It’s Not Easy Being White
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on June 4, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Friday, June 4th, 2010I mean REALLY white. It’s hard to believe that in the 21st century, albinos remain an ostracized and oppressed minority.
 Model/actress Connie Chiu is one of the few that has turned her albinism into an asset |
I mean really white. As a white heterosexual male, you’d probably think I’d have it made when it comes the treatment I receive in our culture. Well, the problem is, I’m a little too white. That probably sounds silly to you, but although I’m not an actual albino, my lack of pigmentation has had a profound impact on my life, and led me to always identify more with just about any culture that isn’t “the American white”. Being hopelessly pale – much like being a “ginger“, an effeminate male, a masculine female, or a black, asian, or Muslim person (among countless other “minorities”) – sets you up for decades of being treated differently in America. If you’re pale, you’re assumed to be frail, introverted, and afraid of the sun and sports. All of which were quite the opposite of the truth for me. We like to think that in the 21st century, we treat people more or less the same, but the fact is, you’re probably more comfortable around “average” looking people than stunningly beautiful people, even if you’re stunningly beautiful yourself. And depending on your race and national origin, you probably have a profoundly different set of reactions to people other than “your own”. I can only begin to imagine what it feels like to be an albino; in spite of their rather insignificant actual differences, their visual appearance seems so dramatically different as to almost appear alien. And I’d bet that their relative rarity isn’t the only reason you probably don’t have any albino friends. Historically, albinic people have always been regarded as either evil or magical in some way, when in fact the only difference they possess is a simple lack of pigment and possible vision impairments. The results of this cultural bias can be downright horrifying; in African countries like Tanzania and Burundi there have been numerous witchcraft-related killings of albinos in recent years. Parts of their bodies are used in potions sold by witchdoctors. In Zimbabwe, belief that sex with an albinistic woman will cure a man of HIV has led to rapes and subsequent HIV infections. To learn more about Africa’s “tribe of ghosts”, see this Daily Mail piece. And if you want to offer aid to this very real problem – 53 children and adults with albinism have been killed since 2007 in East Africa alone – visit the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation’s web site.
How To Increase Productivity & Creativity? Be Crazy, Get Paid Less
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 29, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, May 29th, 2010To be creative it might help if you’re slightly insane, and strangely, financial reward can actually IMPEDE quality and productivity.
There are an amazing number of books and blogs offering advice on how to enhance creativity and improve productivity. Which has always struck me as rather amusing. In my opinion, if you find yourself systematically looking for ways to be creative, well, you probably aren’t. And although reviewing processes and refining or developing skills or knowledge are crucial keys to being productive, the real key to productivity is to (ahem) PRODUCE. Which is something you aren’t doing when you’re spending all day looking for ways to be more productive, right? So what’s the secret to being more creative? I’ve always been of the opinion that the most creative people I’ve known bordered on being case studies from the DSM-IV. And finally, science is backing me up. Yes, creativity is essentially a form of insanity. And frankly, if scientists were more creative, they would have realized this already, like I did. In an analagous fashion, one of the big keys to being productive and creating a successful new market is also akin to insanity, i.e.: Disruptive Innovation. Disruption is something that the creators of Skype understand well; in fact they’re funding more of it as you read this. And regarding productivity? Well, get to work. But if you need to make others get to work, you may find the concepts in this presentation by Dan Pink (also below) surprising. Being self-employed and not raised in the corporate culture, I’ve always found the number of “warm seats” at most larger companies perplexing. We needn’t go into all the theories about 20-70-10 workforces or whatever, it’s a common sense observation that large organizations inevitably end up with lots of moderately well-paid employees that produce very little in relation to their real potential. Pink’s presentation – which is based on information from top-notch academic studies – is an informative and entertaining look at the myth of “greater reward equals greater performance”. It turns out that if you want people to produce, simply paying them more can actually be counterproductive. Read the rest of this entry »
Why I’ll Probably Never Ask You To Marry Me
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 23, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010Oscar Wilde said that “Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence”. Me, I’m just waiting for Sandra Bullock to call.
