Links for Tuesday, 2/7/2012 February 7, 2012
The Whatever – The Business Case Against Karen Handel:
But it does once again bring into focus just so spectacularly blunderheaded this whole adventure by Susan G. Komen has been from a policy point of view, and this is something that Ms. Handel, as the VP of Public Policy, should have been on top of for her organization. Leaving out any direct issues of morality or politics (I know, I know, go with me for a minute here), what’s basically happened is that on account of $700,000 worth of grants, the Susan G. Komen Foundation in just one week wrecked a billion-dollar brand identity that took decades to develop. Solely from the point of view of policy and brand strategy, it’s impressive in an entirely horrifying way. While I fully believe the Komen folks have brought this on themselves (“oh, no one will mind if we withdraw our support for Planned Parenthood if we reverse engineer this totally obvious excuse to do so!”), my business mind cringes in sympathy for them.
Comment: It’s always fun to read Scalzi’s commentary on virtually anything he gets all ranty about, because he does it in this sort of super-explainy father-knows-best manner that reminds me of my Dad. I think I’d probably explode with happiness if he ever wrote a treatise on exactly why Rachel Ray should be dragged through flaming walls of rabid rattlesnakes.
Vice Magazine – I used to love Woody Harrelson, but now I think he’s a scumbag:
And that was it. Five minutes of uncomfortable laughter and lame responses quickly turned to questionable silence and flat-out disdain. I left the room, and seconds later he dashed out to go eat lunch. As I slid past his publicists to exit the building, Woody attempted to save face by saying, "Good luck with everything." But at that point it made no difference. Perhaps he truly meant to wish me well and he felt sorry for being such a creep behind closed doors, but still it wasn’t enough for me to forgive him for being so rude just because he couldn't wait to wrap his mouth around some "raw food."
Comment: This is the interview that happened literally a few minutes RIGHT after Woody’s cringingly awful fail-shaped AMA on Reddit. It includes not only the Interview of Awkward, but an account of Hollywood spokes-creatures and scuttling handlers experiencing full on battle-grade flail-ure.
Radical Hateloss – Skinny Fat:
Health & Fitness has nothing to do with being thin, and contrary to popular belief neither does in have much to do with being fat. It is the idea that thin= healthy and Fat=unhealthy that keeps women’s minds and bodies in perpetual suffering. It shouldn’t matter what we look like. It should matter HOW WE FEEL physically and emotionally. My healthy- looks different than your healthy. Until we can accept that fact, we are stuck feeling not good enough, not being able to love our bodies and instead resenting them.
How easy is it for you to take care of something you resent?
Comment: As a fat dude, while I can understand and appreciate that so much of the necessary backlash against unhealthy body attitudes and politics is focused around women for the reason that this is where most of the emotional shelling takes place, I can safely say that this crosses all genders.
Carlos Miller, an accredited photojournalist covering the Occupy Miami eviction, was arrested by Miami-Dade police, who deleted several videos from his camera before they returned it to him. Miller recovered some of the deleted files and has posted them to YouTube. They support his version of the events of that night, in which he was subject to arbitrary arrest. The deletion of a journalist's arrest-video seems a move calculated to obscure guilt on the part of the police.
Comment: I am reminded of Transmetropolitan, where one of the police had an EMP in the cruiser, set off with the express purpose of erasing all recording devices in the vicinity.
SFist - Fictitious Marilyn Monroe Film Used To Shoot Down Prop. 8:
While the pundits, legal analysts, and holders of J.D.s pore over the 128 pages of text in the Ninth Circuit Court's decision this morning, we bring you our very favorite arguments for ruling Prop 8. unconstitutional. Presented by the Judges of the Ninth Circuit, in their own pop-culture referencing words:
Had Marilyn Monroe's film been called How to Register a Domestic Partnership with a Millionaire, it would not have conveyed the same meaning as did her famous movie, even though the underlying drama for same-sex couples is no different.
Herald News – Muslim: Quip led to terror probe:
On Jan. 21, 2011, Allami sent a text message to colleagues urging them to "blow away" the competition at a trade show in New York City.
According to his lawsuit, he was arrested without warning by police three days later and detained for over a day while his house was searched. During his detention, a team of police officers allegedly conducted an "intrusive" four-hour search.
"The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff’s wife that her husband was a terrorist," the filing reads.
"The treatment of the plaintiff and his wife was cavalier, illegal, aggressive, accusatory, and in violation of their most fundamental rights."
Allami, who was 40 when he was arrested, says he has no links to terrorist organizations or the Islamic movement and that police acted without any evidence or research. He has never been charged in the affair. A search of Quebec’s courthouse database finds no other references to him, either.
Franklin Veaux - Why We're All Idiots: Credulity, Framing, and the Entrenchment Effect:
If you're afraid of socialism, then arguments about health reform won't affect you. It won't matter to you that health care reform is actually health insurance reform, or that the supposed "liberal" health care reform law was actually mostly written by Republicans (many of the health insurance reforms in the Federal package are modeled on similar laws written by none other than Mitt Romney; the provisions expanding health coverage for children were written by Republican senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah); and the expansion of the Medicare drug program were written by Republican Representative Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois)), or that it's about as Socialist as Goldman-Sachs (the law does not nationalize hospitals, make doctors into government employees, or in any other way socialize the health care infrastructure). You will see this information, you will think about the things that originally led you to see the Republican health-insurance reform law as "socialized Obamacare," and you'll remember your emotional reaction while you do it. Same goes for just about any argument with an emotional component--gun control, abortion, you name it.This is why folks on both sides of the political divide think of one another as "idiots." That person who opposes nuclear power? Obviously an idiot; only an idiot could so blindly ignore hard, solid evidence about the safety of nuclear power compared to any other form of power generation. Those people who hate Obamacare? Clearly they're morons; how else could they so easily hang onto such nonsense as to think it was written by Democrats with the purpose of socializing medicine?
Clever framing allows us to be led to beliefs that we would otherwise not hold; once there, the entrenchment effect keeps us there. In that way, we are all idiots. Yes, even me. And you.