Category: General Discussion

The Washington Post had a fascinating article over the weekend entitled The Sacrifices of Albania’s ‘Sworn Virgins’. It turns out that in the rural and mountainous regions of Albania, there developed a custom several hundred years ago by which women could assume all the rights of men, but in return had to sear to never marry, never have children, and dress and act like men for the rest of their lives.

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Responding to a commentor on a thread about animal rights, I again encountered this funny view of nature that some people have. Two sentences in particular just struck me as being out of touch with reality.

The alternative may be to try to live in harmony with nature.

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Trying to dominate nature has only caused suffering. There are alternatives.

Where do people get this idea that nature is our friend? Hippies drive me nuts. Not only is this just totally unrealistic, but I think it also reflects a fundamental ignorance of biology, history, and the basic infrastructure of our society. I’m of the Monty Burns school of nature.

“Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favour? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and she wants to quit because she’s losing? Well, I say hard cheese!”

Nature is not our friend, nor have we advanced our species by living in harmony with it. We have survived, and tacked decades onto our lives by bending nature to our will. Nature is trying to kill us. All the time. Bacteria, and parasites and viruses oh my, they’re out to get us. We’re not buddy-buddy with nature, we’re in competition with it for our very survival, all the time. Further there is this nonsense that messing with nature is somehow a bad thing, or frequently unsuccessful. This view can only be held by people who seem to have forgotten all the progress we’ve made in the last couple of millennia.
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For all the encomia made by banking industry lobbyists to the value of the “free flow of information,” one finds examples where the industry restricts information sharing when it benefits them.

Capital One was one of the worst offenders. It’s complex, but the company was restricting information flow in such a way that it lowered cardholders’ credit scores. How? Capital One reported cardholders’ balances, not their credit limit. This practice makes a cardholder appear to have maxed out their credit card. Why? Because if your credit score is lower, it will be harder to get other credit cards. It’s an anticompetitive tactic.

Kenneth R. Harney of the Washington Post explains the problem very clearly, and reports that Capital One has finally ended this practice. And they blamed it on privacy:

Over the years, Capital One has brushed off criticism that it was needlessly harming its customers by withholding their account limits from the credit bureaus. Equally bad, said some consumer groups, Capital One never disclosed the practice to its customers. Although industry critics said Capital One’s purpose was to hide its good customers from competitors searching credit-bureau files for attractive FICO scores, the company said it was protecting customers’ privacy.

If you have a Capital One card, consider canceling it in light of this terrible behavior. Need a new credit card? Be sure to use Consumer Action’s 2007 Credit Card Survey to find the best card with the lowest fees and rates.

In the bogus legal claims department, one finds this blub from Consumerist. What’s the deal here? A pretty aggressive consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, created model menu for Wendy’s that demonstrates how the “restaurant” can display calorie information. It’s pretty clear, and very useful.

Of course, Wendy’s hates this stuff. And their lawyers at Akin Gump are arguing that the sample menu is a misuse of Wendy’s trademark. Sorry Wendy’s and Akin Gump, generally speaking, trademark is a type of consumer protection intended to help consumers distinguish between brands. There’s no brand confusion here!

And check out all the calories in those Starbucks drinks. Ouch!

Jesse McKinley reports in the Times:

It was a good day for the Devil in San Francisco on Tuesday, as the Taxicab Commission voted to keep the Dark Lord’s favorite number — 666 — affixed to an allegedly cursed cab.

The vote, which came after an amused period of public comment and annoyed looks from the commissioners, extended the satanic reign of Taxi No. 666, which is driven by one Michael Byrne (pronounced burn).

Mr. Byrne, who did not appear at the hearing on Tuesday night and was not reachable for comment, had lobbied — out of superstition — to have his medallion number changed, and had found an ally in Jordanna Thigpen, deputy director of the Taxicab Commission.

In a memorandum distributed last week, Ms. Thigpen wrote that Mr. Byrne believed the number to be responsible for a series of calamities he had endured in a streak of bad luck that had led him to have his taxi blessed at a local church, to no apparent avail.

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Seth Stevenson over at Slate describes all 12 types of ads in the world and urges us to resist them all:

To me, the 12 formats serve…well as a weapon of defense for the consumer under assault from endless advertising messages. It’s like learning how a magic trick works: Once the secret’s revealed, the trick loses all its power.

Hat tip: Consumerist.

Steven Novella at Neurologica has written a thoughtful essay on where the limits of academic freedom should lie in light of the firing of Ward Churchill based on allegations of plagiarism and research falsification. Of course, many believe that calling 9/11 victims “little Eichmanns” might have had something to do with it as well.

Novella considers the current standards for protection of academic speech and brings up a good point. Academic freedom is not meant to protect professors from the consequences of lying and incompetence.

The purpose of tenure is to protect academics from being fired because of their political views or the nature of their research or other academic pursuits. Originally it was designed to protect them from influences outside the university – namely trustees or donors who would try to use their money or influence to block or fire academics they didn’t like or disagreed with. However, it was never intended to protect professors from discipline from their colleagues within the university. Such discipline is necessary to maintain standards, which every institution has a right, and some even a duty, to do.
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At present the guiding principles state that a tenured professor can be removed for, “professional incompetence, neglect of duty, insubordination, conviction of a felony or any offense involving moral turpitude… or sexual harassment or other conduct which falls below minimum standards of professional integrity.”

