Surreptitious Opinionation

http://marnanel.org/joule?user=cheerfulchaotic&mode=chart

A racial profile of my “friends list” goes something like:

white, white, white, white, philipino, white, white, white, indian, white, white, white, white, taiwanese, white, white, white, etc.

So, vast majority white americans, with a scattering of asian americans, and at least one foreign-born, foreign-resident guy (who lived in the US for awhile, and has a US born & bred life partner), hi

Nope, nope, no echo chamber here. Not that this is in anyway surprising.

Last night on the bus from National-I-mean-Dulles to the metro, there was a large (7-15) group of black folks at the back of the bus having a party loud enough for everyone on the bus to enjoy. The reason this sticks in my mind is that right before the stop I got off at, their conversation had taken a turn for the morality of sex.

Dude #1: Man, you going to hell! You had sex in a church! In a church, man!
Dude #2: I only did it once!
…
Dude #2: Yeah, but them faggots, they’re going straight to hell!

(The … was a lapse in my memory of or attention to their conversation, not in their continuous banter).

The going to hell for sex in a church thing was eyerolling material for me. The scapegoating of homos to draw attention away from his own socially disapproved behavior was chilling. I started thinking about how every minority needs someone to look down on, so that they can assure themselves that, even if they can’t convince themselves they’re at the top of the heap, they’re not at the bottom. Poor sots. And I immediately noticed that I had fallen into the same trap. Not that I have any real notion as to what the “right” response is.

As an interesting sidenote, let’s talk about blacks and disruptive behavior on public transportation. If you ever doubt that a town has racial minorities in it, ride the bus. Not an express bus, just a bus. The correlation between the poor and the black is marked, and obvious, particularly there. Public transportation also brings a bunch of people with annoying habits. Conversation through shouting, continually singing, cranking their headphones up so loud that people sitting nearby get to share in their musical experience, whether or not they share musical tastes. Disproportionately, in my observation, the people with the annoying habits have been black. They’re a tiny minority of transit riders, and also a distinct minority of black transit riders. Of the truly rare occasion that someone tells one of these disruptive people to shut up, turn down the music, or drop the volume, it’s usually another black transit rider. I’ve also seen some spectacular examples of obnoxious white people on transit (no examples come to mind of obnoxious other-racial-group transit riders). What’s my point here? I’m not sure. I used to regard it as racism to take note of another person’s skin color, let alone correlate that with anything. I don’t feel that way anymore (I wonder if I have any black folks reading this blog. Ah the echo chamber). I do wonder if I’m just documenting my own biases.

A couple days ago, at a bus-stop in downtown minneapolis, we had a black continual rapper at the bus stop. His sense of rhythtm and key were good. He didn’t seem to be wearing headphones as I recall. It still irked me. Another black guy walked up to me, shaking his head, giving exhasperated looks at our bus stop musician. He started up conversation with me, based on the “some people’s children” theme. I was game, nothing better to do, after all. And three sentences into it, he asked if I had a dollar. I said no, and wished him luck, and he immediately left. I’m a bit surprised that I was surprised by his request, but I was, and there you have it.

I also remember once while living in berkeley, taking BART back from SF, wearing a tie, and a nice shirt (probably wrinkled, but this is me we’re talking about). Two black guys, one loud and aggressive, got on in downtown sf. I pretended to sleep in my seat, while he belittled and mocked me (he called me “exec” most frequently). When I got up to get off at the downtown oakland station for a transfer, loud, obnoxious guy jumped up, and yelled something like “you ain’t pushing us to the back of the line no more” then barreled on past me and through the door.

I don’t think I’m prejudiced, in the direct definition of the term. I don’t prejudge based on race. But it seems to me that African Americans show a higher incidence of flaming assholes than most other American subcultures. Or maybe it’s poverty. I dunno. But I don’t think pretending it doesn’t exist helps anything.

Some people are under the impression that I’m smart. I’m not quite sure how they got this notion, but I have a counter example

I decided I was going to fly into national, and it wasn’t worth checking the other airports, so, when booking the flight or orbitz, I just used the airport code: IAD. I didn’t catch my error until I got to the airport this afternoon. Duh, whoops. Dulles isn’t so bad. They do have an affordable bus that takes you right to the L’Enfant metro station … if you don’t get off early at a different metro station which results in higher fares and longer travel times.

Still, I made it, I’m here. And will take time to formulate more coherent plans tomorrow, whilst my charming hosts, and are at work. =) Plan my schedule for the conference. Let my sister know I’m in town. Also plan my upcoming first week of classes. All good goals.

this is an awesome sounding job, if only I were remotely capable of filling the shoes:

Job description for eco-science department head type person

From slave_to_reason:
White light LEDs as economically reasonable tools of environmental conservation.
and
Ohio votes challenged in congress, hopefully this will lead a trend of democrats not rolling over and playing dead.

As part of my ongoing quest to take a decent/recent/sexay picture of myself, I decided to engage in a few experiments. First was to play with different lighting sources. It worked well when I took his photos (all his pics in that profile were taken by me, though he didn’t use any of my favorites (more clothed) from that photo shoot). I also decided to play with a jawline beard again like the ones knight_errant and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine pull off so well. And finally, I decided to try to spike my hair a bit with pomade (not answering my cell phone, using hair product, next thing you know, I’ll be wearing gap clothes and enrolling in a PhD EECS program 😉 So, I put on my second tightest shirt and went for it.

pre-commentary

Well, as if in answer to my donation conundrum, I got an email from one of my many email lists. It seems democracy for america is taking up the cause of donations for tsunami victims as well. DFA I trust (there’s a scary irrational statement to make, but also true). I realize they’re not doing the work directly themselves, but I trust them to channel it well. Plus I’m already on their thrice bedamned mailing list, so I can do it without getting on more.

The Edge asked a bunch of brainaics “What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?”. I recognized a few names from their list, in particular, Howard Gardner, Jared Diamond and Daniel Goleman. Moderately interesting stuff, but not all that.

I want to make a donation to some charity providing relief efforts for the tsunami, but there’s the homophobia factor for various orgs. And, the one recommendation I saw that specifically mentioned a non-anti-homo service provider recommended MSF, which naturally got me thinking of ‘s opinion of the organization. Indecision paralysis, what a lovely sensation. So, who would you recommend as a service provider worthy of my hard earned cash?