Gin and Tacos

Recently, Rhode Island and Minnesota brought the number of states in which gay marriage is legal to an even dozen. In doing so, they chose not only to thumb their nose at thousands of years of traditional marriage and the Judeo-Christian roots of American society, but they also chose to ignore some alarming evidence from the ten states that legalized gay marriage before them.

Take Maryland, for example. It legalized gay marriage in 2012, effective January 1, 2013. As we near the end of May, we can see clearly the consequences of that decision. Take a look at these sobering statistics for 2013:

- 94% of straight married couples in Maryland have gotten divorced
- More than 7,000 man-dog marriages have been performed statewide
- In place of the Pledge of Allegiance, Maryland children now begin the school day with a three-minute pulsing techno beat
- Baltimore's Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the first Roman Catholic Cathedral built in the U.S. – has been converted to a gay bar called The Oil Rig. The rectory is now "Mouthfuls", a discotheque. Little of the original stained glass has been preserved.
- The CDC has identified a new, more virulent strain of the gay causing locally serious outbreaks in the Baltimore-DC corridor. Initial reports indicate that it may be airborne.
- The Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens are too busy having sex with one another to practice; the upcoming season has been forfeited.

The sad part about these developments is that they were so predictable. Defenders of traditional marriage warned us that by destroying the sanctity of the institution, all marriages would be weakened and made less meaningful. A society that does not respect marriage descends into complete amorality with astonishing speed. Maryland did not heed the warning; how many other states must make the same mistake before we learn?

It's an article of faith among Republicans that the Obama administration is and has been Up To No Good, and certainly mountains of evidence would be uncovered if only they could appoint a Special Prosecutor or two to root around for a year. This, as I understand it, is the sole point of trying to make a big deal out of a complete non-scandal (Benghazi) and pretty sorry excuse for a Big Scandal (the IRS thing). Just make enough noise to bring back Ken Starr and an ample staff who can eventually uncover evidence that Obama let someone use his parking pass, in blatant violation of the terms and conditions of the parking rules, twenty years ago.

That is why we live in a nation in which it's an extra-super-huge deal that some people who work for the IRS may have been aggressively thorough with blatantly political Tea Party organizations applying for tax exemptions as "Social Welfare" groups in order to avoid disclosing their donors, and not the slightest bit scandalous that American corporations worth trillions of dollars pay essentially nothing in income tax.

The disparity between what causes outrage and what should has grown so large that it's not even surprising anymore.

For those who are interested or commented on the previous post, this is a picture of the audio inputs inside the jukebox. If I can find some way to run a line in here, then the jukebox could act as an amplifier and I could simply run through the house speakers. It appears to be old speaker wire-style inputs. Click to embiggen.

Thanks again for the help.

I'm not sure if I've ever done this before, but in lieu of an actual post today I need to solicit advice.

If you have any experience as a DJ, sound guy/girl, or anything dealing with pro audio, your opinion may be valuable to me. Or feel free to chime in if you just happen to have any useful experience with PA systems and the like.

I've got the opportunity to host a trivia game at a local bar. It's exciting and I expect it to be a ton of fun. What I need is to figure out the simplest, cost-effective way to set up the audio. The sound system in the bar is…limited. There's an old jukebox, basically, with speaker wire outs to two unpowered PA speakers. There are speaker wire "ins" in the jukebox, for whatever that may be worth. The space itself is not particularly large – long, narrow, and with a 15' ceiling.

What I have is a laptop I'm going to use for the music (note: suggestions for free or reasonably priced DJ software welcome). I need to mix the music with a single microphone, and then…find a way to make the results audible. My trivia host friend uses and suggested a full DJ setup (including $1000 powered speakers, a multi-track console, etc) and I'm not willing to go that far for something that will be fun but isn't going to pay.

As you can no doubt tell, I have little experience with audio equipment. Talk to me like I'm stupid, please. I'm starting from scratch here, other than having the laptop (with the usual outputs: HDMI, USB, etc).

Tips? Recommendations? Snide comments?

One thing I try to impress upon my students in their writing is the under-appreciated value of succinctness. Most teachers give a minimum page requirement for papers; I only give a maximum. I warn them that the world has a short attention span and one does not have the luxury of making a point by rambling on and on about it indefinitely. Being thorough, in their minds, often equates to saying a lot. Being thorough without saying much is the hardest skill to learn but among the best to have.

