Category: No Politics Friday

Can it still be No Politics Friday if I give you two links about gerrymandering?
online pharmacy clomid best drugstore for you

It can if they're both links to puzzles.
buy prednisone online buy prednisone no prescription

Slate just put up a map/puzzle game challenging readers to put six states' "ridiculously gerrymandered congressional districts" back together against a timer. The average for all users is 10:30.
buy cytotec online buy cytotec no prescription

My best was 9:32. I bet someone with very little desire to do work on a Friday afternoon can beat that.

Slate's game reminded me of an old favorite that I still use in Intro classes: The Redistricting Game. Players are given different tasks – i.e., create districts in which the incumbent candidates will all have at least 55% support while maintaining equal population – that will pass the state legislature, governor's mansion, and courts. It's actually pretty difficult at first (on the "advanced" settings) but dammit if you can't get it done in a half hour or less. As I tell the kids, "If it takes you 30 minutes, it probably takes your legislators an hour because they're not as bright.
online pharmacy bactroban best drugstore for you

But an hour isn't much time."

Hey, no one is going to force you to think about gerrymandering, redistricting, or state legislatures on a Friday. However, you're two clicks closer to filling the dreaded 3:00-4:00 hour on Friday afternoon. And if all else fails, there's always minesweeper.

You know how much I love a sharp, pithy, and even rude negative review of something that really deserves it. Back in 2010 I did an NPF of a few of my favorite sick burns over the years: Matt Taibbi's review of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, Mencken's obituary of William Jennings Bryan, and the New York Times obituary of John C. Breckenridge during the Civil War. Recently I've come upon another.

In 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the U.S. with his family on a whirlwind 10-day tour ably chronicled in the excellent K Blows Top, which is rumored to be turned into a miniseries with Paul Giamatti as Nikita. While I can't summarize the entire crazy tale here, suffice it to say that President Eisenhower and much of the American establishment were eager to extend a polite welcome to the first Soviet or Russian leader to visit the U.S. since…ever. Given Khrushchev's thin skin and short temper, the trip planners went out of their way to discourage elected officials and ordinary Americans from attacking or insulting the quasi-dictator. Most people respected the wishes of the State Department and, while critical of Soviet policy, were welcoming to "K" and his family.

Dorothy Kilgallen, a celebrity gossip columnist syndicated throughout the Hearst newspaper empire, decided to critique the fashion choices of Khrushchev's wife Nina at length and with no concept of restraint. Part of Soviet ideology was that lavish clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, and the like were decadent symbols of capitalist imperialism, hence Soviet women tended to appear rather plain. Being older as well as the wife of a national figurehead, style was not #1 on Mrs. Khrushchev's list of priorities. Kilgallen took offense to the oversight, as her editorial showed. An excerpt:

Admittedly, (Mrs. Khrushchev) has shown, so far, no chinks in the armor of blatant Communist dowdiness. But she is female. It is hard to believe, deep beneath that facade, there is not a female yearning that would respond to a couple of hours in a sumptuous Gotham beauty salon. And lord knows how (stylists) must be yearning to get their hands on her. Her figure is hopeless but she has a sweet, sympathetic face with an attractive if not aristocratic turned-up nose when viewed in profile.

Wonders might be achieved if she would consent to experiment with eyebrow pencil, some powder to contradict the impression that she has just turned away from a session over a hot stove, and the modern miracle known as lipstick…(but) any woman who would travel thousands of miles to wear the same old dress two days in a row is not here to pick up pointers on fashion.

And then, the kill shot: "It would be difficult to find clothes comparable to hers in the waiting room of a New York agency for domestic help."

There is no note of which burn unit Mrs. Khrushchev was rushed to, but apparently she survived this third-degree scalding. In fact she survived much better than Dorothy Kilgallen. While Kilgallen was half of a celebrity power couple with actor and radio star Richard Kollmar, unfortunately they were both raging alcoholics, pill poppers, and serial philanderers. Kilgallen died at age 52 of the classic booze-barbiturate overdose in 1965. Dumpy old Nina Khrushchev died 19 years later, aged 84.

"I spit on your grave, capitalist shrew" were not her last words, but I like to pretend they were.

