Another Awesome Lady

I'm back from my little holiday everyone, even though I didn't get to leave the country I still managed to have a fabulous time to make up for my incredibly shitty birthday, hooray for belated birthday celebrations! Since I am still in a good mood, I want to open up November with another female boss. Today we meet Tracey Spicer, an Australian newscaster, who had this awesome dose of snark to dole out to the oh-so-deserving. I'm sure you know that I am quite partial to snark myself, and this lady has just wiped the floor with the targets of her ire:


DEAR Mr Misogynist,

I'd like to thank you for everything you've taught me over the past 25 years.

Why, I had no idea I was so fat, ugly and stupid. I thought being a size 12 was perfectly acceptable.

But when you yelled across the newsroom, ''I want two inches off your hair and two inches off your arse'', suddenly, a light went on.

Of course! The size of my posterior is directly related to the content and credibility of the stories I'm reporting on for this network. Silly me. You're right. I'll never make it as a TV journalist.

Those wise words of yours from 1986 are still ringing in my ears: ''That's why you don't see blonde newsreaders,'' you explained patiently. ''People don't take them seriously.''

It reminded me of another sage piece of advice, from a radio boss during a job interview some years ago.

He put it simply yet eloquently: ''There's a reason why you don't hear women on commercial talkback radio,'' he said. ''No one wants to hear the whiny sound of a female voice. Us blokes get enough nagging at home!''

Really, in retrospect, it was foolish to think I was worthy of such a role.

Like all women, I only have two areas of specialisation: shoes and handbags. We all know high heels are a patriarchal construct to disempower us by constricting movement. (Oh dear. Must stop having thoughts like that. Sorry, I have no idea where that came from.)

Anyway, through some quirk of fate, I managed to land a newsreading job.
I know what you're thinking. I finally decided to speak into that flesh-coloured microphone you were always pointing in my direction.

Oddly enough, I was offered the job by a woman. Who would have thought? Initially, I was wary. You always said you'd never work for a female boss because, ''You can't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die''.

Hilarious! It's a good thing I was wearing a corset or my sides would have split.

Fortunately, there were enough blokes around to keep me on the straight and narrow.

On my first night, the station manager came down and said, ''You need to stick your tits out more''. Once again, my brain wasn't working properly.

In between the raging bushfires, the political crises and savage cuts to welfare, I'd forgotten to flirt with the camera.

A couple of years later - I'm ashamed to say this - I ''porked up'', according to one of the producers.

My new boss quickly raced out and arranged sponsorship from the local gym.

Frankly, I was unsightly. I stood out like a bull in a china shop, around those fragile lollipop ladies with their skinny bodies and massive heads.

Speaking of heads, I got a nasty shock when I looked in the mirror one day. Wrinkles around my eyes and on my forehead. Too much thinking? Surely not.

I remember you reviewing a video tape of one of my colleagues - clever girl, Walkley Award winner as I recall - and saying, ''The problems seem to be here and here,'' pointing to her ghastly crow's feet.

As it turns out, wrinkles were the least of my worries. I'd gotten myself knocked up.

I wanted to go back to work when bubby was three months old but, once again, it took a man to show me the error of my ways.

''Women should be at home with their children,'' my news director said. ''Or the fabric of society will be rent asunder.

''Anyway Trace. You're getting a bit long in the tooth. Why don't you give some of the younger girls an opportunity?''

Suddenly, all the lights went on. And it was so bright - it made your light look like a limp insipid flicker.

This is difficult for me to put into words but if I had to, it would sound a bit like this: F--- you.

F--- you, you misogynist bully with your archaic beliefs, intellect of a pygmy, and tiny dick.

The reason I am writing this letter is to thank you.

Among others - too many to mention - you lit a fire in my belly that's become an inferno and these days, I don't cop shit from anyone. When I was sacked by email after the birth of my second baby, I fought the lot of them.

I do hope you receive this correspondence. I had trouble finding a forwarding address after you lost your house due to that unfortunate sexual harassment case.

(I'm sure the bitch was asking for it.)

Yours in emancipation,
Tracey.

What has gotten into Australian women these days? Whatever it is, I approve.

Another Dude That Rocks

You may or may not have heard that Ann Coulter was being her usual nasty trolling self on twitter, something that happens far too often for anyone to make a decent argument in favor of giving her the slightest bit of attention. I would never have mentioned it or cared in the slightest, if it wasn't for John Franklin Stephens and this amazing response he posted as an open letter to her:

Dear Ann Coulter,

Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow.  So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?

I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow.  I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you.  In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.

I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.

Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.

Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.

After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me.  You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.

I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.

Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.

No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.

Come join us someday at Special Olympics.  See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.

A friend you haven’t made yet,
John Franklin Stephens
Global Messenger
Special Olympics Virginia

I'm sorry to say that I highly doubt that anything could change Ann Coulter's mind or heart, but I greatly admire this man for being so very civil to someone that deserves anything but his civility. It takes an enormous strength of character and eloquence that I don't think I would have had. 