This little lesson is hilarious, of course, because I am among the least succinct people on Earth. No one who dumps 500-1000 words per day on the internet should be lecturing others about keeping things short. I've made a conscious effort to improve this over the past year – particularly in academic writing, but also here – and there has been some progress. Yet sometimes I just can't find a way to be short and punchy, to deliver the blow without a ton of setup. For the past two weeks I've been working on a post that has turned into goddamn War and Peace regarding the poll in which 29% of respondents, and 44% of Republicans, agreed with the statement, "In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties."

It would be easy enough to mock the results or do the usual "Yep, these people exist" hand-wringing, but my actual thoughts on it were complex – something about the undercurrent of authoritarianism, even fascism, that we pretend does not exist in the United States. And the underlying dilemma that the United States, unlike other democracies, has never really learned its lesson about fascism as a society.

Then I found someone who did the work for me, and far better than I was. And it isn't even an Official Writer, it is a commenter from a Charles Pierce post.

30% of every OECD country polls fascist. That's just always been the case, for 150 years. In most modern wealthy democracies those people are afraid to express their opinions, because its commonly understood that people who hold those opinions are generally detrimental to the common good. That was the political lesson of WWII.

In the US however they get their own news channels and one-half of the political power, because for some reason around 1980 we all started feeling sorry for the narcissistic fantasists and sentimentalists that call themselves "movement conservatives," who told us they felt bad because they were left out of what they called "the Liberal consensus."

The Liberal consensus was really just an agreement not to let the aforementioned narcissists do what they do best, which is to monopolize the conversation and claim its all about *me* and *my pain* and what about *my people*, which in general prevents us from confronting actual real live reality, like genuinely poor people and genuine disasters like climate change. And we let down our guard, forgetting that these 30% always feel bad, because they really have nothing more to their belief system than a heightened sense of persecution coupled to a heightened sense of their worth. Everything else – their politics, economics, religion, sociology – is an attempt to rationalize those two basic principles: "I oughta be in charge, but my inferiors won't let me."

30 years later people in the media think they're entertaining and sell eyeballs so they give them a seat at the table, and they don't realize the fascists want all the seats and have bad table manners besides. And while the rest of us would like to pay attention to the reality we've ignored since Reagan first pretended he was President, the media and the conversation is dominated by these 30%, who refuse to give up their fantasyland, just as we should have known they would.

While we could pick nits with some of the specifics there, that's exactly what I've been fighting myself over trying to say for a fortnight. And this gentleman did it in about 200 words. I have nothing to add. This.

There's something inherently interesting, not to mention disturbing, about abandoned places. The internet agrees, as it has fueled the growth in "urban exploration" as a (white, middle class) hobby. Search around and you'll find that pictures of abandoned factories, amusement parks, and malls aplenty. Personally, my favorite type of man-made wreckage is a good old fashioned white elephant. They might not be abandoned in the strictest sense, but they have this special kind of sad, pointless emptiness that you can't find anywhere else. Imagine walking around a museum alone or being the only fan in an entire stadium. But enough about going to Miami Marlins games.

I've never been to Montreal, but it is the Graceland of giant, burdensome, staggeringly expensive, useless public works projects. There's Olympic Stadium, but that's a story for another day. Here's a good trivia question. What is the largest airport in the world by area? While this title is now disputed*, I'm going to guess that Montreal-Mirabel Airport was not on the tip of your tongue. Why? Because you can't actually book a flight into the world's biggest, and almost totally empty, airport. At a hard-to-comprehend 396 square kilometers in area, Mirabel opened in 1975 (for the 1976 Montreal Olympics) and is easily visible from space.

Are you sure it's big enough? For the planes carrying tens of millions of people to…Montreal?

The gargantuan airport hasn't had passenger service for over a decade, handling only cargo traffic. The city has spent 30 years trying to find alternate uses for it – it has been used variously as a Formula 1 racetrack, a Bombardier airplane factory, a movie set, warehouse space, and more. For a while they were even talking about turning into an amusement park. So how does a city build the world's biggest airport and it ends up totally empty?

After Expo 67 (the spiritual successor of the great World Fairs of the late 19th/early 20th Centuries) and their winning bid to host the Summer Olympics of 1976, the city fathers in Montreal were making some boldly optimistic projections of the city's future (and possibly doing a lot of blow as well). Along with the Canadian federal government they began planning massive new infrastructure projects. Montreal was served by a relatively small city airport, Dorval (now – because god has a sense of humor – named Pierre Trudeau International) which was handling an unplanned amount of international traffic. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, airliners did not have the range we're accustomed to today. So west coast flights to Europe, Africa, the Mideast, etc commonly stopped in Montreal to re-fuel before crossing the Atlantic. So they hatched a brilliant plan.

