New IU study: 'How' often is more important than 'why' when describing breakups - ""It wasn't until after I had collected many breakup stories that I realized my students had told me something quite revealing that would come up time and time again. ... American undergraduates focus on the 'how' of a breakup when describing their breakups, not the 'why' or the 'who,'"... "The medium used for the conversation mattered enough to be almost always mentioned," Gershon said. "People would invariably mark when a different medium was used, explaining when communication shifted from voicemail to texting to Facebook and then to phone." Her results differ from other ethnographic research done elsewhere, such as in Japan and Britain, where the story often focuses on justifying why the relationship had to end. Character was the emphasis overseas, not the method... In many cases, the young people Gershon interviewed were looking for validation that it had been a bad breakup and the medium was crucial evidence."
Hey Danish tourists, stop pissing on our roads! : Shanghaiist - "How very dare they! Don't they know that only locals are allowed to piss and shit in public?!"
Your Instagram photos may be hurting the feelings of the Chinese people - "some Chinese users feel "upset and betrayed" when she'd post photos "they thought didn't represent China in a good way." Users especially objected to her focus on hutongs, while they make for beautifully gritty images of old China, the odd garbage man or demolished house seems a far cry from the lightning-paced modernization in downtown Beijing and Shanghai."
Parents in Singapore love extra tuition - "Madam Teo has signed her daughter up for tuition six days a week. The girl's classes start after school at 4pm and end at 9pm. But more than just time, Madam Teo has also invested a considerable amount in her daughter's tuition - $3,000 per month. Kiasu? She's not the only mother worried about her child's grades. Parents here collectively spend US$680 million (S$840 million) on tuition in a year, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) showed. The ADB report, quoting 2012 figures, said the amount spent on private supplementary tutoring has been on the rise and has doubled from just a decade ago. Close to one in two Singaporean parents spend on tuition for their children, MasterCard's latest survey on Consumer Purchasing Priorities - Education showed"
Gif's inventor says ignore dictionaries and say 'Jif' - "The OED told the BBC that it was beyond the software engineer's control to determine how the word should be said... The Gif Pronunciation Page has long catalogued evidence that Gif sounds like Jif. The site suggests the reason for this was to make it sound like a popular brand of American peanut butter - "one of the principal three programmer foods (the other two being Pepsi and nacho cheese Doritos)"."
'Ghost Tits': Olivia Munn Loses Her Cleavage In Horror Movie Parody From Paulilu Mixtape (VIDEO)
s/pores » Blog Archive » Imaginary Frontiers and Deferred Masculinity: Singapore Working Class Men in Batam > Terence Chong - "In light of their subordinated masculinities, working class men generally speak of two things when they travel to Batam for sex. Firstly, they talk of being pushed or squeezed from the metropolis... Secondly, they speak of seeking new spaces – both territorial and cultural – as necessary to regain their sense of self... It is Batam, an imaginary frontier away from the unforgiving metropolis, where the deferred masculinity of these working class Singaporean men can be articulated heteronormatively. In short, sex in Batam is “an escape into the fantasy of men-as-men and women-as-women, an uncomplicated distribution of roles which provide a refuge from life, because nobody has to step outside the prescribed exchanges and dialogues”... Dan’s feelings of friendship suggest that the sexual encounter, though premised on economic power, may be characterised by more than just “libidinal bonds”... The imaginary frontier has allowed the sexual encounter to develop into a more socially complex relationship where money purchases the opportunity for men like Dan to display certain traits like care and concern which may otherwise not be required from his emotionally-distant wife or busy teenage daughters... The imaginary frontier is thus a space for the men to play out certain emotional needs and familial desires while the sex worker may willingly subject herself to such male imaginations, either because of the rewards at stake, or because her own imagination of a caring, perhaps even lovelorn, boyfriend offers a comforting counterbalance to the uncertainties and dangers in her profession... Sex is part of a collective experience and cannot be simply isolated as an act of hegemonic masculinity or exploitation of women. Interestingly, Khairun’s ability to treat the girl to meals, drinks and cigarettes in Batam is a simultaneous reminder of his inability to do the same in Singapore"
How The Human Face Might Look In 100,000 Years - "Kwan based his predictions on what living environments might look like in the future, climate and technological advancements. One of the big changes will be a larger forehead, Kwan predicts – a feature that has already expanding since the 14th and 16th centuries. Scientists writing in the British Dental Journal have suggested that skull-measurement comparisons from that time show modern-day people have less prominent facial features but higher foreheads, and Kwan expects the human head to trend larger to accommodate a larger brain."
Photographer captures daily life inside the lonely legal brothels of rural Nevada - "What he saw was shockingly mundane. The sex trade raises moral and political hackles and evokes an emotional response in most Americans. But, McAndrews often captured women preparing for just another day of work."
The women don't at all look like what you'd expect them to
Egypt Islam Center Freezes Dialogue With Vatican - "The Islamic Research Council of the University of al-Azhar, the highest authority of Sunni Islam, is freezing dialogue with the Vatican in protest of Benedict XVI's defense of Christians in Egypt... Last week, Egypt recalled its ambassador to the Holy See, Lamia Aly Hamada Mekhemar. This came after the Pope on Jan. 9 and 10 referred to the Alexandria attack... Thursday's announcement of a dialogue-freeze from Al-Azhar follows a protest from the great imam there, Ahmad al-Tayyeb, who took the Holy Father's references as an "unacceptable intervention in Egypt's affairs"... al-Tayyeb will not be attending the Assisi interreligious meeting convoked by Benedict XVI for October. The Pope announced Jan. 1 that he would personally participate in the Assisi gathering, which marks the 25th anniversary of the first interreligious prayer for peace event held there by Pope John Paul II. "These meetings, ultimately, are not bringing any good to Muslims, and they don't do good to the East but only to the West," declared al-Tayyeb. "And in all the conferences in which we took part in the past, we said clearly that the West is not serious in its way of approaching the nature of Islamic civilization and the civilization of the Middle East and of Easterners." "We hold ourselves to our relationship with the Vatican, but we also have the right not to be in agreement with the Vatican," he added, "and we hope that Benedict XVI, as a religious who appeals for peace, will address a word to Muslims apologizing for the Crusades and acknowledging the richness that the Islamic civilization has contributed to European civilization.""
Islamophobia!
The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar criticises Pope Benedict double standards - ""I disagree with the pope's view, and I ask why did the pope not call for the protection of Muslims when they were subjected to killings in Iraq?" he said at a news conference. The Vatican immediately rejected the accusation, saying the head of the Roman Catholic Church had shown solidarity with the Coptic community as well as concern for the consequences of the violence for the Christian and Muslim population. "Therefore we cannot see how the pope's approach to bring everybody to accept non-violence can be considered meddling""
58 seconds of white people getting dunked on - YouTube - "An in-depth look at the United States' pursuit of isolationism in the early stages of World War I, though the footage has been slightly altered to look like a bunch of white guys getting clowned in the NBA."
BANNED Adam and Eve, the gay version - YouTube
Did men create menopause by chasing after younger women?
SYABM — Michael Legere: Do you even know what feminism... - "Michael Legere: Do you even know what feminism is?