Given my level of hatred for the whole spectacle it's a minor miracle that this is the first time I've ever mentioned TED Talks on here. With people who know me In Real Life, TED Talks are widely understood as one of the topics one does not broach unless prepared to hear Ed go on a mini-rant. When people first started noticing TED videos, it struck me as well-intentioned albeit unbearably smug and cloying. I figured there were some videos worth seeing and a bunch of others that were not. But it was stunning how rapidly a handful of TED talks became hundreds and then thousands of TED talks. I thought, "There is no way that there are this many people in the world with something interesting to say." The numbers seemed to line up better with a different subgroup: wealthy people who achieve orgasm to the sound of their own voice. Preferably while it generates every meaningless buzzword the brain can produce.

The whole phenomenon got so big so fast – and then became so obviously full of shit to the majority of us – that I felt like the moment had passed; TED Talks became an easy target and I had little to add to the horse-beating that others had not already covered at great length. It has been amazing, however, to watch the TED "brand" mature and eventually become completely meaningless as every "entrepreneur", shill, and con man on the planet seemed to have done at least five of these goddamn things. It amazes me that hunger persists in the world, what with the 50 TED talks done every year that solve the problem.
buy ivermectin online buy ivermectin no prescription

TED is like a concentrated version of NPR – the richest, whitest, most self-congratulatory circle jerk of elites spewing breathless bullshit.
buy lasix online buy lasix no prescription

That is not to say that there are no good TED talks; that is to say that you'll probably never get to the good TED talks because you'll tire of wading through the garbage. Like NPR, it tries to appease its white-as-hell audience by injecting the kind of buzzwordy "diversity" that a white-as-hell audience wants to see ("Drawing inspiration from Kanye West and Adele, singer-songwriter Elle Varner writes about girl power and fun in an eclectic mix of hip-hop and soul.") Unlike NPR, they follow it immediately with another Business Casual asshole from the Wharton School yammering on about microlending.

And that, my friends, is what intrigues me enough to finally post about such an obvious target: the perfect synthesis of empty corporate-motivational speak, self-promoting assclowns with no accomplishments beyond drawing from a trust fund, and Diversity Mascots.
online pharmacy flagyl best drugstore for you

Oh, and occasionally they throw in a serious academic ("Philosopher S. Matthew Liao directs the bioethics program at NYU and has kicked off the discussion about bio-engineering humans to help combat climate change.") who has cynically figured out how to extract gobs of money from stupid people on the Silicon Valley "Thought Leader" circuit.

This has come to a head because, I kid you not, I know one of these people "performing" (if that is the correct word) at TED's NYC tryout camp. They don't call it that, but what else is it? It's an invite to spring training for people who may have what it takes to wander around Silicon Valley giving $50,000 dinner speeches to Google zillionaires. For the ease of storytelling, let's say my friend= is male. I won't be specific because, despite everything I am about to write, I like this person.

He and I were in the same social circle many years ago when I lived in Chicago – around 2000-2003. He is by anyone's account a bright, positive, ambitious, and outgoing guy. He is also, by equally unanimous account, an attention-desperate self promoter with no discernible skills or accomplishments beyond 1) indefatigable enthusiasm and 2) a trust fund. His professional accomplishments since we both departed Chicago consist entirely of having somehow managed to get his name and face on a large and random selection of media despite having no experience, training, or skills that would ostensibly qualify him to speak on any subject with authority.

In other words, despite being a positive and occasionally charming character, this is the absolute last person on the planet that should be classified as a "Thought Leader". As his thoughts consist mostly of "Hey look at me!
online pharmacy wellbutrin best drugstore for you

", I fail to see what TED is really about beyond providing therapy and faddish platitudes to the Valley's moneyed Steve Jobs cultists. It is not hard to believe people who tell me that there are some great TED talks out there, nor is it hard to believe that at this point the only real requirement to become one of these people is the ability to spout pedantic bullshit with enthusiasm for 12 minutes.

And that's when it hit me. Since the casting call for TED superstars appears to consist of "self-promote by blathering on for 10 minutes about how profound something stupid and anecdotal was," my old acquaintance might be just perfect for the job after all.

