the Boss endorses Obama; disses Bittergate

Look if Bruce isn't bitter, than neither am I. Click the subject heading for link.

Not that this game is so far very impressive (it's not) but please note the 72 POINT WORD!

The word is Equal, with a Q placed a triple letter score, and an L on a triple word score. I mean, Damn. I wish I could say this were mine, but it's my friend David's word.

By the way, this is my current board on the Facebook Scrabble application. I just found out that Scrabble is claiming copyright infringement and insists Facebook remove it from their website. Hopefully they'll work this out, because this (and Oregon Trail) is the best thing Facebook has to offer, in my humble opinion.

Using the loo? Make sure you appear gender appropriate first.

Here's a story from Gender PAC, about a bouncer who entered a women's bathroom to force a woman to leave, based on her percieved identity. What gets me the most is the supposed acceptable presence of the bouncer, a man.

WASHINGTON (December 17, 2007) – 'Female' on your drivers' license is no guarantee against harassment and gender discrimination. That's what Khadijah Farmer, a 28-year-old African American lesbian, discovered this past summer when she tried to use the women's restroom at a landmark New York City restaurant.

On June 24, after attending the Gay Pride march in New York City, Farmer and friends went to dinner at the Caliente Cab Company, a Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village. Farmer says that while she was in a bathroom stall, a male bouncer entered the restroom and banged on the stall door, claiming someone had complained that a man was in the women's restroom.

Farmer described the bouncer's behavior as "hostile and aggressive," and says that even after she told him she was female and in the correct bathroom, he didn't leave. She exited the stall and offered to show him her ID as proof, but he refused, saying, "Your ID is neither here nor there."

Farmer and her friends were told to pay their tab, and escorted out of the restaurant before they could finish their meal.

“I shouldn’t be harassed when I’m just trying to do something everyone in the world does,” said Farmer in describing the incident. "I was thrown out of the restaurant because of who I am and how I look. It was humiliating."

Farmer has filed a lawsuit against Caliente Cab Company alleging illegal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender expression, as well as illegal sex stereotyping.

"This incident illustrates the discrimination that many women experience if they have short hair, are heavy-set, or wear clothing that is not strictly feminine," said Riki Wilchins, Executive Director of the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition. "Such a simple act as using a restroom can be stressful -- even dangerous. We need to get the gender police out of people’s daily lives."

Added Wilchins, "It's not that Ms. Farmer is too masculine in appearance. It's that the bouncer's idea of what a woman should look like is too narrow."

Feeling stressed at work? Talk to your cube mates!

In a study from Rochester Medical School, people with friendships at work suffer less - if at all - from job related stress. Translation? Make cubicle friends! Looks like all this time I've been actually raising my productivity levels. This from a Times health blog called Well:

The findings are especially important to employers and managers who sometimes view fraternizing by colleagues as a distraction that interferes with productivity. But Dr. Robertson Blackmore notes that because work friendships lower job stress and risk for major depression, employees who get along and support each other are likely to be more productive. Depression at work reduces employee productivity, increases disability and absences and may lead to premature retirement, the journal report notes.

That's right, let no cubicle go unsocialized! For the record, I live in an extremely healthy office. But now I wonder what multitasking does for stress and productivity.

Girls outpace boys? Something must be wrong.

I won't spend a lot of time on this, but I did wonder why - when girls outpace boys in every subject (read: math and science, that's what we care about here) do we question our unit of analysis? It's bad enough when this is dubbed a "boy crisis" when never before did we consider the opposite a crisis of girls test performance.

But alas, according to the Trib:

Girls gained the most ground last year, immediately after the state revamped the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. The state made the tests more colorful, gave pupils extra time to finish, added questions with longer reading passages and replaced state-created test items with those pulled from a national bank of questions.

People are now questioning the validity of the new tests, and the test creator even defended that the girl-centered results weren't intentional.