Bernd Jendrissek: Sure, it’s that thing that when you are one, you can’t be Scottish, because no true Scotsman would be a feminist."
David Jones - Google+ - In The Netherlands a few days ago I thought of the… - "Richards apparently thought 2 guys at a conference were being inappropriate when they made a joke of the word 'dongle'. Perhaps this neo-prudery originates in 60s separatism; but the claim that very mild innuendo and joking is a no-no in the workplace just hasn't been my experience in any company I've worked at, anywhere, ever. And it seems the amusing dick jokes date back quite some way and really can be found everywhere. While I was hunting out the misericords in the cathedral I noticed these decorations on the choir stalls. Long-necked creatures on their haunches, obviously. Is anyone offended? I doubt it, if they notice. Are they inappropriate? Well, this is where we might not want to let humourless po-faced ideologues define what's appropriate. These choir stalls date from the 16th century and no member of the congregation has yet taken an axe to them and nobody's tweeted the Bishop demanding their removal"
Liz Hurley 'safety pin' dress voted the greatest dress
Prosthetic Fingers for Ex-Yakuza Members - "If you can get out of the yakuza alive and want to live a normal life, how can you avoid the stigma of missing fingers and all that they imply? Dr. Shintaro Hayashi's solution was to construct highly realistic prosthetic fingers"
Kinder crime: Why a traveler was busted because of a chocolate egg - "Marmite and Vegemite, Denmark
The preferred yeast-extract spreads of Britons and Aussies were banned in Denmark on the basis that Marmite and Vegemite are products that contain “enhanced vitamins.”"
British Tabloid Apologizes to Aliens for Linking Them to Scientology
Putting the cat in the caterwauling
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Elles nous emmerdent avec ses corps nus
- Ouvrez-moi, dit M.Jo, très doucement. Je ne vous toucherai pas, je ne ferai pas un pas, simplement je vous regarderai, ouvrez-moi.
Suzanne s'immobilisa et fixa la porte de la cabine obscure derrière laquelle se tenait M.Jo. Aucun homme ne l'avait vue vraiment nue, sauf Joseph qui montait quelques fois se laver les pieds au moment où elle prenait son bain. Mais comme ça n'avait jamais cessé de se produire depuis qu'ils étaient tout petits, ça ne pouvait pas compter. Suzanne se regarda bien, des pieds à la tête, regarda longuement ce que M.Jo lui demandait de regarder à son tour. Surprise, elle se mit à sourire sans répondre.
- Rien que le temps de vous voir, soupira M.Jo, Joseph et votre mère sont de l'autre côté. Je vous en supplie.
- Je ne veux pas, dit faiblement Suzanne.
- Pourquoi ? Pourquoi ma petite Suzanne ? J'ai tellement envie de vous voir, à force de rester près de vous toute la journée. Rien qu'une seconde.
Immobile, Suzanne attendait toujours de savoir s'il le fallait. Le refus était sorti d'elle machinalement. Ç'avait été non. D'abord, non, impérieusement. Mais M.Jo suppliait encore tandis que ce non lentement s'inversait et que Suzanne, inerte, emmurée, se laissait faire. Il avait très envie de la voir. Quand même c'était là l'envie d'un homme. Elle, elle était là aussi, bonne à être vue, et il n'y avait que la porte à ouvrir. Et aucun homme au monde n'avait ecore vu celle qui se tenait derrière cette porte. Ce n'était pas fait pour être caché mais au contraire pour être vu et faire son chemin de par le monde, le monde auquel appartenait quand même celui-là, ce M.Jo. Mais c'est lorsqu'elle fut sur le point d'ouvrir la porte de la cabine obscure pour que pénètre le regard de M.Jo et que la lumière se fasse enfin sur ce mystère, que M.Jo parla du phonographe.
- Demain vous aurez votre phonographe, dit M.Jo. Dès demain un magnifique Voix de son Maître. Ma petite Suzanne chérie, ouvrez une seconde et vous aurez votre phono.
C'est ainsi qu'au moment où elle allait ouvrir et se donner au monde, le monde la prostitua. La main sur le loquet, elle arrêta son geste.
- Vous êtes une ordure, dit-elle faiblement. Joseph a raison, une ordure.
Je vais lui cracher à la figure. Elle ouvrit et le crachat lui resta dans la bouche. Ce n'était pas la peine. C'était la déveine, ce M. Jo, la déveine, comme les barrages, le cheval qui crevait, ce n'était personne, seulement la déveine.
- Voilà, dit-elle, et je vous emmerde avec mon corps nu.
--- Un barrage contre le pacifique / Marguerite Duras
Suzanne s'immobilisa et fixa la porte de la cabine obscure derrière laquelle se tenait M.Jo. Aucun homme ne l'avait vue vraiment nue, sauf Joseph qui montait quelques fois se laver les pieds au moment où elle prenait son bain. Mais comme ça n'avait jamais cessé de se produire depuis qu'ils étaient tout petits, ça ne pouvait pas compter. Suzanne se regarda bien, des pieds à la tête, regarda longuement ce que M.Jo lui demandait de regarder à son tour. Surprise, elle se mit à sourire sans répondre.
- Rien que le temps de vous voir, soupira M.Jo, Joseph et votre mère sont de l'autre côté. Je vous en supplie.
- Je ne veux pas, dit faiblement Suzanne.
- Pourquoi ? Pourquoi ma petite Suzanne ? J'ai tellement envie de vous voir, à force de rester près de vous toute la journée. Rien qu'une seconde.
Immobile, Suzanne attendait toujours de savoir s'il le fallait. Le refus était sorti d'elle machinalement. Ç'avait été non. D'abord, non, impérieusement. Mais M.Jo suppliait encore tandis que ce non lentement s'inversait et que Suzanne, inerte, emmurée, se laissait faire. Il avait très envie de la voir. Quand même c'était là l'envie d'un homme. Elle, elle était là aussi, bonne à être vue, et il n'y avait que la porte à ouvrir. Et aucun homme au monde n'avait ecore vu celle qui se tenait derrière cette porte. Ce n'était pas fait pour être caché mais au contraire pour être vu et faire son chemin de par le monde, le monde auquel appartenait quand même celui-là, ce M.Jo. Mais c'est lorsqu'elle fut sur le point d'ouvrir la porte de la cabine obscure pour que pénètre le regard de M.Jo et que la lumière se fasse enfin sur ce mystère, que M.Jo parla du phonographe.
- Demain vous aurez votre phonographe, dit M.Jo. Dès demain un magnifique Voix de son Maître. Ma petite Suzanne chérie, ouvrez une seconde et vous aurez votre phono.
C'est ainsi qu'au moment où elle allait ouvrir et se donner au monde, le monde la prostitua. La main sur le loquet, elle arrêta son geste.
- Vous êtes une ordure, dit-elle faiblement. Joseph a raison, une ordure.
Je vais lui cracher à la figure. Elle ouvrit et le crachat lui resta dans la bouche. Ce n'était pas la peine. C'était la déveine, ce M. Jo, la déveine, comme les barrages, le cheval qui crevait, ce n'était personne, seulement la déveine.
- Voilà, dit-elle, et je vous emmerde avec mon corps nu.