Projecting that Montreal's airports would be handling a staggering 20 million passengers annually, they drew up plans for Mirabel to handle all international flights. Domestic flights would continue to use Dorval. When Mirabel opened, though, the floods of passengers never came. First, technological advances made it unnecessary for newer airliners to make refueling stops. Second, nobody within or outside of Montreal wanted to use the damn thing. It was built more than an hour's drive from the city (Dorval is much closer) and the promised high-speed rail line to connect the city and airport never materialized. It was expensive, so the airlines hated it. And because it could offer the size of a major airport with the convenience of domestic connections, airlines decided to avoid Montreal altogether and just fly to Pearson International in Toronto (the one Rush wrote a song about). After twenty years the governments collectively gave up on Mirabel and…expanded Dorval to accommodate 20 million passengers, which I guess they kinda could have done in the first place. At its peak, Mirabel handled 3 million passengers in one year. This is the amount of passengers handled in 2012 by the 52nd busiest airport in the U.S. – Port Columbus International in lovely Columbus, Ohio. Check out the bustling terminal at Mirabel today!

Let's just say things didn't pan out. And it's still standing to remind everyone of its failure. We've all made bad predictions and worse plans, but a literal concrete-and-steel monument has never been built to your bad ideas. Whoever finds this planet in a few thousand years after we're long gone will be baffled by it. Fittingly, they will probably land at Dorval. "Why would you land at the one that's farther away?" they will ask in their strange, alien tongue. Good question. Good question.

This week has been and will be a bit spotty (rest assured that there will be an NPF, though) for a number of reasons. The academic year ends today, so there have been mountains of grading. And Monday I woke up feeling like lukewarm death. The baseball I apparently swallowed late Sunday evening is still lodged firmly in my throat. On Wednesday evening I devoted my energy to The Jimmy Howard Show Western Conf. Semi-finals Game 1. It involves some yelling at the TV – not attempting to reason with it, just the ordinary "YES!" and "FUCK!" variety – and in my febrile state it turned out to be a rather draining experience. Fortunately it had a happy ending thanks to, hands down, the best Kenyan-Swedish defenseman in hockey today.

Many years ago I was a mildly active Wikipedian, a hobby I discontinued once I didn't have as much idle stare-at-internet time once I began grad school. Oh, and because most of the other people actively involved were horrible.

That is unfair. I don't honestly think they are terrible people, but something about the anonymity of the internet combined with high opinions of their own intelligence brings out the absolute worst once they gather in the same (electronic) place. These days Wikipedia has taken on a life of its own and has become bigger than anyone could have imagined back in the day. Now, vote-up sites like MetaFilter and, more recently, Reddit are getting the most attention, probably because voting things up and down is quicker and more definitive than endlessly debating things in Wikipedia forums.

One of the most irritating things about these sites is the tendency of the fan bases to be overwhelmingly composed of people like…me. White males with a lot of education. And we're pretty annoying, especially when protected by the anonymity and distance provided by the internet. So people can really be dicks in these forums, and there is plenty of groupthink on display.

Regular readers know that, sometimes to a fault, I am not the type to go around shouting "Sexism!" But my god, these things are sexist. Really obviously. In a way and to an extent that the amount of willful ignorance required to pretend it isn't there is staggering. Another blogger took the time to compile a perfect example for the skeptical.

A male Redditor posted a picture of himself lying in a bed with the comment, "This is me the being dope sick when i quit heroin. 6 months and counting of being clean." The post was up-voted by other users 1150 times, and here are the first five comments, also in order of votes received:

1. Congratulations man. Thats no easy feat. Heroin has taken many a life. Good to see somone beat it
2. "6 months and counting of being clean Datestamp 3/16/11" Was there a relapse in there?
3. I know that look. I’ve made it myself…I am consumed with respect and admiration for you. keep going.
4. Awesome job! I have 4.5 months clean. Just remember: that’s the last time you have to be dopesick. Ever.
5. I don’t know you, but I love you for staying clean. It gives me hope for my brother.

Aww! Look how nice and supportive people can be, even in an environment where people are usually pretty heartless.