I guess it's all part of the vast conspiracy of radical feminists, finally inching ahead of the curve. Never mind that women outperform and out-graduate men in college, despite the persistent wage gap in men's favor across the country. But I digress.

p.s. Let's not even get into the funding linked testing process in the first place. When's that Presidential election again?

Congratulations Al Gore!

An Oscar is one thing, but the Nobel Peace Prize? Way to go, Al.

this post has no title but it's about those gaudy security cameras on the street

Here in Chicago some years ago the city began installing video cameras on "troubled" street corners. Look at the photo to the left and you will see one: bulky and gaudy complete with flashing blue light. We have one down the street and they had to turn it off so the people in the houses could see something other than blue strobe when trying to sleep. Needless to say, they give a whole new meaning to the term eyes of the street. Some like them, but others see this is as a 1984ish violation of neighborhood privacy.

I guess something about the cameras satisfies city officials, because yesterday's Red Eye* announced that we are hiring more cops and installing more cams in the next budget year. But just to be sensitive to camera complaints, the city is dumping the old model for a sleeker more compact version. According to the Trib, "some people complained they are too obtrusive." I'm not sure if the obtrusiveness was the old extravagant model or the fact that you are constantly on video tape, but regardless you can see the new model at the top of this post to the right.

The idea of Chicago security cameras is not new, but I bring it up to highlight Mayor Daley's new class-based defense of them. Forgive the syntax, it's a direct quote after all:

[Camera critics] underestimated people who live in this city people who have to deal with gangs guns and drugs on a daily basis," Daley said. "All wealthy people have cameras in all the high rises, suburban areas. ... Why can't the average person in the city of Chicago? Everyone wants a camera. They want to have a camera in front of every home, every block, because they feel much safer.

That's right -- it's an issue of inequality! Why can't we have security cams just like those rich suburban folk?! Nevermind that I'm not convinced cameras are a universal rich person's asset, much less the thought that I want to be like said rich person. Well perhaps these cameras help the city somehow, but I'd rather see data on how they do that. Wouldn't that be slightly more convincing?

*I don't read the Tribune, I read the Tribune sponsored Red Eye that you get free at the El stops. It's the abridged tabloid version of the news, and it's very easy to read the entire thing before chatting it up with your cube mates at work.

Where there's smoke... there's Water?

I have to say, if we're going to raise taxes then I prefer taxing bottled water to taxing cigarettes. I support both, especially since the latter seems the only way to get our government to renew the State Children's Health Insurance Program. I suppose punishing adult smokers makes sense, if in the interest of children's health.

However I'm not sure what to make of it considering nearly 33% of adults below the poverty level smoke. This becomes a class issue, taxing the poor for the poor, a mere redistribution of funds from the so-called undeserving adults to the deserving children. I'd love to see class based data about the folks who purchase bottled water.

And if taxing the rich is a poor argument, then what about those landfills? Need I mention the perils of plastic in our society once again? This is one case where water might actually be more dangerous than smoke.

When did OpEds become like Blog Entries?

I'm used to seeing hyperlinks in the New York Times. They usually take you to stock profiles or other NYT stories. But today browsing through the OpEds I notice a slew of hyperlinks - 29 to be exact - in the Frank Rich blog-post-I-mean-editorial. These links take you to news items, blogs, online zines, political satire sites, it's like an uber-entry, worth about 10 Daily Kos posts.

Should we consider adding the Times to our blogrolls?

Are African nations more American than us?

Via Jim Gibbon, according to the recently released Pew Global Attitudes Survey citizens of Turkey hold strongly unfavorable views about the United States. In fact, only nine percent of the Turks hold favorable views of us, in general, as a nation. This meshes fairly well with the overall conclusion that Muslim nations and much of the Middle East hold the least favorable views, compared to overwhelmingly favorable views held by African nations -- and outlier Israel.