--- Un barrage contre le pacifique / Marguerite Duras
Post ID: 6151200848670734962
Thursday, June 13, 2013
La pire séduction de l'histoire (The worst seduction in history)
(they come with English subtitles as well)
"Je vous aime, Suzanne. Je vous aimerai jusqu'à la fin de mes jours.
Tu as de beaux seins."
"Et mes jambes, comment sont-elles ?"
"Aussi très belles. Je t'aime"
--- Un barrage contre le pacifique (The Sea Wall), 2008
Monsieur Jo (Randal Douc) faille séduire Suzanne (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) dans sa voiture / Mr Jo fails to seduce Suzanne in his car
Post ID: 6237014714672646437
Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas
"Dans la sphère économique, un acte, une habitude, une institution, une loi n'engendrent pas seulement un effet, mais une série d'effets. De ces effets, le premier seul est immédiat; il se manifeste simultanément avec sa cause, on le voit. Les autres ne se déroulent que successivement, on ne les voit pas; heureux si on les prévoit.
Entre un mauvais et un bon Économiste, voici toute la différence: l'un s'en tient à l'effet visible; l'autre tient compte et de l'effet qu'on voit et de ceux qu'il faut prévoir.
Mais cette différence est énorme, car il arrive presque toujours que, lorsque la conséquence immédiate est favorable, les conséquences ultérieures sont funestes, et vice versa. — D'où il suit que le mauvais Économiste poursuit un petit bien actuel qui sera suivi d'un grand mal à venir, tandis que le vrai économiste poursuit un grand bien à venir, au risque d'une petit mal actuel.
Du reste, il en est ainsi en hygiène, en morale. Souvent, plus le premier fruit d'une habitude est doux, plus les autres sont amers. Témoin: la débauche, la paresse, la prodigalité. Lors donc qu'un homme, frappé de l'effet qu'on voit, n'a pas encore appris à discerner ceux qu'on ne voit pas, il s'abandonne à des habitudes funestes, non-seulement par penchant, mais par calcul.
Ceci explique l'évolution fatalement douloureuse de l'humanité. L'ignorance entoure son berceau; donc elle se détermine dans ses actes par leurs premières conséquences, les seules, à son origine, qu'elle puisse voir. Ce n'est qu'à la longue qu'elle apprend à tenir compte des autres. Deux maîtres, bien divers, lui enseignent cette leçon: l'Expérience et la Prévoyance. L'expérience régente efficacement mais brutalement. Elle nous instruit de tous les effets d'un acte en nous les faisant ressentir, et nous ne pouvons manquer de finir par savoir que le feu brûle, à force de nous brûler. À ce rude docteur, j'en voudrais, autant que possible, substituer un plus doux: la Prévoyance. C'est pourquoi je rechercherai les conséquences de quelques phénomènes économiques, opposant à celles qu'on voit celles qu'on ne voit pas."
--- Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas / Frédéric Bastiat
Entre un mauvais et un bon Économiste, voici toute la différence: l'un s'en tient à l'effet visible; l'autre tient compte et de l'effet qu'on voit et de ceux qu'il faut prévoir.
Mais cette différence est énorme, car il arrive presque toujours que, lorsque la conséquence immédiate est favorable, les conséquences ultérieures sont funestes, et vice versa. — D'où il suit que le mauvais Économiste poursuit un petit bien actuel qui sera suivi d'un grand mal à venir, tandis que le vrai économiste poursuit un grand bien à venir, au risque d'une petit mal actuel.
Du reste, il en est ainsi en hygiène, en morale. Souvent, plus le premier fruit d'une habitude est doux, plus les autres sont amers. Témoin: la débauche, la paresse, la prodigalité. Lors donc qu'un homme, frappé de l'effet qu'on voit, n'a pas encore appris à discerner ceux qu'on ne voit pas, il s'abandonne à des habitudes funestes, non-seulement par penchant, mais par calcul.
Ceci explique l'évolution fatalement douloureuse de l'humanité. L'ignorance entoure son berceau; donc elle se détermine dans ses actes par leurs premières conséquences, les seules, à son origine, qu'elle puisse voir. Ce n'est qu'à la longue qu'elle apprend à tenir compte des autres. Deux maîtres, bien divers, lui enseignent cette leçon: l'Expérience et la Prévoyance. L'expérience régente efficacement mais brutalement. Elle nous instruit de tous les effets d'un acte en nous les faisant ressentir, et nous ne pouvons manquer de finir par savoir que le feu brûle, à force de nous brûler. À ce rude docteur, j'en voudrais, autant que possible, substituer un plus doux: la Prévoyance. C'est pourquoi je rechercherai les conséquences de quelques phénomènes économiques, opposant à celles qu'on voit celles qu'on ne voit pas."
--- Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas / Frédéric Bastiat
Post ID: 1303982006380174923
Monday, June 10, 2013
Links - 10th June 2013
"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten." - Anonymous
***
Race The Dead - Singapore First 5k Zombie Obstacle Run
Dutch Question St. Nick's Sidekick - "Sinterklaas, the Dutch inspiration for Santa Claus, does things differently. He travels to the Netherlands by boat, not by flying reindeer. He lives in Spain, not the North Pole. He is white-bearded, but not necessarily fat or jolly. Perhaps of greatest importance to his clients, Sinterklaas always delivers three weeks early--on the eve of St. Nicholas, which this year is Sunday. These are among the many Christmas traditions here, but much more remarkable is that Sinterklaas is always accompanied by one or more dark-complexioned helpers known as Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter. Black Peter has for centuries terrified Dutch children as the ultimate boogeyman of nightmares and parental threats. He is Sinterklaas's dark alter ego, his enforcer and his bagman. If you have been a good child, Black Peter will give you goodies from his bag. If you have been a naughty child, Black Peter will put you in his sack and take you away--to Spain!... "People say, 'Why Black Peter?' I say, 'Why not Black Peter?' " said Marvin Tuur, 31, a bartender born in Suriname, the former Dutch colony in South America where the population is almost entirely black-skinned. Tuur said the Sinterklaas-Black Peter tradition is still very strong in Suriname. "A White Peter wouldn't work," he said. "What's scary about that?"
Miss Korea contestants reveal faces without makeup to prove NO plastic surgery used - "Just a few days ago when the photos of Miss Korea contestants stir controversy over the internet because of their similar look. And plastic surgery has been blamed for creating look-alike candidates. Soon after the 20 contestants who dress in normal attire and wear light makeup prove us that they are not the products of plastic surgery...but makeup and Photoshop"
Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo, Japan - "this veritable parasite safari will probably encourage you to cut back on your sushi intake. Although there isn't much English signage, you'll still get a kick out of the rows of formaldehyde-preserved critters, which are labelled with their Latin names (don't miss the 8.8m-long tapeworm!)"
Historical hipsters: Shakespeare and Elizabeth I get makeovers from modern artists
Can Singapore's hawker food heritage survive? - ""We have this culinary prejudice where we are willing to pay S$20 for a pasta carbonara but will complain when the price of a plate of Hokkien Mee [fried noodles] increases from S$3 to S$3.50. So we do need to place our own Singaporean heritage and hawker culture on a higher level." In other words, if Singaporeans want to continue eating the street food they love in the future, they may need to put their money where their mouth is - either by paying more, or changing their perceptions of the hawker industry."
