And I bet you are too. At least, if you’re like me (or the majority of whites), you have a moderate preference for Whites over Blacks. (Find out for yourself.)

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures your timed response to images of white and black faces (that is if you take the race bias test) and positive and negative words (e.g “joyous” and “despair”). By comparing your response times, the test purportedly measures the “strength” of your implicit bias towards one race, gender, age group, etc. It does this by seeing how strongly paired a certain classification (say race) is to the positive and negative words. The more closely linked a certain classification (for me, whites) is to the positive words, the lower your response time, and the more you have an implicit perference for that classfication. And the less closely linked a certain classification (for me, blacks) is to the positive words, the higher your response time, and the more you have an implicit bias against that classfication. It’s implicit because the test-taker does not consciously know of or admit to having a bias; rather the bias only shows up when measured in this way.

The IAT has been take by millions on the Net, and the results are interesting, though not necessarily surprising. 88% of whites and 48% of blacks have an implicit pr0-white, anti-black bias; 83% of heterosexuals have an implicit pro-straight anti-gay bias.

Big deal. So I have an implicit bias. That doesn’t mean that it affects my actual behavior, my opinions, my political beliefs. My higher cognitive ability–my considered judgments–override these primative, knee-jerk reaction, don’t they? Maybe not.

There’s evidence that implicit biases can predict actual biases in making “considered decisions.” For example, political conservatives, on average, show higher levels of bias against gays, blacks, and Arabs than do political liberals (don’t even ask about the gay black Arabs). In turn, biases against blacks and Arabs predict policy perferences regarding affirmative action and racial profiling. And in one study, participants with an implicit anti-Hispanic bias recommended longer sentences for a Mexican assailant in a fictional crime than those without an implicit anti-Hispanic bias.

This is bad news for me, because I like to believe the racial or gender discrimination is is not a real barrier to social or economic mobility in modern American society, always using myself as an example. Of course, the lefties are all over this like the righties were with the Bell Curve. And at least one legal scholar is already arguing that that these studies support the need for affirmative action, not to redress past harms but to make up for present discrimnation.

But this isn’t the only fancy legal argument regarding affirmative action that’s on the table….

Check out what Lauren Kronmiller got me for my birthday… a 1981 Playboy. She also took me out for the evening and helped me pick up 8 girls who are all under 20.

It’s filled with hilarious ads for the Subaru Hill-Holder and cigarettes with 1/3 less tar. Oh yeah, and naked women!

im drunk

An unlikely find in today’s Washington Post was fashion writer Robin Givhan’s thoughtful and hilarious critique of Dick Cheney’s less-than-formal attire to the ceremony marking 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in Poland.

The vice president … was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower. [Cheney was wearing an olive parka embroidered with his name, a knit ski cap embroidered with the words "Staff 2001," and thick, brown, lace-up hiking boots (no embroidering reported).] It reminded one of the way in which children’s clothes are inscribed with their names before they are sent away to camp. And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.

His wife, Lynne, was seated next to him. Her coat has a hood, too, and it is essentially a parka. But it is black and did not appear to be functioning as either a name tag or a billboard. One wonders if at some point the vice president turned to his wife, took in her attire and asked himself why they seemed to be dressed for two entirely different events.

As if guys didn’t have enough to worry about, now there’s the rise of misandry.

Misandry? Yeah. I didn’t know either that there was a word denoting the hatred of men. But apparently it’s gaining acceptance as the new norm in popular culture.

I first noticed it when Slate thankfully pointed out the trend in family sitcoms, pairing beer-gutted, scraggly-bearded, selfish and impulsive men with “extremely attractive women, often clad in plunging tops and tight jeans suitable for a Maxim photo spread,” as husband and wife. And I have to admit, if you look at some of these unlikely couples, you can see just how incongruous the pairings are (check these out for example: here and here). But rather than perpetuating the male fantasy of “living the gluttonous, irresponsible, self-absorbed life of an infant and basking in the unconditional love of a good-looking woman,” the article suggests women look at these shows differently. “In portraying husbands as lousy parents, marginal breadwinners, and repellant sexual partners, the fat-husband sitcoms ” speak to the resentment of wives and females more generally: “Yes, I’m supercompetent and I even look great, despite all the crap I have to deal with, and, yes, that’s my husband over there, the fat, useless one scratching his nuts.”