More recently, a different, female user posted a picture of herself with the comment: "Been clean from heroin for 2 months and this is me today". After receiving about half as many up-votes as the male's post, here are the top five comments:

1. I've never done heroin, here is a picture of a pair of old shoes.
2. Reddit just upvoted some girl's mirror shot to the front page Holy fuck, guys
3. I've been clean from heroin for 24 years, nobody upvotes my mirror pics.
4. I don't get it. This is just a picture of a person. What is interesting about this picture?
5. 9 outta 10 would bang. With protection.

Go ahead, attempt to explain how this stark difference has nothing to with gender. I could use the giggles.

Here's the kicker. While the second post itself received less than half the up-votes of the first (male) one, the asshole comments on the woman's post received more up-votes (2200+ for the #1 comment) than either the post itself (650) or the first post (1150). So users appeared far more interested in being a dick to the woman for posting a picture of herself (Reddit Law states that this is attention-seeking behavior when women do it) than in either of the posts themselves.

Just another day on the internet. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

Many years ago a student submitted a research paper that I continue to use (without personal information, obviously) in classes as an example today. Unfortunately it's not a positive example. The paper is a ten-page treatise on how the American presidents who died in office were all secretly murdered by the Freemasons.

The student was quite unhappy with the (failing) grade this mess of internet conspiracy theories received. "I did research and cited all of the sources", s/he stated. It was true; the paper was exhaustively cited and clearly represented a good deal of research. The problem – and we/I did cover this in class repeatedly throughout the semester – is that not all "sources" are made equal. Some are legitimate, some are questionable, and some are flat-out nonsense. And back when I was still learning how to teach, it surprised the hell out of me to find that a non-trivial minority of students cannot tell the difference.

In the students' defense, it's difficult to explain how to identify a garbage source. TO some extent it's like the old Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it" obscenity test. My best advice, I think, is to err on the side of caution when the objective is to cite supporting research. Sure, government or major media outlet sources will not always be correct and may be flawed. But if the choice is between the Benghazi story on CNN or a post on something called WheresTheBirthCertificate.com, it is in students' interest to play it safe. Even if the CNN story is not entirely accurate or comprehensive, no one's going to think you're nuts for relying on a mainstream media account.

This is not a problem limited to students, of course. A sizable number of our fellow citizens have problems smelling bullshit even when their noses are buried in it. To put it charitably, the proliferation of news and information on the internet has exposed an uncomfortably high level of credulity among the public. It's problematic enough that a lot of us intentionally seek out information that confirms what we already believe (and discount or reject contradictory facts) but those of us who do make a real effort to inform ourselves about issues can't tell if what we're reading is total garbage.

Most of you know better than to argue with people in internet comment sections or on Facebook, but tell me if the following sounds familiar. A friend who spends a lot of time on websites with words like "healing" and "wellness" in their name shares this must-read link on Facebook. The article explains how vaccines upset the body's natural rhythms and chakras and enzymes. Vaccines also cause autism and leprosy and gingivitis, according to some really fascinating new findings from Jenny McCarthy. It concludes, based on an argument along the lines of "As a mother, I know what is best for my child", that children should not be vaccinated.

You try to point out politely – perhaps offering your own link that gently debunks this monumental pile of baloney – that the information your friend has provided is not entirely accurate. As you know from experience, this rarely has the desired effect of actually informing the recipient. Instead, your friend says something along the lines of "It's so hard to know what information to trust anymore" or "It looks like there are a lot of good arguments on both sides."

This is one of those classic red flag statements – not unlike "I'm entitled to my opinion" or "I guess we'll have to agree to disagree" – that means "I am clearly wrong but I have no intention of changing my mind." It must be, because taking the statement literally is difficult. "It's so hard to know what to trust." Is it? Is it really? No. It's actually pretty easy.

No, doctors and experts and scientists are not infallible. They and we believe things to be true that later turn out to be wrong. But is the American Medical Association a safer bet than the Spiritual Holistic Wellness Center or the Crunchy Moms tumblr? Yes. Ten times out of ten. People argue that it's healthy to be skeptical of consensus and the establishment in any field, and that's true. However, their skepticism appears to end where the blogs and message boards and pseudoscience collections begin.

I've learned my lesson now. We cover the common characteristics of denialism, pseudoscience, opinion, frauds, and plain old bullshit. Hopefully students leave knowing how to identify those things. Unfortunately this prepares them for a lifetime of frustration from dealing with the millions of Americans who can't.