Perfect Ice Cream Sandwich - How To - YouTube
Ten Types of Shitty Coworkers and How to Not Murder Them
11. The Passive-Aggressive sort who rages about everyone else
Sex-for-grades trial: Judge has harsh words for Tey - "Tey had also "played the lead role" in the two sexual encounters he had with Ms Ko, he said, and his "callousness" was evident as he had asked Ms Ko to "get rid of the baby", while claiming he had no money to pay for the abortion. As he caused her to lose her virginity and took a life through an abortion, Tey deserved a harsher sentence of three months each for those charges than the prosecution's suggestion of six to eight weeks per charge, he said. "The scourge of corruption, which causes untold misery and human suffering, must not be allowed to take root in our tertiary institutions," said the judge."
Apparently abortion and deflowering virgins are crimes in Singapore
Day of week of procedure and 30 day mortality for elective surgery: retrospective analysis of hospital episode statistics - "The adjusted odds of death were 44% and 82% higher, respectively, if the procedures were carried out on Friday (odds ratio 1.44, 95% confidence interval 1.39 to 1.50) or a weekend (1.82, 1.71 to 1.94) compared with Monday."
Why does France insist school pupils master philosophy? - "The purpose of the philosophy Bac is not to understand the history of human thought but to leap into the stream that is the actuality of human thought... one of the effects of having such an ideas-based vision of society, and elevating ideas to such heights, is that people actually start believing in them, and then maybe they start thinking the ideas are worth fighting for, or perhaps dying for, or perhaps even killing for. And then what? A few days ago, for example, a man shot himself dead in Notre Dame cathedral... In his last blog post he quoted Heidegger saying the last second of a man's life had as much significance as all that went before. Here was a man, arguably, who fell so in love with his own ideas that he decided to take his life. How very French."
1: Mos Espa | A Photographer Rediscovers The Crumbling Remains Of Tatooine
TV time 'does not breed badly behaved children' - "Spending hours watching TV or playing computer games each day does not harm young children's social development, say experts. The Medical Research Council (MRC) team who studied more than 11,000 primary school pupils says it is wrong to link bad behaviour to TV viewing. Although researchers found a small correlation between the two, they say other influences, such as parenting styles, most probably explain the link. But they still say "limit screen time". This cautionary advice is because spending lots of time in front of the TV every day might reduce how much time a child spends doing other important activities such as playing with friends and doing homework, they say."
Japanese Vending Machines "Used Panties" - YouTube - "Here is a quick vid of the vending machine corner not too far from my friends' apartments. Including the porno vending machines and one stocked with used panties. These are not fake!"
Despite noisy denials, they are real!
Classical music calms 'rowdy' Paris commuters - ""From now on, when our employees identify a group of young people that gives the impression of creating trouble, they can play classical music. Imagine, it works! Subjecting these persons to tunes they are not familiar with has the added benefit of making them flee," the statement added"
Are Associations Attitudes? - "I’d like to discuss the IAT (implicit association test) today; specifically, I’d like to address the matter of how well the racial IAT correlates (or rather, fails to correlate) with other measures of racial prejudice, and how we ought to interpret that result... Unfortunately, many psychological researchers and laypeople alike have taken a unwarranted conceptual leap: they assume that these differential association strengths imply implicit racist attitudes. This assumption happens to meet with an unfortunate snag, however, which is that these implicit associations tend to have very weak to no correlations with explicit measures of racial prejudice (even if the measures themselves, like the Modern Racism Scale, are of questionable validity to begin with). Indeed, as reviewed by Arkes & Tetlock (2004), whereas the vast majority of undergraduates tested manifest exceedingly low levels of “modern racism”, almost all of them display a stronger association between white faces and positivity. Faced with this lack of correlation, many people have gone on to make a second assumption to account for this lack, that assumption being that the implicit measure is able to tap some “truer” prejudiced attitude that the explicit measures are not as able to tease out... quicker associations between whites and positive concepts are capable of being generated by merely being aware of racial stereotypes, irrespective of whether one endorses them on any level, conscious or not. Indeed, even African American subjects were found to manifest pro-white biases in these tests. One could take those results as indicative of black subjects being implicit racist against their own ethnic group, though it would seem to make more sense to interpret those results in terms of the black subjects being aware of the stereotypes they did not endorse... the results of the IAT do not test whether there is a negative association towards any one group; just whether one group is rated more positively than another. While whites might have a stronger association with positive concepts than blacks, it does not follow that blacks have a negative association overall, nor that whites have a particularly positive one either. Both groups could be held in high or low regard overall, with one being slightly favored. In much the same way, I might enjoy eating both pizza and turkey sandwiches, but I would tend to enjoy eating pizza more. Since the IAT does not track whether these response time differentials are due to hostility, these results do not automatically seem to apply well to most definitions of prejudice. Finally, the authors make the (perhaps politically incorrect) point that noticing behavioral differences between groups – racial or otherwise – and altering behavior accordingly is not, de facto, evidence of an irrational racial biases; it could well represent the proper use of Bayesian inference, passing correspondence benchmarks for rational behavior... a final point worth considering is that this test measures the automaticity of activation; not necessarily the pattern of activation which will eventually obtain. While my immediate reaction towards a brownie within the first 200 milliseconds might be “eat that”, that doesn’t mean that I will eventually end up eating said brownie, nor would it make me implicitly opposed toward the idea of dieting. It would seem that, in spite of these implicit associations, society as a whole has been getting less overtly racist. The need for researchers to dig this deep to try and study racism could be taken as heartening, given that we, “now attempt to gauge prejudice not by what people do, or by what people say, but rather by millisecs of response facilitation of inhibition in implicit association paradigms”"
Even African Americans are racist!
Why Are They Called “Spoilers”? - "a hardcore Star Wars fan would probably not have enjoyed someone leaving the theater in 1980 blurting out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father; by comparison, someone who didn’t know anything about Star Wars probably wouldn’t have cared. In other words, the subjects likely have absolutely no emotional attachment to the stories they were reading and, as such, the information they were being given was not exactly a spoiler. If the authors weren’t studying what people would typically consider aversive spoilers in the first place, then their conclusions about spoilers more generally are misplaced. One of the other issues, as I hinted at before, is that the stories themselves were all rather short. It would take no more than a few minutes to read even the longest of them. This lack of investment of time could cause a major issue for the study"
***
Race The Dead - Singapore First 5k Zombie Obstacle Run
Dutch Question St. Nick's Sidekick - "Sinterklaas, the Dutch inspiration for Santa Claus, does things differently. He travels to the Netherlands by boat, not by flying reindeer. He lives in Spain, not the North Pole. He is white-bearded, but not necessarily fat or jolly. Perhaps of greatest importance to his clients, Sinterklaas always delivers three weeks early--on the eve of St. Nicholas, which this year is Sunday. These are among the many Christmas traditions here, but much more remarkable is that Sinterklaas is always accompanied by one or more dark-complexioned helpers known as Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter. Black Peter has for centuries terrified Dutch children as the ultimate boogeyman of nightmares and parental threats. He is Sinterklaas's dark alter ego, his enforcer and his bagman. If you have been a good child, Black Peter will give you goodies from his bag. If you have been a naughty child, Black Peter will put you in his sack and take you away--to Spain!... "People say, 'Why Black Peter?' I say, 'Why not Black Peter?' " said Marvin Tuur, 31, a bartender born in Suriname, the former Dutch colony in South America where the population is almost entirely black-skinned. Tuur said the Sinterklaas-Black Peter tradition is still very strong in Suriname. "A White Peter wouldn't work," he said. "What's scary about that?"