Ouch. But it gets worse.

Today’s New York Times points out that commercials are increasingly portarying men as “buffoons, ogling cars and women; … likened to dogs, especially in beer and pizza ads; and bungl[ing at] every possible household task.” While this may seem like political correctness run amuck, the trend actually has some worried. One psychologist asks, “How do boys form a healthy identity if they are constantly exposed to anti-male stereotypes?” And there are even men concerned enough to actually organize groups, the National Mens’ Rights Congress and the Society for the Prevention of Misandry in the Media for example, to fight it.

I’ve always been thankful that I was born a male. Let’s face it. It’s harder to be a non-male in a male-oriented, male-dominated world. So I don’t think I’m too worried about the rise of misandry. I’ll take some thoughtless ribbing on behalf of my sex anyday.

Hey folks,

I just watched Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise which is a pretty good indie flick from 1983. What’s cool, though, is that the car the characters borrow to drive around the east coast is a 1965 Dodge Coronet, precisely the car I used to listen to Master P in during High School and College. I wasn’t sure until an IMDB trivia item confirmed my suspicions. Damn I wish I still had that ride but I’m pretty sure if I drove it around up here it would slide into one of the lakes before too long.

Call me a Silly Billy if you will, but I just could not resist posting this little tart my mom sent me–

> DEAR ABBY,
> My husband has a long record of money problems. He runs
> up huge credit card bills and at the end of the month, if I
> try to pay them off, he shouts at me, saying I am stealing
> his money. He says pay the minimum and let our kids
> worry about the rest, but already we can hardly keep up
> with the interest. Also he has been so arrogant and
> abusive toward our neighbors that most of them no longer
> speak to us. The few that do are an odd bunch, to whom
> he has been giving a lot of expensive gifts, running up our
> bills even more. Also, he has gotten religious in a big way,
> although I don’t quite understand it. One week he hangs
> out with Catholics and the next with people who say the
> Pope is the Anti-Christ. And now he has been going to the
> gym an awful lot and is into wearing uniforms and
> cowboy outfits, and I hate to think what that means.
> Finally, the last straw. He’s demanding that before
> anyone can be in the same room with him, they must
> sign a loyalty oath. It’s just so horribly creepy!
> Can you help?
> Signed, Lost in DC
>
> Dear Lost:
> Stop whining, Laura. You can divorce the jerk any time
> you want. The rest of us are stuck with him for four
> more years!

My ls-ultimate.com email account won’t accept my password. Joel or Ben, do you know what’s up? I’m expecting important emails today, but I can’t get to them!

Joel, what is your new emaili address?

I am sitting in front of my new PowerBook G4 12inch and loving it. Except I can’t connect to our wireless network, so I’m poaching f/m the neighbors.

Mohsen, I want your apartment.

I will review the PowerBook maybe later.

My abbreviated review of the Ted Leo Rx show.

1. Opening bands were terrible. Don’t remember their names.
2. Ted Leo was good. Great guitarist and political commentary lyracist. I would recommend getting both of the albums.
3. People would would like it: folks who like a harder version of Ben Folds. Sly wit but focused on politics.
4. Venue rocked. If you ever get a chance to see a show at the Magic Stick in Detroit, do it. It’s half pool tables and other half concert bar. Especially great b/c you can play pool while waiting for the headliner if the opening acts suck.

Peace all.

NY Times story here.

I just discovered a band that you guys all probably knew about when this album came out during our senior year in high school. But in case you didn’t know about it I thought I’d give you a heads up. I was at the public library, saw Black Heart Procession’s 2, remembered hearing the name somewhere, decided to check it out, and haven’t taken it out of my CD player since. I’m not good at writing about music (but you should see me dance about archetecture sometime), so I’ll let a professional do it: “Imagine a black, marble staircase winding up to an esoteric temple. The sky around you is the color of blood mixed with Balsamic vinegar. The moon is yellow, and hangs low on the horizon while Eastern European bats streak low over your head. The sound of dragging chains can be heard in what must be the dungeon below. Despite all of this gloom and terror, you must go inside, romance demands it.” Well maybe nobody’s good at writing about music, but if you still want more, it got reviewed well here and here.

