:00

So, my kid was putting up her middle finger in class today and causing a ruckus. I'm pretty sure she has no idea what it means and she was just practicing her shadow puppets like she said. But on the way home, I explained that the gesture is like sign language for a phrase with curse word in it, and of course, you don't say those in school. Ever.

Of course, she wanted to know what putting up your middle finger meant. So I told her. And then I did some ineloquent fumbling for answers to her subsequent questions.

Kid: "But what does 'fuck you' mean?"

Me: "Hmmmm....it's something people say to someone when they're mad at them and want them to go away or leave them alone. Kind of. But it's also a way of saying you don't care what they say or think."

Kid: "So it's something you'd say to a bully?"

Me: (internal response: YES YES IT IS). What I actually said to her: "Not at school, that's for sure. But it's dangerous even outside school, because some people will take that as an invitation to hit you. Because curse words have a special effect on some people, where it makes them angry just hearing them."

Kid: "Like magic words?"

Me: "..."

So, I was having trouble explaining how worked up people can get over the word 'fuck' in particular, and the best I could do was remind her how her teacher wouldn't tell her what the finger meant and wouldn't say it to me, either. And that if she had, even to explain to the poor kid what she was inadvertently communicating, the teacher could actually get in trouble.

The problem is, such vague "people don't respond kindly to that" warnings don't really work as teaching aides. And I'm not good at coming up with examples on the fly. But then, Boing Boing saves the day, with the story about the girl whose dad almost died because the asshat cop wouldn't take her 911 call, because she said the word FUCK. While her dad was lying unconscious on the floor.

Fucker.

I'm Getting too Worked up over Pronouns

2009-05-01T12:38:00.005-04:00

Reviewer:*

There are several misuses of the word "their" when it should be "he/she"

Response to Reviewer:

We are aware of the ongoing debate regarding the grammar rules surrounding the use of singular “they.” As is noted in the Chicago Manual of Style:

"On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he in reference to no one in particular). On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers."

We feel more strongly about avoiding the "nontraditional gimmick" of he/she than we do about avoiding singular they, since the latter is the common spoken English and literary solution to the problem of not having an epicene singular pronoun.

As such, we have not made any changes. However, we recognize that our use of singular they is not endorsed by the Chicago Manual of Style, and as such, will switch to the use of “one” or change all our discussion of a hypothetical “individual” to the plural “people” or "individuals" if the editor feels strongly about this issue.

Irony:

In the time it took to compose that, we could have just made the changes and been done with it. We probably won't put all that in our response to the reviewer, anyway. I mean, how would it look if we spent more time justifying our use of pronouns than we spent justifying our theoretical approach or some other more significant aspect of the paper?

*Note, this is not the reviewer who said our paper sucks. This is not even the same research. This reviewer actually did a bang-up job tearing apart our manuscript...with the minor exception of having the temerity to ask us to define schadenfreude. I still want to link to let me google that for you or to the Avenue Q song as my response. Instead, I put in a definition. Because everyone should have this word in their lexical repertoire.

Rejected. And a Fellowship.

2009-04-28T19:13:00.005-04:00

Witness the fickle nature of Academia:

First major news of the week:

I got a fellowship for next year. W00t! This is my second year in a row to land a fellowship. What an honor! How exiting! Okay, moving on...

Second major news of the week:

I got a paper rejected from a journal! Damnations! That makes five journals that have rejected various papers of mine! FIVE! And I'm not even out of grad school.

What particularly irks me about the manuscript rejection is that one reviewer thought the paper was good and it just needed a few tweaks. The second reviewer turned in a one-sentence review, with a note to the editor declaring their lack of confidence that the paper is publishable at all. Anywhere. The one line review, you ask? I won't reprint it here, but here's a paraphrase:

O hai, ur paper sux u should burn it and move on with ur life. kthxbai. kisses!

Bright side: FELLOWSHIP!!! And I do have an article coming out next month. Just got the proofs for it last week. It's very pretty. And the revisions on this newly rejected article won't take long (and the first author is actually taking care of those; I will just read it before it goes out), and off to its next rejection! I hear after you hit a certain number, you get a consolation prize from the discipline. A bottle of vodka would be nice.

Breakdown:

Article Success: 2/5, or .40
Grant & Fellowship Success: 7/9, or .78

Perhaps my future is in grant writing...

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

2009-04-19T09:54:00.005-04:00

I will be teaching Social Problems this fall. As such, I've already started reading my feeds with a new eye toward the subject. I've never taught Social Problems, so I figure I should get started now on the prep so that I'm not overwhelmed in the fall (after all, I still have that pesky dissertation to finish).

In short, there's a good chance you're going to be hearing a lot about social problems and course prep on this blog for the next few months.

To begin, I give you The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net. This video is of a 50 minute lecture given by distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren, who teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. According to the YouTube description, "she is an outspoken critic of America's credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class."