Miss Korea contestants reveal faces without makeup to prove NO plastic surgery used - "Just a few days ago when the photos of Miss Korea contestants stir controversy over the internet because of their similar look. And plastic surgery has been blamed for creating look-alike candidates. Soon after the 20 contestants who dress in normal attire and wear light makeup prove us that they are not the products of plastic surgery...but makeup and Photoshop"
Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo, Japan - "this veritable parasite safari will probably encourage you to cut back on your sushi intake. Although there isn't much English signage, you'll still get a kick out of the rows of formaldehyde-preserved critters, which are labelled with their Latin names (don't miss the 8.8m-long tapeworm!)"
Historical hipsters: Shakespeare and Elizabeth I get makeovers from modern artists
Can Singapore's hawker food heritage survive? - ""We have this culinary prejudice where we are willing to pay S$20 for a pasta carbonara but will complain when the price of a plate of Hokkien Mee [fried noodles] increases from S$3 to S$3.50. So we do need to place our own Singaporean heritage and hawker culture on a higher level." In other words, if Singaporeans want to continue eating the street food they love in the future, they may need to put their money where their mouth is - either by paying more, or changing their perceptions of the hawker industry."
Perfect Ice Cream Sandwich - How To - YouTube
Ten Types of Shitty Coworkers and How to Not Murder Them
11. The Passive-Aggressive sort who rages about everyone else
Sex-for-grades trial: Judge has harsh words for Tey - "Tey had also "played the lead role" in the two sexual encounters he had with Ms Ko, he said, and his "callousness" was evident as he had asked Ms Ko to "get rid of the baby", while claiming he had no money to pay for the abortion. As he caused her to lose her virginity and took a life through an abortion, Tey deserved a harsher sentence of three months each for those charges than the prosecution's suggestion of six to eight weeks per charge, he said. "The scourge of corruption, which causes untold misery and human suffering, must not be allowed to take root in our tertiary institutions," said the judge."
Apparently abortion and deflowering virgins are crimes in Singapore
Day of week of procedure and 30 day mortality for elective surgery: retrospective analysis of hospital episode statistics - "The adjusted odds of death were 44% and 82% higher, respectively, if the procedures were carried out on Friday (odds ratio 1.44, 95% confidence interval 1.39 to 1.50) or a weekend (1.82, 1.71 to 1.94) compared with Monday."
Why does France insist school pupils master philosophy? - "The purpose of the philosophy Bac is not to understand the history of human thought but to leap into the stream that is the actuality of human thought... one of the effects of having such an ideas-based vision of society, and elevating ideas to such heights, is that people actually start believing in them, and then maybe they start thinking the ideas are worth fighting for, or perhaps dying for, or perhaps even killing for. And then what? A few days ago, for example, a man shot himself dead in Notre Dame cathedral... In his last blog post he quoted Heidegger saying the last second of a man's life had as much significance as all that went before. Here was a man, arguably, who fell so in love with his own ideas that he decided to take his life. How very French."
1: Mos Espa | A Photographer Rediscovers The Crumbling Remains Of Tatooine
TV time 'does not breed badly behaved children' - "Spending hours watching TV or playing computer games each day does not harm young children's social development, say experts. The Medical Research Council (MRC) team who studied more than 11,000 primary school pupils says it is wrong to link bad behaviour to TV viewing. Although researchers found a small correlation between the two, they say other influences, such as parenting styles, most probably explain the link. But they still say "limit screen time". This cautionary advice is because spending lots of time in front of the TV every day might reduce how much time a child spends doing other important activities such as playing with friends and doing homework, they say."
Japanese Vending Machines "Used Panties" - YouTube - "Here is a quick vid of the vending machine corner not too far from my friends' apartments. Including the porno vending machines and one stocked with used panties. These are not fake!"
Despite noisy denials, they are real!
Classical music calms 'rowdy' Paris commuters - ""From now on, when our employees identify a group of young people that gives the impression of creating trouble, they can play classical music. Imagine, it works! Subjecting these persons to tunes they are not familiar with has the added benefit of making them flee," the statement added"
Are Associations Attitudes? - "I’d like to discuss the IAT (implicit association test) today; specifically, I’d like to address the matter of how well the racial IAT correlates (or rather, fails to correlate) with other measures of racial prejudice, and how we ought to interpret that result... Unfortunately, many psychological researchers and laypeople alike have taken a unwarranted conceptual leap: they assume that these differential association strengths imply implicit racist attitudes. This assumption happens to meet with an unfortunate snag, however, which is that these implicit associations tend to have very weak to no correlations with explicit measures of racial prejudice (even if the measures themselves, like the Modern Racism Scale, are of questionable validity to begin with). Indeed, as reviewed by Arkes & Tetlock (2004), whereas the vast majority of undergraduates tested manifest exceedingly low levels of “modern racism”, almost all of them display a stronger association between white faces and positivity. Faced with this lack of correlation, many people have gone on to make a second assumption to account for this lack, that assumption being that the implicit measure is able to tap some “truer” prejudiced attitude that the explicit measures are not as able to tease out... quicker associations between whites and positive concepts are capable of being generated by merely being aware of racial stereotypes, irrespective of whether one endorses them on any level, conscious or not. Indeed, even African American subjects were found to manifest pro-white biases in these tests. One could take those results as indicative of black subjects being implicit racist against their own ethnic group, though it would seem to make more sense to interpret those results in terms of the black subjects being aware of the stereotypes they did not endorse... the results of the IAT do not test whether there is a negative association towards any one group; just whether one group is rated more positively than another. While whites might have a stronger association with positive concepts than blacks, it does not follow that blacks have a negative association overall, nor that whites have a particularly positive one either. Both groups could be held in high or low regard overall, with one being slightly favored. In much the same way, I might enjoy eating both pizza and turkey sandwiches, but I would tend to enjoy eating pizza more. Since the IAT does not track whether these response time differentials are due to hostility, these results do not automatically seem to apply well to most definitions of prejudice. Finally, the authors make the (perhaps politically incorrect) point that noticing behavioral differences between groups – racial or otherwise – and altering behavior accordingly is not, de facto, evidence of an irrational racial biases; it could well represent the proper use of Bayesian inference, passing correspondence benchmarks for rational behavior... a final point worth considering is that this test measures the automaticity of activation; not necessarily the pattern of activation which will eventually obtain. While my immediate reaction towards a brownie within the first 200 milliseconds might be “eat that”, that doesn’t mean that I will eventually end up eating said brownie, nor would it make me implicitly opposed toward the idea of dieting. It would seem that, in spite of these implicit associations, society as a whole has been getting less overtly racist. The need for researchers to dig this deep to try and study racism could be taken as heartening, given that we, “now attempt to gauge prejudice not by what people do, or by what people say, but rather by millisecs of response facilitation of inhibition in implicit association paradigms”"
Even African Americans are racist!