Addendum: After looking at my post I realized 4 things may or may not have been clear:

• 1) I didn’t mean that the album was well reviewed, but that it was well received by the reviewers.
• 2) The quote is from the allmusic review linked above.
• 3) The quoted metaphor is terrible, and the album is not gothic sounding.
• 4) I really, sincerely do like this album a lot.

Drunken, loud and privileged twentysomethings carrying each other piggyback down K Street after midnight? David Brooks got it so wrong. Try M Street in Georgetown.

After the Constitution Ball and the Commander in Chief Ball, after all the official black-tie parties wound down around midnight on Inauguration Day, members of a young Republican crowd scarcely old enough to remember the Reagan years were still looking for excitement….

At …Smith Point [a Georgetown bar frequented by the Bush twins since their arrival to Washington], these refugees in cummerbunds and gowns shimmied to a D.J. playing the Beastie Boys and slurped vodka shots poured down an ice-sculpture luge….

It has become especially identified as a haven for a hip young Republican elite, including alumni of the Ivy Leagues and private Southern schools like Washington and Lee and Duke….

[One 29-year-old doctor abashedly admitted that what he liked about Smith Point was that] “you walk in and you know everybody. Everybody is about the same age bracket, fairly well educated, with good jobs .”

I wonder whether I would be as revolted by this story of a bar catering for the young, privileged, almost uniformly white, Republican elite, if I were (i) sympathetic to their party-line ideology, (ii) of the same socio-economic background, (iii) at ease with the materialism/hedonism-idealism incongruence in my life, ideology, and society. Probably not.

A drunk, depressed, and obese man (see picture - 2nd from left) stumbled into a new diet idea that will surely save thousands from depression and obesity. After telling his wife (see picture) that he needed some “alone time,” Jean-Luc Josuat took a bottle of whiskey and a lit torch and wandered into a cave on December 15th. Not suprisingly, he got lost. As the days went by, and with his life on the line, he survived on his body fat and whiskey. With the days still rolling by and his whiskey gone, he survived on the remnants of an abandoned mushroom farm - clay, rotten wood, and psychedelic mushrooms. It is common knowledge among town folk that the cave had been used to grow mushrooms. 35 days after Jean-Luc entered the cave, the town’s teachers went on strike and some students went mushroom hunting. The boys (see picture) noticed Jean-Luc’s jeep outside the cave entrance and called the police. 20 officers searched through the cave and found him, alive. The officer who was the first to spot him said “it was like seeing a mummy rising from the dead.” Jean-Luc lost 40 pounds. When his wife was asked “is he still depressed,” she said “no, and he can’t stop singing.” Jean-Luc says singing in the cave kept him sane.

TIE!

I only watched 4 movies last week due to the start of school and the beginning of my teaching duties. Unexpectedly, though, 2 of them happen to be (in my opinion) 2 of the best movies of the past two decades. I’ll start with In Good Company. The 80s brought us movies celebrating the business lifestyle and championing the unlikely rise to power of certain characters from the lowest ranks of the corporate structure. Paul Weitz (About a Boy) offers a stunning rebuttal to this view and an indictment of the corporate values that have rapidly taken hold in our globalized “democracy of the consumer”. In doing so, he also shows how hollow much of the rhetoric concerning the value of globalization to the average citizen indeed is. From my IR days, I’m familiar with some of the literature on globalization, but I was amazed that this work of art could synthesize the views and present a personal story of the winners and losers of the system to which we rapidly transition. If that doesn’t sell you, then you should know that the movie (though not the CD soundtrack) contains - not one - but two Shins songs, which seemed to be enough to propel Garden State to undeserved indy film gem status.
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I think David Brooks’ column today best describes what I dislike about DC and politics (if the two are even distinct):

If you want to understand America, I hope you were in Washington on Thursday. I hope you heard the high ideals of President Bush’s inaugural address, and also saw the stretch Hummer limos heading to the balls in the evening.

I hope you heard the president talk about freedom as “the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul,” and also saw the drunken, loud and privileged twentysomethings carrying each other piggyback down K Street after midnight.

What you saw in Washington that day is what you see in America so often - this weird intermingling of high ideals with gross materialism, the lofty and the vulgar cheek to cheek.