  Some of us don’t have time for this crap. |
It was H.L. Mencken who said “Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?”, which may have something to do with my seemingly eternal unmarriedness. If – as I am – you’re over thirty-something and not married, there are two extreme poles that you may have gravitated toward. On the one hand, you may be forlorn and fill your evenings scouring Facebook for lost loves, and Match.com for new ones. On the other, you may be self-deluded into an ecstatic sort of glee with the freedoms you have, taking an irrational pride in your golf swing or bitchin’ pilates skills while you chuckle smugly at your grumpy married friends. I don’t meet too many people in between. Which seems to be one of the sad side effects of marriage in western culture. Thanks to decades of Disney and family television, many of us dream of a magical world in which you find romance and stability in the same partner, and in a very consumer-like fashion are eventually disappointed and return the product for a refund. But the fact is that our narrow perception of what marriage means is just that – a narrow perception. This Psychology today piece tidily rounds up the history of marriage in the west, and if you put the pieces together, it paints a pretty amusing picture wherein the wealthy historically got married for completely unromantic reasons and had all the real fun on the side, and then convinced the peasantry that marriage was sacred so they didn’t get too rowdy. Thank God we have such amazing technology at our fingertips these days, and may finally escape this con perpetrated for centuries by the ruling class. Yes, Facebook can predict who you’ll be dating next week, and mathematics can tell you when you’ll get divorced. If we can just find an algorithm for making the bit in between more fun, we’ll be all set. Me, I’ll get married if Sandra Bullock ever gets around to asking me, but for now, here are some quotes that sum up a lot of what I think about marriage… Read the rest of this entry »
MoHo: At Last, A Politically Correct Term For “White Trash”
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 17, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Monday, May 17th, 2010After extensive research and market testing, we came up with a term to give white trash their pride back: MoHo. Along the way, we discovered Dreadnecks, Pillbillies, and Whinorities.
 As you can see, a “dreadneck” is nearly indistinguishable from a “redneck” |
In our most recent piece on the white American subcultures referred to as Rednecks, Hillbillies and White Trash, we observed the fact that the latter of the three were the only ones that lacked pride in their culture, partly because of the fact that the very definition of their life is based on aspiration, but also in large part because of their moniker. We said we’d work on a nicer term than “white trash” to help them reclaim a little pride. Well, after extensive research and market testing, we think we have it, and the winner is… “MoHo”. It’s the perfect term, because – much like bobo or fauxhemian – it evokes urbanism, aspiration, and desperation all at the same time, but while handily including a contraction of “mobile home”, the cornerstone of MoHo culture. As you might guess, we kicked around a lot of other terms along the way, and were a little surprised that some of them were being used seriously. Especially disturbing was “pillbilly”. Partly because it was so commonly used, but mostly after watching one of them in action, smoking a prescription pill in a sort of chasing the dragon style. And although Urban Dictionary defines “whinority” in a racial way, I’m going to start using it to refer to any white person in America that complains their life is hard. See our short list of other terms we passed over below, and feel free to share any we haven’t covered. Read the rest of this entry »
Vampire Squids Causing American Brain Death Epidemic?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 5, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010Will the SEC’s investigation into Goldman Sachs finally help Americans pull their heads out of their asses and right some of the wrongs with the virulently corrupt banking and insurance industries? No.
Do you know what frightens me more than any terrorist ever could? The average American these days. They’re a scary bunch. Hostile, frustrated, and often either misled or just plain ignorant. And the scariest part? I think they actually mean well. I was reminded of this the other day as I took a train to Chicago. The passengers in the seats on both sides in front of me were pretty average married couples in their seventies. They had just met on the train, and as they started talking, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a strange queasiness. I usually tend to get along really well with most people of their generation, because I’m a bit of a cultural/moral Luddite myself; I think making money through the misfortune of others is bad, I think we should help each other out when needed, I have a practical level of materialism, and an old-fashioned work ethic. So what caused the queasiness I’m referring to? Well, the utter loss of hope for humanity any rational person might feel as a result of simply listening to their conversation. They started their dialog by agreeing how terrible it was that our president isn’t a US citizen. And then lamented that he had already destroyed the economy and the American way of life with his evil socialist agenda. I knew it would be an exercise in futility, so I didn’t bother asking them why the judicial system and congress and all of Washington was letting a known illegal alien run the country. I also didn’t ask them why, if the president was a socialist, he had so many bloodthirsty capitalists working at his side to prop up the biggest capitalist fraud in history and thereby Read the rest of this entry »