I first discovered this woman on Boing Boing, which posted her interview with Jon Stewart. It was funny, engaging, and informative. And someone in the comments linked to this lecture of hers (which starts at about 6:20):

Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures" [6/2007] [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 12620]

This lecture is an excellent resource. It touches on the family, the economy, debt, healthcare, education - in fact, I could see having the class just watch the entire thing.

In it, she discusses the changes that have come about since women entered the workforce. She also discusses how these changes are not quite what people are often saying. Married couples are, as expected, bringing home more money (inflation-adjusted) now that there are two incomes. However, whereas before men's income was steadily rising, now it has stagnated. All the new income is from women entering the workforce. This makes sense to me; there's a limited supply of jobs, workforce has doubled. But even though traditional families are bringing home more, their savings are substantially less, they are spending more, and are largely in debt. Why?

Interestingly, it is not because of greater consumption. Spending on clothes, food, car maintenance, appliances, and many other things have decreased. There have been some minor increases (dog food, electronics), but not enough to account for the extreme drop into debt. What has increased? Mainly mortgages (+74%) and healthcare (+74%). But not because houses are bigger or we are less healthy. We're in the same size house (+ 1 bath or bed but not both), getting the same healthcare, just spending more to have it. Also there are increases for cars (now we need two), childcare (someone needs to watch the kids), and taxes.

Bottom line: the modern, prototypical 2-income family has less money after fixed expenses than the 1-income family of 30 years ago. We now almost have to have two incomes to keep up, let alone break even. Now imagine what it's like for single parents.

And she has more interesting things to say about healthcare and education. This is definitely worth the 50 minutes to watch. And do stick around for her 3-pt conclusion.

How NOT to Make Fun of Ann Coulter

2009-04-16T17:41:00.005-04:00

Today I'd like to talk about a very interesting shitstorm over at BitchPhD.

Recently, BitchPhD posted an email she received from her boyfriend. In this email, m4w ads, teabagging, Ann Coulter, and transgenderedness were all intertwined an a way that was meant to be funny, but instead was inflammatory.

If you haven't read it, go do so and come back. I'll wait.

So, I remember reading the email and not being offended, but also not really getting the last bit. Now I will grudgingly admit here that I can be a bit dense when it comes to jokes. The teabagging stuff struck me as funny; the making fun of Ann by alluding to her 'mannishness' wasn't. I didn't get it, mainly because:

(a) I never really thought Ann Coulter looked like a man in drag. Apparently this is a common belief, though. And now that I look more closely, I do kinda see it.
(b) I didn't realize she prized herself on her beauty. Though I happen to think she's an attractive female. And by the way, when did taking pride of your appearance become cause for derision?
(c) I don't immediately giggle upon hearing the term 'pre-op trans' or think nonnormative gender displays are gross. Although apparently the term 'pre-op trans' is now uncouth since it implies that surgery is inevitable/desirable for all transexuals.

The thing is, all three of these preconditions must be met in order to find the joke funny. And now, I'm not even sure about the teabagging stuff. I found it funny because I thought it was making fun of the conservatives who had no idea what sort of double entendre they were citing. Not because I thought teabagging was inherently demeaning or gross, as Bitch and a few others argue is the source of the humor (found in the comments of her follow-up post, in which she attempts to apologize/rationalize/explain).

I am reminded of Jay Smooth's 'No Homo', and was pleased to see at least one commenter link to it.

So in the second post , BitchPhd responds to what sounded like a wave of criticism. This inspired me to meander on over and check out the comments on the inflammatory first post. And really, I was impressed (mostly).

I was impressed that so damn many of these commenters, who CLEARLY hate Ann Coulter, bothered to speak up and take offense at the way in which Bitch & her boyfriend were trying to demean her. Mostly it was along the lines of 'it's okay to make fun of her, but let's not do it for things she has no control over (strong jaw line, whatever else makes her look like a man in drag), and let's not do it by using non-standard gender performances as an insult'. So, yeah, the standing up for Coulter was mostly about the way in which she was insulted, but it was still nice to see people stand up for someone they hate. The comments were (largely) constructive and regulated. Now, there were a few flamers who responded by painting her boyfriend and her with an evil brush and completely writing them off as worthless humans (completely uncalled for) or somehow made the quizzical logic leap that their enjoyment of offensive humor was clearly because of their non-normative relationship arrangement (really, people???). However, these commenters did not clog nor derail the main thrust of the thread.

In the followup post, Bitch explains that she hoped people would get past the offensive parts to see the merit of the rest of the joke. They didn't. The lesson here seems to be that once someone is offended by something you say, whatever else that may have been good or funny in your message is completely lost, either because people's ability to receive information is clouded by their anger, or because they've discounted the messenger as a reliable source. Or both.