A few weeks ago a successful political scientist wrote a blog post about the four-plus years and multiple rejections it took to get a single paper published. Academic publishing is hard. If you are not a person who handles (constant) rejection and (incessant) criticism reasonably well, this is not the right profession for you. This post appears to have done a lot of good, though. Many of my peers have been genuinely surprised to see that even the "stars" of the profession struggle and deal with loads of rejection.
buy zoloft online blackmenheal.org/wp-content/languages/new/noprescription/zoloft-no-prescription.html no prescription

It is surprising only inasmuch as the successes are public and the failures are not (I'm something of an outlier in my willingness to talk openly about getting rejected). Social media distorts our perspective on how well others are doing. We show the world pictures of our friends, not the time we spend alone on the couch. We post pictures of our vacations, not of us dragging ourselves out of bed at sunrise to drag ourselves to work in the rain. And we post things like "Woo! Just got a paper accepted!" but tend not to tell the world when we've been shot down.

This brings me, however circuitously, to the point. Do we use social media mostly to brag? Probably. And I'm a-ok with that.

My social circle is mostly academics, marginally employed creative types, and other types of people who are generally served more lemons than lemonade by life. Despite what the collages of smiling pictures we post on Facebook suggest, things aren't always great. For all of the rejection we deal with, I have no problem whatsoever with my friends doing some electronic bragging. If it took you five tries and three years to get a paper published, you've goddamn well earned the most trivial of victory laps. I understand why some people think this is tacky, but in my view life deals us enough downers that we deal with privately to justify a little glory-basking when things go well.

Not too long ago, one of my many academic friends got tenure. He announced it to the world on Facebook. A different person sent me a message to the effect of, "Isn't his bragging the worst? What a tool." It's not wrong to assume that Ed, The Guy Who Hates Everything, would sympathize. But here's the thing: getting tenure occupies a full decade of a person's life from ABD to Associate Prof. For all of the nights/weekends that person stayed in working while others went out, for all the sleepless nights and rejection and stress, they have more than earned the right to say "Hey, I made it" even if it is fishing for pats on the back. I'm happy for him. I want to know when things go well for him. I'll gladly dole out some back-pats.

Yes, if you gloat obnoxiously about every conceivable thing that goes right in your life, you probably need to tone that down a bit. The rest of us reserve our right to slap you if it comes to that.
buy advair online blackmenheal.org/wp-content/languages/new/advair.html no prescription

But there's no need to be shy about it when things go well. We're adults here. We understand that the mundane and the miserable take up a large enough share of life; when good things do happen we need to embrace them.

Unless you happen to have a magically perfect life, you eat enough shitburgers to treat yourself to the occasional slice of cake.

A friend and ex-colleague was (and is) unusually obsessed with the 1989 Patrick Swayze work of art Road House. For the uninitiated, Road House is a movie about people punching each other. Swayze and Sam Elliott also take turns acting like hardasses.

One of the best things on the internet is this 11 minute compilation of every fight scene from the movie.

It had been about 15 years since I saw this film when I discovered it on Hulu Plus last week. For shits and/or giggles I played it in the background while I did some grading and other mindless professorial tasks. Road House, ladies and gentlemen, is just terrible. Yet I can see how someone would get obsessed with it (and force repeated viewings upon his poor wife, which will almost certainly be a factor in the divorce proceedings).

It is that lovable kind of terrible. It makes you want to like it by sheer force of its crapulence.

Alas, I don't think one can see a movie at the age of 34 and adopt it as a new Guilty Pleasure film; I am already set in my habits. Road House cannot be my Road House. In order to develop a lasting love affair with a movie that isn't even any good, one must be exposed to it as a child or adolescent (which I discovered when I watched The Princess Bride for the first time in my early thirties). One terrible movie I recall clearly from dozens of viewings as a child was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando. But it didn't age with me. I've tried to watch it maybe once in the last 20 years and holy balls it might be the worst movie ever made.

Also, adult viewings of Commando force me to confront the questionable parenting that resulted in me watching it a hundred times when I was like eight. My dad also took me to see RoboCop in the theater when I was nine. I'd buy that for a dollar.