John Franklin Stephens, you are our boss of the week. And I say that with the utmost respect.

What Does It Mean To Be Biased?

This is something that I have been pondering for a while when it comes to discussing news, media and the like with people of my generation especially. Of course our generation is quite sullen when it comes to these things, and it is very difficult to get them to admit they like anything in the media without this very important modifier: "well, of course Show X is completely biased, but I kinda like it because.....". In many cases I did not agree, but I realized that while many of them will say that regardless of the actual evidence (wouldn't want to be accused of being naive, hellz no), in some cases we are operating with different definitions of the word biased.

The word is used in many different contexts, so it is a difficult one to pin down. For example, in a sports game, a ref that is "biased" is one that has a particular preference for one team, subconsciously or otherwise, and will therefore be "harder" on one than the other. This meaning that if one team commits a foul the ref will call it, but if the other preferred team commits the exact same offence they do not get called on it. I think this is a fairly straightforward example, and one that can be evaluated relatively objectively. 

Another context in which the word is used is in the law: a biased judge, for example. In this case the word takes on a slightly different meaning, as it is well known that judges have certain political ideologies and ideals, therefore two judges may rule quite differently on the same case. This however is something that is known before hand and therefore not considered "biased": a judge becomes biased (or rather, not impartial) if he or she has a vested interest in the outcome of the case, or if one of the lawyers is his/her spouse etc. A judge can also have a racial or gender bias, being harsher on one more than another for the same crime/whatever. However, in this case, simply having a personal leaning, preference or ideology is not enough to call bias, there has to be a far more tangible source.

This, however, seems not to be the case in the media. I have begun to notice with this whole "everything, everyone, every single modicum of the news media is biased!!!" argument is based on the personal ideology of the newscaster. The idea is that regardless of how hard they try, even if it is not an opinion piece, their personal beliefs will subconsciously "leak" out, tainting their broadcast, and thus making everything that comes out of their mouths biased. Therefore, if we're watching actual opinion news like The Young Turks, we must be absolutely 100% sure we communicate in no uncertain terms that we KNOW it is TOTALLY biased, before we can ever admit to liking and watching it. This is where I tend to disagree.

I do not think that TYT is biased the way that FOX News is biased. The main difference is that, while TYT will loudly state their opinion(s) on a subject, I have not found them to purpously misrepresent facts in order to fit their ideology, and the mistakes they have made they have come forward to correct. FOX News, on the other hand, routinely selectively edits their news stories, twisting the facts and misrepresenting them in order to support a preconceived idea, rather than presenting all the facts and then drawing the necessary conclusions. 

This, to me, is what it means to be "biased" in the media, and therefore in some ways I do not think that all media outlets are biased at all. If anything, I find that many media outlets in the US are so terrified of being called biased by the right wing that they misrepresent a loony far-right perspective as if it had the same basis in truth as the other side, thereby misrepresenting the facts and being biased in favor of the right wing.

So what do I do in these cases of conflicting definitions? To the dictionary!

Oxford English Dictionary:

biased: unfairly prejudiced for or against someone or something: we will not tolerate this biased media coverage

Ouch, that's a little vague isn't it? To be "unfairly prejudiced" can be taken in extremely broad or extremely narrow terms. Let's try a couple of others:


Cambridge:

biased: showing an unreasonable like or dislike for a person based on personal opinions

The newspapers gave a very biased report of the meeting.

I think she's beautiful but then I'm biased since she's my daughter

Dictionary.com:

bias:  a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice


Aiaiai, can we get any more different in our definitions?! I am surprised at how few entries there are for this word as well, given that these dictionaries tend to waffle on for ages (remember the post on cults? yeesh) and this word can be quite versatile. At the end of the day though, I suppose what you consider to be biased is really up to you.

It all comes down to the "level" of bias you're willing to handle from a media outlet. While I do think there is some truth to the "subconscious leakage" hypothesis, I do not think that any such leakage would matter to me when drawing my own conclusions from facts. These sorts of things have to be rigorously controlled in an experimental setting (for example, having someone who does not know which are the "treatment" and "control" groups collecting the data, as in a clinical trial) or a criminal setting (for example not having someone accidentally influencing a witness into picking someone out of a lineup). In a news story, on the other hand, I do not think that subconscious or loud outspoken "bias" or opinion will sway me. 

So long as I have all the facts laid out in front of me I can draw my own conclusions, regardless of what the person laying them out for me thinks. The fact that their opinions wont change my mind is what makes me call shows like TYT not biased. On the other hand, if I am only given a selected subset of the facts presented in such a way to make them seem like something they are not, that is what could really lead me to draw the wrong conclusion, and therefore that is what I will call being biased in the media.

What are your thoughts on the problem, or lack of a problem, of bias in the media?