But I also wanted to share the most important things I learned from the comments:

I have learned two new words to use when I am angry with someone. For example, I can call them a nipple, or simply [pejorative]. I like these, as I've never been comfortable insulting people by referring to them as sexual organs (sex is good, right? I like dicks and cunts!). Although I will always have a special place in my heart for the use of gonad as an insult. It just has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Teh Gays are Coming!

2009-04-10T08:00:00.002-04:00

And they've already taken Iowa and Vermont. Who's next. Who, I ask you??? Because according to this video...well I don't really understand this video. However, after applying my Amazing Deductive Skills, I have concluded that they are trying to warn me that if Teh Gays get the right to marry, I WILL HAVE TO MARRY A FEMALE. I will have no choice.

But I'm left with more questions. For instance, can I keep my husband, too? I've grown kinda attached to him. And do I at least get to pick the female? Also, do I get to help pick my husband's new husband? Or are we assigned new spouses through some lottery system or government matchmaking agency?

Answers, people! I need answers!

[via Boing Boing]

Is Hiring Help Patriotic?

2009-04-09T11:08:00.004-04:00

I've always had mixed feelings about employing hired help (e.g., housekeepers, gardeners, nannies, etc.). Purely theoretical feelings, mind you; I've never had the money to employ help. In fact, the year I spent at home, I babysat.

The standard argument against hiring household help is that by doing so you're exploiting the labor of those in the lower class (usually minority women) in order to advance your own lifestyle and goals. And I've always wondered, but how are we helping them by not hiring them? In fact, if someone's livelihood is based on cleaning houses, wouldn't it actually hurt them if nobody with the means would hire them? And because of that, the 'don't hire help because it only perpetuates existing sytems of inequality (class, race, AND gender, oh my!)' has struck me as...insufficient. Can't find the word I want here. Ineffective? Myopic? Arrogant? Misguided? Insular?

But I had never considered that the opposite might be patriotic, as was argued by Pamela Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, in the New York Times article, "Be a Patriot, Hire a Housekeeper". Michelle Slatalla presents the conversation as thus:

“Right now, the bad economy is hurting people who clean houses for a living much more than it’s hurting the middle class,” she said. “So anybody who is solidly in the middle class or above should hire the cleaners back. Absolutely. Immediately. You’ll be serving your country.”

I stopped to consider this argument, which sounded, frankly, like the exact opposite of the old conventional wisdom.

“I used to feel guilty about hiring housecleaners,” I said. “Like I was selfishly relying on the hard labor of poorly paid workers to make it easier to pursue my own career without sacrificing my comfort.”

Forget that claptrap, said Professor Smock, who pays $110 for housecleaning twice a month.

“If I got a raise, I’d do it every week, and also hire the cleaning lady’s husband to install the underground sprinklers,” she said. “Right now, people need jobs. It’s a bad idea to cut back on things you used to do normally. Don’t do your own hedging. Don’t start mowing, either.”

I recently paid $275 to have a dangling limb removed by my tree. I didn't haggle, and I like to tell myself that, despite what seemed like a steep price, I paid it without argument because it is quite likely these people make much less money than my husband and me, and we should spread the wealth. But then, I never haggle with laborers or artists. It just feels like being selfish with my money when the other person doesn't deserve that.

But I never equated that with patriotism. I think that whether you would consider helping others who need the money to be an act of patriotism depends on your most salient ingroup memberships. I don't look out at these people and think first that they are fellow Americans (and really, in some parts of the country hired help is often not done by Americans). I look out and see fellow humans (yes I will briefly admit to my own humanity here, but I'll deny it later if you ask). If I were to hire help and think of it as helping give jobs to those who otherwise wouldn't have one, I would categorize it as a humanitarian act. Because the ingroup of 'American' is not salient for me. If I were highly religious, I'd probably think of it as a Christian act (or whatever religion I were).

But I do agree with the main point of the story: hiring help can be a good thing. Yes, the fact that most help is a minority of some sort really makes salient the fact that our social class distribution aligns far too closely with racial distributions.

This reminds me of Gellner's talk of the Blues in Nations and Nationalism. If most members of the lower classes are also easily recognizable due to, say, skin color (blue in this case), then "the association of blueness with low position will have created a prejudice against blues" (p 68). This is where we get the original argument against hiring help. But it's a slippery slope toward saying that, well, maybe we should just hire White help, in order to break this stereotype.

We could take this analysis further and talk about what Lewis Coser would contribute to this discussion, but I think I'll leave that for some other enterprising blogger.

[via Contexts Crawler]

Google Takeover

2009-04-01T09:41:00.006-04:00

ALERT: CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity) has taken over Google. First, they developed her for their awesome new Autopilot feature. But CADIE has been developing a plan of her own, as can be seen in her blog and her YouTube channel:

Run for the hills. The hills, I say!!!

The Pandas are Coming.