Looking at the chart, however, I'm struck more by the top part of the graph than the bottom. The Ivory Coast loves the U.S., with 88% of its citizenry reporting favorable views. Next up, Kenya at 87%. Ghana and the U.S. are tie, with 80% of citizens holding us in high esteem. But wait! 18% of Americans report unfavorable views of the U.S., while only 11% of Ghanaians disapprove of us. That pushes Ghana above the U.S., placing us fourth among the 41 nations polled.

This sure raises a question about nationalism*. I mean, who's more American here? Further, this makes me wonder, How do citizens of the Ivory Coast, Kenya, or Ghana feel about their own nations? Hopefully they report over 88 percent favorability.

*not to mention colonialism but we can leave that alone for the moment

case studies in structure versus agency: The Doomed Biker

We've been making our way through Six Feet Under, and just finished Season Three*. If you're not familiar with this show about a family living in and running a funeral home, every episode begins with a death scene. This makes the frequent viewer perhaps more comfortable with death scenarios, possibly to the point of desensitization. When I read this article in today's Tribune, I felt like I was starting to watch another episode.

A tragically unfortunate event, a 42 year old man was struck by a train just outside of the Chicago suburbs. The headline reads, "Bicyclist listening to iPOD struck, killed by train." My first reaction before reading the article is that iPOD listening on bikes is akin to talking on your cell phone while driving, and this is one major lesson demonstrating why should not do it.

Then I read the article, especially this part:

The crossing has a wooden sign marking it, but the crossing does not have an audible signal or gates, police said. "He had the iPod on, so we're going on the assumption with no gate or lights there that he didn't hear or see the train coming," Kane County sheriff's police spokesman Patrick Gengler said. (emphasis added)

Obviously if you don't wear an iPOD than you are more likely to hear a train coming, but trains sometimes travel remarkably fast and something like an audible signal or even a gate would help tremendously. In fact, I believe the physical structural element of a gate even supersedes the audible signal in this case.

Nevertheless, this is an issue of blame-the-victim reporting if you ask me. But how can we fault the guy with the iPOD when this intersection didn't even have an audible signal in the first place? Probably this intersection will soon have one, and whatever responsible agency is surely embarrassed, but the reporting does little to assist in any productive change.

I'm just sayin is all.

*And so far no one has leaked anything about future episodes, so don't start now!

pigeon poop and bridge collapse: a link?

photo #111 out of 365 photos this year
Originally uploaded by andrew-rittle family

I only heard of this issue thanks to the following message I received over flickr:

Hi andrew-rittle family,

I am working on a story that one of our contributors posted about pigeons droppings possibly being blamed for the collapse of the Minnesota bridge a few weeks ago. (they contain a chemical that could have eroded the structure) and your image would be an ideal addition. We at NowPublic would very much appreciate its use, with proper attribution to you, of course.

I actually got this email closer to the event, but didn't bother to deal with it until now. Turns out that 14 other photos were chosen too. Read the story and view pics here. Here's another quote from the story itself:

Pigeon droppings contain ammonia and acids. If the droppings are not washed away, when it dries it turns to concentrated salt. When wet, the water, salt and ammonia combine to cause a reaction that can rust the steel in the bridge.

random thoughts on the issue

(1) Published? NowPublic appears to be a social news sharing website, where any member can publish a story. On top of that 15 pictures of pigeons and poop accompany the story, which is only three paragraphs long. Probably "published" here is used just as loosely as publishing a blog post, or any flickr picture to my account. Yet, it's pretty cool that someone chose to use my photo for a story - even if it's a throw away Picture of the Day of pigeon poop.

(2) Really interested or just an ad? I had to register for the website in order to "publish" my picture. Now I can add stories, comment on other stories, and even upload videos. Seems more like a gimmick to rouse interest in a website than anything else.

(3) Wow, is this really a possible reason for the bridge collapse? Nothing is confirmed, but Forbes, the AP, and The Guardian write about it too. I've always hurried under the El tracks bridge, pictured above, but now I have much more to be concerned about than being shat upon. Who knows when the entire thing will collapse?!