FOXNews anchor Bridgette Quinn was ready to do another cheery yet meaningless interview celebrating President Bush’s Inauguration. “Look at that gorgeous shot of the Whitehouse,” she began. Vanity Fair commentator Judy Bachrach had other plans. [Video here]

Bachrach quickly attacked the excessive lavishness of the 10 inaugural parties (costing $40 million in total) at a time when our troops in Iraq are “incapable of protecting themselves in their Humvees.” Unequipped with her usual FOXNews/GOP talking points, Quinn was unprepared to counter and asked for some mercy: “To be honest with you, I didn’t really want to argue politics with you this morning.” Eventually, Quinn was forced to abort: “I think we’ve given you more than your time to give us your point of view this morning.”

FOXNews. We brainwash. You brainwashed.

Good Cop:
President George Bush, Jan. 20th, 2005 (Inauguration Day), Inaugural Address:

“The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world….

This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own.”

Bad Cop:
Vice-President Dick Cheney, Jan. 20th, 2005 (Inauguration Day), on “Imus in the Morning”:

“If … the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had a significant nuclear capability… , the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.”

While Good Cop likes to speak in broad and idealistic language (therefore often lacking any meaningful content), Bad Cop is more blunt, more sobering. The message is Iran is next on America’s agenda of “forced liberation.”

This is one of the strangest things I’ve heard in a while. This NBA player was waived for animal abuse…

Comments from Brian Leiter on Bush’s inauguration speech. Leiter is the shit in the world of law and philosophy… the chairholder at UT-Austin law; editor for ‘Legal Theory’ joural (Oxford Press) and the ‘Routledge Philosophers’ book series; wrote ‘The Future for Philosophy’ (Oxford Press); he’s published 60 articles and published 6 books; and is the author of the ‘The Philosophical Gourmet - Philosophy Rankings’ and The Leiter Reports; and he’s in his 30s!

For his inauguration, George W. Bush essentially declared war on much of the world.  He did so, of course, without using that word; today’s sociopathic heads of state are well-tutored in the art of rhetoric.  Here are some relevant bits from today’s declaration of universal war, interspersed with a few observations and translations into unadorned language:

[I]t is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture [unless we are doing active business with them], with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world [a goal that will clearly require armed military interventions, given the number of tyrannies out there, and even discounting those we are presently doing business with]

This is not primarily the task of arms [though it is, admittedly, a task of arms], though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary….[including "defending" ourselves and them when there is no actual threat, as in Iraq]

The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it.  [Get ready for a lot more bloodshed!  And don't be wimpy about it!] America’s influence [read:  military might] is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed [who are not killed or slaughtered by the invading forces], America’s influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom’s cause.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s start a band. We’ll write songs about adolescent love, awkardness, heartbreak, and literature. You know, Belle & Sebastian-type stuff. We’ll definitely try to play off their geek-pop sound.

And aesthetics, that’s important for a band like ours. On our North American debut, I’ll wear a set of glasses so goofy, that either it’s a complete joke or I come off as the archetypal coffee-shop bookworm. The seriousness of my expression will let them know it’s the latter. And you, you wear that white beret you like wear on those crisp autumn days– when you take those long walks through the cementry alone, stopping only to jot down some impromptu poetry.

Props? Let’s see…. I know! You get one of those old looking camaras. You know, so it looks like you probably found rummaging through you’re parents old belongings, from when they were your age. And I’ll clutch this old teddy bear I found in the dumpster. The listners? They won’t know. It looks like I’ve had it since childhood and probably still cuddle with– when I’m watching the rain drop outside and feeling desparately lonely.

Great! Oh, what about songs? Most of our songs should be mellow, subdued, and mostly uninspired. You know how Belle & Sebastian have that out-of-time sound? Yeah, “Boy with the Arab Strap,” great track! Let’s take it one step further. We’ll write 60s-style doo wop ballads (”A Sister’s Social Agony”) that sound, well, like they were performed at our parents’ prom– in 1964. And where Belle & Sebastian manage to flirt with the teenage-geek rock without coming off as insincere, let’s just go ahead a exploit that puppy for all it’s worth.

In the end, we’ll end up with an ultimately mediocre album that’ll be critically acclaimed (here, here, and here), because with looks like these, we got to be half-way good, right? It won’t necessaily be a bad album– just unexceptional.

Underacheivers Please Try Harder? Great title! We’ll either be the biggest fakes in the world or a misunderstood group unfairly and invariably compared to Belle & Sebastian.