Why Are They Called “Spoilers”? - "a hardcore Star Wars fan would probably not have enjoyed someone leaving the theater in 1980 blurting out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father; by comparison, someone who didn’t know anything about Star Wars probably wouldn’t have cared. In other words, the subjects likely have absolutely no emotional attachment to the stories they were reading and, as such, the information they were being given was not exactly a spoiler. If the authors weren’t studying what people would typically consider aversive spoilers in the first place, then their conclusions about spoilers more generally are misplaced. One of the other issues, as I hinted at before, is that the stories themselves were all rather short. It would take no more than a few minutes to read even the longest of them. This lack of investment of time could cause a major issue for the study"
Post ID: 2532083701829932344
France 2012 - Day 3-7 - Rambouillet (Part 1)
France 2012
Day 3-7 - 15th October-19th October - Rambouillet (Part 1)
This week I had lessons at l'Institut International de Rambouillet. Unfortunately this was low season, so there were no activities and only two classes. The town of Rambouillet was half an hour from Paris by train, but having been there a few times I didn't really feel compelled to go there.
I wanted to watch La Fille du Régiment and Les Noces de Figaro, which were playing in Paris, despite the lack of surtitles and thus risking violating my rule of only watching operas if there were surtitles in a language I understood. Unfortunately tickets were sold out by the time I arrived in Rambouillet; so much for wanting to assess the ground (train schedules, class timetables etc) - I should just have bought tickets and skipped classes if necessary. So I missed Natalie Dessay in the former.
There were a lot of Japanese students there, and almost all of them were girls (indeed, I was one of the very few male students - and the only one in my class). We were discussing strange aspects of Japan, and it turned out the Japanese have a word for the area between a woman's hemline and her knee, which Japanese men have a fetish for. Then an Israeli woman complained that when she talked to Japanese they stared at the area between her bust and her neck, and she wanted to slap them. According to the Japanese girls, it would be impolite to look her in the eye.
All 3 Japanese girls in my class had that ubiquitous handheld translator device.
It seems people in Kyoto are not nice beause tourists annoy them.
Apparently many Japanese are allergic to alcohol. On this subject, an American girl was allergic to wheat flour but the Israeli to alcohol, and the former preferred her allergy.
Japanese use a lot of water and leave the lights on 24/7. This is a problem when Japanese students homestay. Incidentally I suspect it's only in Europe (including the UK) where you have motion-activated lights, or lights where a button will turn them on for a while but they will later turn off.
As expected the rooms were generally overheated (at least for my tastes), so I drank a lot of water and sat near the door in the classroom. The situation in my room was more annoying: despite fiddling with controls I was unable to turn down the heating, so my room became a sauna in the day. In the end I had to open the window to let all the hot air out, which was very wasteful.
Street sign for "Le PUNJAB", an Indian restaurant
"Bel-Air" kindergarten. Hurr.
Also the Arbouville farm must be very famous
Rambouillet street
Notice that the Orange store almost faces its competitor SFR. SFR didn't have an attractive pre-paid mobile phone deal: €9,90 for the SIM and €35 for 1G of data, so I held out for Orange which was closed on Monday.
The town was bigger than I thought. There was even a Carrefour City, open from 9-1pm on Sundays.
Lingerie - behind bars
Their pride in their history - Henry IV (strangely, spelled the English way) granted them letters of patent in 1595
"Everything rolls [functions] cheaper with Ada"
This is a bad pun
Hôtel de Ville, 17th century. Naturally, Rambouillet is yet another "Ville d'art et d'histoire", and this building is certainly one reason. I'm surprised that there're only 167 cities in this category.
I then went snooping in Carrefour.
Tea. Note that little is black tea - there were 1.5 shelves of plain black tea and Earl Grey: Lipton Yellow Label and Darjeeling. The rest were Green Tea, Infusions, Fruit Tea (technically Earl Grey is probably a Fruit Tea but it's in the canon so we let it pass)
"Carrefour prawn fritters, which are crunchy and melt in your mouth, are a great accompaniment for your apéritifs and Asian meals. These prawn fritters lack colouring, preservatives and are made from fresh prawns"
Keropok never sounded so good
Surprisingly it was only €0,73 for 50g, which was okay. It's an Indonesian recipe, but uses sunflower oil - FAIL!
BJ was more expensive than I expected: €5,92 per pint. Haagen-Dazs was a few cents more. Of course, the cheapest wine was €1,50 for 750ml.
Cookies were cheaper than in Singapore (not Malaysian crap - one cannot compare to that) and so was pasta, but 150ml of Kikoman was €4,12 (discounted from €4,82). There was also "sauce for nems".
Bread on shelf???
Since I was going to be in one place for a week (really rare for me), I could do grocery shopping. Well, if I'd had a car I could've done that too.
They had bread marked "longue conservation". Presumably this was full of preservatives like in Singapore.
A shop open on Sunday! Even if only for 3 hours (9 hours on other days).
Really, shops should coordinate so they don't all close on Mondays. Grr.
Normal price for movies: 10€
One thing that is still cheap in Singapore - movies. This is called Bread And Circuses.
Tanning salon - open 7/7 days: 10-8 on Sundays too. Priorities!
One road, many names. 8 names in 239 years is quite extreme
"Rue du Général de Gaulle"
They gave up on putting its old name, just writing "Ancienne Grande Rue" (former Major Road)
This hair salon had a list of prices for male hair - but they were smart enough to specify "short hair"
If you're under 20 you get a 20% discount
Walking in the Centre-ville (town centre) I counted 5-6 pharmacies. The French are really hypochondriacs.
"Restaurant Sourire de Saigon [Smile of Saigon]. Thanks for your confidence"
That's a great "we've closed down" sign
2 Korean girls were at the Institute to study French for 6 weeks. They wanted to take makeup courses with just 6 weeks under their belts. I was skeptical about how that would work, but the Israeli lady, after 5 weeks, was able to speak quite well when she couldn't previously. Meanwhile one Japanese girl couldn't speak it 3 month before... and now had a French boyfriend (okay, maybe that's not such a good measure).
In the 70s people were told to throw their rubbish in gullies by the road.
According to one teacher, the Paris métro is not 24 hours to ensure people are not up and about 24/7. Ahh, social engineering.
A German woman said she saw Wagner without surtitles and was unable to understand it.
I was told that cat tastes like rabbit.
In Rambouillet, if your garden is too small you cannot grow food for your family. This was very puzzling.
There are cities/towns in France where one cannot be topless. Hah.
I wasn't terribly impressed by the food (even considering it was school food; I swear I'd taken pictures of the meals on some days, but I can't find them), but I was told this chef was new and took pride in cooking (he'd come out to watch us eat), and the old one was really terrible - there were insects in the vegetables and they were too salty, the chicken was overcooked and had no salt or pepper.
Dinner was from 7-8pm which was short enough, but from 745 we were chased out. I guess the staff wanted to go home.