New Wonders of the World!

In other July 7 news, and again according to my brother, a new Seven Wonders of the World have been selected! Actually there are two new lists of wonders, one chosen from a panel of judges and the other chosen through an extended six year election process. Good Morning America unvieled the first:

				Wonder	Location
1				Potala Palace	Lhasa, Tibet
2				Old City of Jerusalem	Israel
3				Polar ice caps	Polar regions
4				Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument	Hawaii, United States
5				Internet	N/A
6				Mayan ruins	Yucatán Peninsula, Mesoamerica
7				Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara	Tanzania and Kenya

Viewers then complained, perhaps since it was a U.S. audience and nothing from the lower 48 was included. By viewer demand, the panel of judges added:

8

Grand Canyon

Arizona, United States

Maybe because we live in an American Idol age of phone-in votes and Internet polls, I'm more apt to believe the set of wonders chosen through the six year election process. In 2001 a Swiss organization chose 21 wonders out of an initial set of 200 existing monuments. By definition, this set will be different, since the Good Morning America version includes both natural and human-made structures. Nevertheless, voting results are in and the new Seven Wonders are:

Wonder	Builder
Great Wall of China	China
Petra	Jordan
Christ the Redeemer (statue)	Brazil
Machu Picchu	Peru
Chichen Itza	Mexico
Colosseum	Italy

Hmmm. What ever happened to the Great Pyramids? I guess they were voted off the island. For more complete lists, including medieval wonders of the world (like Stonehenge) and modern wonders of the world (like the Golden Gate Bridge), see my primary source for this post. Also check out the New 7 Wonders page, and nominate your favorite natural site for the upcoming election.

Great moments from Wikipedia: Jerry Falwell edition

Less important is why Sarah and I sit around at 11pm and discuss the Supreme Court. More apropos is the clip I just found, in bold.

Oh, and how about that Fred Phelps?! Read all about it at Pandagon or Dan Savage's blog.

Here's the Wiki entry:

The Appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor

On July 7 1981, President Reagan, who had pledged during the 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing the retiring Potter Stewart. (One of the more memorable moments from O'Connor's nomination process came when conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell said, "Every good Christian should oppose the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court;" O'Connor's fellow Arizona Republican, Barry Goldwater, retorted, "Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass.") O'Connor was confirmed by the Senate 99–0 on September 21 and took her seat September 25. In her first year on the Court, O'Connor received over sixty thousand letters from the public, more than any other justice in history. O'Connor was unprepared for the scrutiny that came with being the first woman on the Court, and was relieved when Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined her in 1993.

the squirrel and the airplane

In the same day, I took two pictures worth blogging about. So I'll combine them into one post.

Exhibit A: Squirrel eating McDonald's food


I think it's Fillet O Fish, in which case I understand if someone left the whole bag. Incidentally a McDonald's themed picture goes well with the great news of the win for the Immokalee produce pickers in Florida.

Exhibit B: Student Council hires airplane messaging system


If you click on the picture, you will read the banner: Run Your School, Run for USG. At first I thought this was targeted to some larger audience concerned with a unified student government, but then I realized the plane was circling about six university buildings on the main campus repeatedly all afternoon.

Not so incidentally, the only students I noticed looking up in the sky were the ones who saw me taking this picture.

Sociologists in the News: Bloggers!

The most recent Footnotes, the newsletter of the American Sociological Association, featured four blogging sociologists in an article about blogging. It's a great read, and I especially like it because it emphasizes the ordinariness of blogging. I've run into some sociologists that perceive blogging as an extraordinary social force that is able to jump start revolutions, or at least tip a congressional party once in a while. But, from what I've experienced, it's just another expression of something to do when I'm not doing other things that aren't blogging.