So what is my Road House? The closest thing I can think of is Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls, which I have probably seen fifty times. It is terrible. It is terrible and I love it ("It's in the bone.

It's in the bone!")
I have plenty of other go-to movies, but they're mostly Good. At least they are not obviously and aggressively bad and I love them in spite of that. For bad action movies I guess I don't mind throwing on Predator while I'm folding laundry although it doesn't arouse any strong feelings in me.

What are yours? The ones you know damn well are terrible yet you watch them repeatedly? It might be time for me to explore some other options in the universe of the charmingly crappy.

Oh, and I'm serious about Commando. Awful. Just awful. It's Bennett. Look at that fucking guy. Truman Capote would be a more menacing villain.

The real NPF is on the way, but until then please enjoy the following:

1. A gentleman in Mississippi claims to have shot the Chupacabra. The local newspaper's coverage includes quotes like:

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reports the "Chupacabra" is a coyote with mange.

Locals, however, are not having any of it.
buy bactroban online buy bactroban no prescription

"I told him there ain't no way because, look at it," Hewharrell said.

I don't know how in the hell anyone can be a local newspaper reporter in Mississippi.

2. Rush Limbaugh wrote a history-adventure book for children. Only 102 shopping days until Christmas.

I couldn't decide which one of these would be more fun. In fact, I hate making decisions. You will accept both and like it.

1. Whether your experience on a college campus is as a student, faculty, or professional staff it's hard not to notice the, uh, social pecking order on campus. The business school always seems brand new.

The hard sciences are often (although certainly not always) ensconced in a glimmering brand new academic megaplex that becomes the focal point of marketing materials and tours for prospective students (not to mention Mom and Dad).

And then there are the humanities and social sciences, tucked away in buildings rich in "charm" and often described as "quaint." They might even be covered in ivy!

The ivy, of course, makes it harder to see all the cracks and water damage.
buy zithromax online pmilv.com/wp-content/languages/new/cheap/zithromax.html no prescription

There's an ascetic mindset among people in fields like English, as if they're not really learning or doing justice to the intellectual tradition if their surroundings are not sufficiently dilapidated. Personally, I find this type of charm overrated. I prefer bathrooms that do not smell like a rendering plant and ceilings that don't leak to ivy and hallowed-looking halls.

The site is not very far along yet – I'm hoping it picks up steam – but Classrooms of Shame highlights user-submitted pictures of some of the dingier environs to which the Not Economically Viable subjects are confined on most campuses. I have done the three-temps-in-one-office thing, but honestly I feel fortunate that I haven't experienced anything on the scale of these photos. Sound off in the comments if you have a good story about a terrible workspace you've been given; I know of one adjunct instructor who claimed to hold office hours in his parked car. He would have used the university library…except they wouldn't even give him a parking pass on the car-unfriendly campus. So he met students in the car and fed the meter a quarter every 30 minutes.

2. It's Burning Man once again, which means that for those of us whose heads are not completely buried up our own asses it's time to make fun of people at Burning Man again. This tumblr is doing an outstanding job. The stupid pictures are what we have come to expect, but the person behind this site is killing it with the captions:

Theodore Buckingsworth, a.k.a. “Slambucha,” describes himself as “the greenest playa on the playa.” When Teddy isn’t working as an installation specialist for Time Warner Cable or “turnin’ out fair-trade hoes,” he’s most likely in his “laboratory” crafting his debut album, aptly entitled “Fig Pimpin’.” Promising “the rhythmical intensity of Insane Clown Posse mixed with the philosophical lyrical prowess of Counting Crows,” he’ll be performing some of his original material in the United Western Juggalos tent at this year’s Burning Man festival. If you need a phat beat, some whip-its, or a frumpy, yet earthy escort for your adventures in Black Rock City, Teddy is your go-to guy.
buy amoxicillin online pmilv.com/wp-content/languages/new/cheap/amoxicillin.html no prescription

Whenever I see pictures of Burning Man I feel like Kurtz leaving a note for his killer in Apocalypse Now – "Drop the bomb; exterminate them all." The world isn't going to miss 10,000 graphic designers and an equal number of the permastoned and marginally employable white kids with dreads.