I actually took some photos of the food (and some miscellaneous other things) but it seems all the non-foursquare pictures I took disappeared, probably due to accidental deletion. Ah well.
We got budget pudding which was so plainly packaged (like combat rations), even pet food looked more appealing (externally).
I saw a Korean eating her own sandwich bread instead of the provided baguette. She found it too hard, hard. At the Japanese table no one brought their own bread, but only half were eating baguette.
The Israeli woman found taking pictures of food strange. Someone suggested that I say it was how we said Grace in my country.
Day 3-7 - 15th October-19th October - Rambouillet (Part 1)
This week I had lessons at l'Institut International de Rambouillet. Unfortunately this was low season, so there were no activities and only two classes. The town of Rambouillet was half an hour from Paris by train, but having been there a few times I didn't really feel compelled to go there.
I wanted to watch La Fille du Régiment and Les Noces de Figaro, which were playing in Paris, despite the lack of surtitles and thus risking violating my rule of only watching operas if there were surtitles in a language I understood. Unfortunately tickets were sold out by the time I arrived in Rambouillet; so much for wanting to assess the ground (train schedules, class timetables etc) - I should just have bought tickets and skipped classes if necessary. So I missed Natalie Dessay in the former.
There were a lot of Japanese students there, and almost all of them were girls (indeed, I was one of the very few male students - and the only one in my class). We were discussing strange aspects of Japan, and it turned out the Japanese have a word for the area between a woman's hemline and her knee, which Japanese men have a fetish for. Then an Israeli woman complained that when she talked to Japanese they stared at the area between her bust and her neck, and she wanted to slap them. According to the Japanese girls, it would be impolite to look her in the eye.
All 3 Japanese girls in my class had that ubiquitous handheld translator device.
It seems people in Kyoto are not nice beause tourists annoy them.
Apparently many Japanese are allergic to alcohol. On this subject, an American girl was allergic to wheat flour but the Israeli to alcohol, and the former preferred her allergy.
Japanese use a lot of water and leave the lights on 24/7. This is a problem when Japanese students homestay. Incidentally I suspect it's only in Europe (including the UK) where you have motion-activated lights, or lights where a button will turn them on for a while but they will later turn off.
As expected the rooms were generally overheated (at least for my tastes), so I drank a lot of water and sat near the door in the classroom. The situation in my room was more annoying: despite fiddling with controls I was unable to turn down the heating, so my room became a sauna in the day. In the end I had to open the window to let all the hot air out, which was very wasteful.
Street sign for "Le PUNJAB", an Indian restaurant
"Bel-Air" kindergarten. Hurr.
Also the Arbouville farm must be very famous
Rambouillet street
Notice that the Orange store almost faces its competitor SFR. SFR didn't have an attractive pre-paid mobile phone deal: €9,90 for the SIM and €35 for 1G of data, so I held out for Orange which was closed on Monday.
The town was bigger than I thought. There was even a Carrefour City, open from 9-1pm on Sundays.
Lingerie - behind bars
Their pride in their history - Henry IV (strangely, spelled the English way) granted them letters of patent in 1595
"Everything rolls [functions] cheaper with Ada"
This is a bad pun
Hôtel de Ville, 17th century. Naturally, Rambouillet is yet another "Ville d'art et d'histoire", and this building is certainly one reason. I'm surprised that there're only 167 cities in this category.
I then went snooping in Carrefour.
Tea. Note that little is black tea - there were 1.5 shelves of plain black tea and Earl Grey: Lipton Yellow Label and Darjeeling. The rest were Green Tea, Infusions, Fruit Tea (technically Earl Grey is probably a Fruit Tea but it's in the canon so we let it pass)
"Carrefour prawn fritters, which are crunchy and melt in your mouth, are a great accompaniment for your apéritifs and Asian meals. These prawn fritters lack colouring, preservatives and are made from fresh prawns"
Keropok never sounded so good
Surprisingly it was only €0,73 for 50g, which was okay. It's an Indonesian recipe, but uses sunflower oil - FAIL!
BJ was more expensive than I expected: €5,92 per pint. Haagen-Dazs was a few cents more. Of course, the cheapest wine was €1,50 for 750ml.
Cookies were cheaper than in Singapore (not Malaysian crap - one cannot compare to that) and so was pasta, but 150ml of Kikoman was €4,12 (discounted from €4,82). There was also "sauce for nems".
Bread on shelf???
Since I was going to be in one place for a week (really rare for me), I could do grocery shopping. Well, if I'd had a car I could've done that too.
They had bread marked "longue conservation". Presumably this was full of preservatives like in Singapore.
A shop open on Sunday! Even if only for 3 hours (9 hours on other days).
Really, shops should coordinate so they don't all close on Mondays. Grr.
Normal price for movies: 10€
One thing that is still cheap in Singapore - movies. This is called Bread And Circuses.
Tanning salon - open 7/7 days: 10-8 on Sundays too. Priorities!
One road, many names. 8 names in 239 years is quite extreme
"Rue du Général de Gaulle"
They gave up on putting its old name, just writing "Ancienne Grande Rue" (former Major Road)
This hair salon had a list of prices for male hair - but they were smart enough to specify "short hair"
If you're under 20 you get a 20% discount
Walking in the Centre-ville (town centre) I counted 5-6 pharmacies. The French are really hypochondriacs.
"Restaurant Sourire de Saigon [Smile of Saigon]. Thanks for your confidence"
That's a great "we've closed down" sign
2 Korean girls were at the Institute to study French for 6 weeks. They wanted to take makeup courses with just 6 weeks under their belts. I was skeptical about how that would work, but the Israeli lady, after 5 weeks, was able to speak quite well when she couldn't previously. Meanwhile one Japanese girl couldn't speak it 3 month before... and now had a French boyfriend (okay, maybe that's not such a good measure).
In the 70s people were told to throw their rubbish in gullies by the road.
According to one teacher, the Paris métro is not 24 hours to ensure people are not up and about 24/7. Ahh, social engineering.
A German woman said she saw Wagner without surtitles and was unable to understand it.
I was told that cat tastes like rabbit.
In Rambouillet, if your garden is too small you cannot grow food for your family. This was very puzzling.
There are cities/towns in France where one cannot be topless. Hah.
I wasn't terribly impressed by the food (even considering it was school food; I swear I'd taken pictures of the meals on some days, but I can't find them), but I was told this chef was new and took pride in cooking (he'd come out to watch us eat), and the old one was really terrible - there were insects in the vegetables and they were too salty, the chicken was overcooked and had no salt or pepper.
Dinner was from 7-8pm which was short enough, but from 745 we were chased out. I guess the staff wanted to go home.
I actually took some photos of the food (and some miscellaneous other things) but it seems all the non-foursquare pictures I took disappeared, probably due to accidental deletion. Ah well.
We got budget pudding which was so plainly packaged (like combat rations), even pet food looked more appealing (externally).
I saw a Korean eating her own sandwich bread instead of the provided baguette. She found it too hard, hard. At the Japanese table no one brought their own bread, but only half were eating baguette.
The Israeli woman found taking pictures of food strange. Someone suggested that I say it was how we said Grace in my country.