This is a good point, and one that the denialists and cranks of the world hate, and that is “standards”. Novella makes an excellent case for the ability of universities to deny tenure, or remove professors for the teaching of baloney:
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Gene Sperling in the WaPo points out that holding the NIH budget flat is like a cutting our budgets as inflation forces budget cutbacks. He forgets to mention the wasted expense of the NIH roadmap and the significant portion of the intramural budget devoted to security, but otherwise he’s dead-on. The steady ramping of funding led to a lot of people being trained, and the sudden cut-off has led to a lot of people abandoning science.

And I don’t usually link Kos, but seeing this quote from Bill Kristol:

There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.

I couldn’t resist. Now, Bill Kristol has not been correct about anything for about a decade now. One wonders two things. Why does anyone persist and asking him his opinions? And second, is there a name for someone who predicts the future and always gets it wrong? I’m thinking a reverse of Cassandra – the myth being she could predict the future but was cursed in that no one would listen to her. Kristol is the exact opposite. He is incapable of accurately predicting the future but for some reason people listen to him. Maybe we can call it a Krissandra? And Anti-Cassandra? Or is there another mythical person that applies?

I know that my earlier post on Gen Y kids was a bit bogus. There are huge generalizations and no real data in the argument. But I’m going to stir the pot more by posting portions of an earlier column by Jeffrey Zaslow on Generation Y that has a bit more anecdote and information about how the business community is dealing with younger workers:

…as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Bosses, professors and mates are feeling the need to lavish praise on young adults, particularly twentysomethings, or else see them wither under an unfamiliar compliment deficit.

Employers are dishing out kudos to workers for little more than showing up. Corporations including Lands’ End and Bank of America are hiring consultants to teach managers how to compliment employees using email, prize packages and public displays of appreciation. The 1,000-employee Scooter Store Inc., a power-wheelchair and scooter firm in New Braunfels, Texas, has a staff “celebrations assistant” whose job it is to throw confetti — 25 pounds a week — at employees. She also passes out 100 to 500 celebratory helium balloons a week. The Container Store Inc. estimates that one of its 4,000 employees receives praise every 20 seconds, through such efforts as its “Celebration Voice Mailboxes.”

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America’s praise fixation has economic, labor and social ramifications. Adults who were overpraised as children are apt to be narcissistic at work and in personal relationships, says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. Narcissists aren’t good at basking in other people’s glory, which makes for problematic marriages and work relationships, she says.

Her research suggests that young adults today are more self-centered than previous generations. For a multiuniversity study released this year, 16,475 college students took the standardized narcissistic personality inventory, responding to such statements as “I think I am a special person.” Students’ scores have risen steadily since the test was first offered in 1982. The average college student in 2006 was 30% more narcissistic than the average student in 1982.

I’d love to post this entire article; it’s worth a read. There are specific examples of company policies to improve intergenerational communication. But let’s leave it at this:

In the end, ego-stroking may feel good, but it doesn’t lead to happiness, says Prof. Twenge, the narcissism researcher, who has written a book titled “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable than Ever Before.” She would like to declare a moratorium on “meaningless, baseless praise,” which often starts in nursery school. She is unimpressed with self-esteem preschool ditties, such as the one set to the tune of “Frere Jacques”: “I am special/ I am special/ Look at me… “

Ha!

The Wall Street Journal continues its campaign against Generation Y with an article by Jeff Zaslow that tries to explain why so many young people act with such a sense of entitlement. It pins the blame on, among other things, California, indulgent parenting, and consumer culture. But I suspect that the culprit is the last one listed: the self-esteem movement.

The self-esteem movement. In 1986, California created a state task force on self-esteem. Schools nationwide later adopted “everybody’s a winner” philosophies. One teacher told me that her superiors advised her to tell students that she liked their smiles, or the way they sat up straight, rather than focusing on, say, their failed spelling tests.

Yes, it’s important for kids to like themselves. But many readers long for some balance. One California woman wrote that her grandchildren are being raised on “self-esteem babble.” This year, her grandson wanted to play trumpet in the school talent show, but hardly practiced. Every note he played was wrong, yet he thought he was “awesome.”

For what it’s worth, I have noticed that some younger students absolutely cannot take criticism of their work (not Berkeley students, of course!). They look at you like you’re crazy when a critique is given, and at some level, you can sense that they are so shocked by criticism that they simply don’t listen. I’m worried about them, because when their mediocrity is displayed before a judge, they are going to be yelled at. I, at least, give them constructive criticism, in a private environment that’s tempered with some praise…

Zaslow reports that some institutions are trying to deal with this:

Some colleges are also combating young people’s sense of entitlement. At Loyola University Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, Mary Burns teaches a course modeled after her book “Entitled to What? A Reality Check for the Generation Entering Corporate America.”

A reality check is needed. If society at large accepts this mediocrity, it could corrupt our culture.