Oddly, as Jeremy Freese's Weblog mentions, they don't actually link to anyone. Nor do they do any sort of roundup of how many sociologist bloggers might be out there. I think it's at least in the dozens, if not the hundreds. But the article makes it appear that there are less than ten.

Read the article here. It's not long, I promise.

other sociologists in the news: Eszter Hargittai, Barry Glassner, Ken Johnson

Aldermanic Runoff Vote in April!

(click image for larger version)

Awesome News. Both the 49th (that's mine) and the 50th wards have incumbents that received under 50% of the vote. Congrats to the spirited campaigns of the other candidates, especially to Ginderske and Gordon. If I understand correctly, Gordon and Moore will now contend for the vote in April. This is one case where "Anyone but Moore" might actually work.

Click on the labels for more:

sociologists in the news: Ken Johnson

My statistics professor posted a challenge to our class last night: Find the stat that he is credited with in today's Tribune. The first student in the class to report back gets a free beer at the "statistics bar" that he always talks about. You know, the place where all manner of statisticians get together to mumble about causal recursive path models or something.

I've always wondered where this stats bar could be and who frequents it, so I got up bright and early to check the paper.

Here's the answer:

On an average night ...

1,111,174 people in the Chicago area have sex (note the even number).

Source: Loyola University Chicago sociology professor Kenneth M. Johnson, who crunched numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Johnson used specific parameters regarding age (18 and older) and domicile (no group homes, except for college dorms and military barracks).

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Most interesting is that this isn't even embedded in an article. The Tribune just gave him a special "statistics spotlight." I'm curious, though, as to the significance of the even number.

other sociologists in the news: Hargittai, Glassner

What really matters to Chicagoans this week

Even better than studying the top ten articles at the New York Times is the much more local "most viewed" news articles of the Chicago Tribune. Number three at the moment is about a missing wedding dress. That's right, a wedding dress was found in the suburbs and no one can figure out whose it is:

"It's kind of like a Cinderella story," Kolk said. "She's already worn the dress at the ball, now wouldn't she like it back?"

Maybe. But everyone seems to have a different theory.

Did the bride rush off to the airport for her honeymoon and somehow leave her gown behind? Was the wedding called off? What if she was jilted at the altar and tossed the dress out on purpose? Or was there a more tragic explanation?

"Oh, everybody's got their own ideas," Kolk said. "They're ranging from the bizarre to the sensible; we just don't know."

Glenview Police Cmdr. Phil Perlini said Tuesday that he was not aware of any reports filed about a missing dress.

I mean, what is this, Lake Wobegon, or do I still live in Chicago? Well we ChiTrib online readers can still save face: The number two post is Bears Fans Put Money On... Everything. Now that's more like the Chicago I grew up with.

10 Car Seats Fail Crash Test! (er, i mean, actually none of them did)

Here's why I don't pay attention to the baby fear culture. Last week I received an email with the subject heading that 10 out of 12 brands of car seats failed crash tests, and hence are no good. Here is the list from that email:

The Good
Baby Trend Flex-Loc Adjustable Back
Graco Snugride with EPS

The Bad
Chicco KeyFit
Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP
Compass I410
Evenflo Embrace
Britax Companion
Graco SafeSeat
Safety 1st Designer
Combi Centre ST
Evenflo Discovery
Eddie Bauer Comfort

You might notice that no one is exempt, except for Baby Trend. Today, Consumer Reports retracted the study, stating in part:

We appreciate that manufacturers and particularly NHTSA are engaging directly with us on this article, and we applaud NHTSA for giving serious consideration to development of side-impact child seat tests. Consumer Reports has long advocated adoption of such tests, since government data shows that side crashes account for a significant number of child fatalities.

The NHTSA is the National Highway and Transportation Administration. But notice they also say that manufacturers "are engaging directly with us on this article." Funny. I'll assume that Baby Trend kept mum.

More baby blogging: fruits and vegetables, sympathy pains, diaper choices, fear culture, gendering baby, advice giving, public transportation.