Post ID: 51281523911034987
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Privileging Intelligence over Beauty
A sentiment I have come across many times:
How to Talk to Little Girls
"I went to a dinner party at a friend’s home last weekend, and met her five-year-old daughter for the first time.
Little Maya was all curly brown hair, doe-like dark eyes, and adorable in her shiny pink nightgown. I wanted to squeal, “Maya, you’re so cute! Look at you! Turn around and model that pretty ruffled gown, you gorgeous thing!”
But I didn’t. I squelched myself. As I always bite my tongue when I meet little girls, restraining myself from my first impulse, which is to tell them how darn cute/ pretty/ beautiful/ well-dressed/ well-manicured/ well-coiffed they are... Nearly half of all three- to six-year-old girls worry about being fat. In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that fifteen to eighteen percent of girls under twelve now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up and self-esteem is down; and twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America’s next top model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful college women say they’d rather be hot than smart. A Miami mom just died from cosmetic surgery, leaving behind two teenagers. This keeps happening, and it breaks my heart.
Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything. It sets them up for dieting at age 5 and foundation at age 11 and boob jobs at 17 and Botox at 23. As our cultural imperative for girls to be hot 24/7 has become the new normal, American women have become increasingly unhappy. What’s missing? A life of meaning, a life of ideas and reading books and being valued for our thoughts and accomplishments.
That’s why I force myself to talk to little girls as follows...
“Hey, what are you reading?” I asked, a twinkle in my eyes. I love books. I’m nuts for them. I let that show...
Not once did we discuss clothes or hair or bodies or who was pretty. It’s surprising how hard it is to stay away from those topics with little girls, but I’m stubborn...
So, one tiny bit of opposition to a culture that sends all the wrong messages to our girls. One tiny nudge towards valuing female brains...
You’re just generating an intelligent conversation that respects her brain. For older girls, ask her about current events issues: pollution, wars, school budgets slashed. What bothers her out there in the world? How would she fix it if she had a magic wand? You may get some intriguing answers."
Yet, if we privilege Intelligence instead of Aesthetic Appeal (looks/beauty) in women, we're going to make all the stupid girls feel sad. Is that necessarily better?
Leaving aside the point (or possibility, if you prefer) of the universal female imperative to look good and the wisdom of going against that, there will always be winners and losers when certain attributes or results are valued. Changing what we value changes who wins and who loses, but it is not guaranteed that there will be an overall improvement in welfare.
Take for instance the following scenario:
"Teaching girls that their minds are the first thing you notice tells them that the appearance of intelligence is more important than anything. It sets them up for tuition at age 5 and spelling bees at age 11 and reading newspapers that they are not interested in at 17 and Ritalin at 23."
Indeed, one could even see a subtle misogyny in the privileging of what has historically been valued in men over what has historically been valued in women.
Differential treatment is not necessarily unjust.
Comment on original post:
"as now-grown child who was never once told she was pretty by her mother (a small flaw among a million blessings), I take every opportunity to tell my daughters how beautiful they are. I wasn’t told I was pretty – although I was – because it wasn’t valued in my family, and I still suffered every last body image pitfall you list above. I think telling girls they are lovely predates the current pop culture fixation on image."
Addendum: Some people think I'm kidding about tuition, spelling bees and Ritalin. But they are very real issues (possibly not as big as anorexia, but it is presumably uncontroversial to say that a culture which prizes education and educational outcomes as a proxy for intelligence have contributed to the problems arising from them, even if these problems don't have a lobby as prominent as the feminists making noise about them).
Tuition Stresses Out Children
Spelling Bee Puts Spotlight on Weird Words, Worried Kids
College students get hooked on ‘smart drugs’
How to Talk to Little Girls
"I went to a dinner party at a friend’s home last weekend, and met her five-year-old daughter for the first time.
Little Maya was all curly brown hair, doe-like dark eyes, and adorable in her shiny pink nightgown. I wanted to squeal, “Maya, you’re so cute! Look at you! Turn around and model that pretty ruffled gown, you gorgeous thing!”
But I didn’t. I squelched myself. As I always bite my tongue when I meet little girls, restraining myself from my first impulse, which is to tell them how darn cute/ pretty/ beautiful/ well-dressed/ well-manicured/ well-coiffed they are... Nearly half of all three- to six-year-old girls worry about being fat. In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that fifteen to eighteen percent of girls under twelve now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up and self-esteem is down; and twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America’s next top model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful college women say they’d rather be hot than smart. A Miami mom just died from cosmetic surgery, leaving behind two teenagers. This keeps happening, and it breaks my heart.
Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything. It sets them up for dieting at age 5 and foundation at age 11 and boob jobs at 17 and Botox at 23. As our cultural imperative for girls to be hot 24/7 has become the new normal, American women have become increasingly unhappy. What’s missing? A life of meaning, a life of ideas and reading books and being valued for our thoughts and accomplishments.
That’s why I force myself to talk to little girls as follows...
“Hey, what are you reading?” I asked, a twinkle in my eyes. I love books. I’m nuts for them. I let that show...
Not once did we discuss clothes or hair or bodies or who was pretty. It’s surprising how hard it is to stay away from those topics with little girls, but I’m stubborn...
So, one tiny bit of opposition to a culture that sends all the wrong messages to our girls. One tiny nudge towards valuing female brains...
You’re just generating an intelligent conversation that respects her brain. For older girls, ask her about current events issues: pollution, wars, school budgets slashed. What bothers her out there in the world? How would she fix it if she had a magic wand? You may get some intriguing answers."
Yet, if we privilege Intelligence instead of Aesthetic Appeal (looks/beauty) in women, we're going to make all the stupid girls feel sad. Is that necessarily better?
Leaving aside the point (or possibility, if you prefer) of the universal female imperative to look good and the wisdom of going against that, there will always be winners and losers when certain attributes or results are valued. Changing what we value changes who wins and who loses, but it is not guaranteed that there will be an overall improvement in welfare.
Take for instance the following scenario:
"Teaching girls that their minds are the first thing you notice tells them that the appearance of intelligence is more important than anything. It sets them up for tuition at age 5 and spelling bees at age 11 and reading newspapers that they are not interested in at 17 and Ritalin at 23."
Indeed, one could even see a subtle misogyny in the privileging of what has historically been valued in men over what has historically been valued in women.
Differential treatment is not necessarily unjust.
Comment on original post:
"as now-grown child who was never once told she was pretty by her mother (a small flaw among a million blessings), I take every opportunity to tell my daughters how beautiful they are. I wasn’t told I was pretty – although I was – because it wasn’t valued in my family, and I still suffered every last body image pitfall you list above. I think telling girls they are lovely predates the current pop culture fixation on image."
Addendum: Some people think I'm kidding about tuition, spelling bees and Ritalin. But they are very real issues (possibly not as big as anorexia, but it is presumably uncontroversial to say that a culture which prizes education and educational outcomes as a proxy for intelligence have contributed to the problems arising from them, even if these problems don't have a lobby as prominent as the feminists making noise about them).
Tuition Stresses Out Children
Spelling Bee Puts Spotlight on Weird Words, Worried Kids
College students get hooked on ‘smart drugs’
Post ID: 2798428178649188313
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