 

Scientology, What A Joke

Recently for some reason I've been watching a load of documentaries on cults. Call it a bizarre and fleeting fascination with the crazy crap of the world, or that my store of wacky information needed some adding to for when I am talking to people that know less about these things than I do, either way I came across this episode of Panorama that I had seen a couple of years ago while living in Ireland. Of all the documentaries that I have seen so far on cults, this one is definitely the most aggravating and difficult to watch thanks to the yippy little mutt known as Tommy Davis.

Sweeney keeps apologizing for the way he reacted at the end to Tommy goading him, but I honestly don't think that he had anything to apologize for. I am amazed at how calm he had managed to remain for so long, when if it were me in his situation, I would have gotten very snarky with that asshole far, far earlier.

At the end of the day, Tommy Davis should realize that Sweeney did not need to present a biased view of Scientology or lie about anything. All he would have had to do was show back-to-back clips of Tommy Davis getting in his face, he did a bang up job of making Scientology look awful all on his own. I hope his bosses give him a raise, because if there is anyone that was on the fence about the way Scientology to begin with, all they had to do was look at the appalling way that jerk-off behaved himself and the way they were constantly keeping tabs on the BBC, spying on them and harrassing them.

Sweeney does one better instead, and came out with this follow-up which I had not seen

When you have time watch both of them. Sweeney refused to be intimidated by their ridiculous scare tactics and schooled them in this second documentary in the best possible way. OK I concede your ways are better than mine, I would have just snarked my way under Tommy Davis' skin and would have had to leave it at that. Bravo.

Oh and one more thing, where are the pro-life right wingers when it comes to calling out an institution that actually pressures many of its female members into getting an abortion?! Is it because they will never dare touch a religion that isn't Islam, or because they don't go after people with money? 

Or maybe, unlike Sweeney, they're just too chickenshit

Non C'è Due Senza Tre...

I'd like to close this boss trifecta with a common Italian saying, literally translated as there is no two without three, and a big thanks to Why Evolution Is True for posting this video of Bill Nye the Science Guy. I adored Bill Nye as a kid, along with Kratts Creatures he was my main source of science growing up, ironically educating me even more in many areas than my science teachers in elementary and middle school. 

Sometimes, you find out that the people on TV that you loved as a kid turn out to be not so great in real life (I almost cried when I heard about the racial slurs thrown out there by Kramer, or how Frasier is actually a right-wing nut) but not this time! Bill Nye turns out to be just as cool in real life as he was on TV, as illustrated by his willingness and sincerity in coming out publicly against creationism.

Coincidence that three days later a rumor on twitter spread that he was dead? Probably not, but who cares. Bill Nye, you rock.

Oh Yea? Well... You're Mommy Is A Poopyhead!!

I’ve finally passed the first major hurdle of those crazy deadlines I was telling you about, enough to have a little time to squeeze in a story that’s been on my mind for the last few days. It seems as though it is only when I am at my busiest that people start pestering me with the silliest things, this time it was a friend of a friend on facebook that was trying to make the losing argument that FOX News is an excellent news source with well researched stories. 

It all started with my friend quoting an article from the blaze, where I told him how terribly he had hurt my feelings that he had stooped so low. He told me that he still loved me despite us being political worlds apart, to which I responded 

We don’t have to agree politically, I just wished you respected facts and journalistic integrity, neither of which can be found on the blaze or Fox News. 

At this point one of his friends decided to bogart the conversation, among other things accusing me of having a warped definition of journalistic integrity, which was funny, since I had never given one. I didn’t think he could possibly be serious, so I simply stated that Fox is not defensible, not if you’re literate. This sent him on a tirade of NBC and MSNBC suck you know! You’re telling me they’re better?! No I said, I’m not commenting on other news sources, I’m commenting on FOX, which is terrible, systemically biased, and a great source for ridiculous outbursts like “Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption!”; “Tide goes in, tide goes out, you can’t explain that!”; “Now we all know that Jon Stewart is going to Hell” and so many more. He fired back with the same argument: other news sources are bad you know! You’re not aware that one time Chris Matthews told Hilary Clinton he’d help her?! 

 It didn’t matter how many times I tried to explain to him that the “well, other people suck too!” is not a valid argument he went back to it four times, after which I abandoned the conversation. While there was no point in letting the facebook flame wars we were having devolve any further as he was getting less and less coherent as time went on (at one point he accused me of having made a race-based argument, though making clear that he was not calling me a racist o.O), I felt the need to address this. 

If someone criticizes something that you like or respect, is your automatic reaction to 

A. Use that criticism to make assumptions about what that person likes or respects, and 

B. Use “well, what you like SUCKS!” as an argument? 

If you do, please stop, it’s a very silly argument. 

Leaving out the weird rambling racist analogy that my facebook rival was trying to formulate to address this issue, let me give you an analogy myself. 

I walk in to your apartment building, and immediately I notice that something is off. There’s a musty smell in the lobby, I can clearly see water damage on one side of the building, the security camera monitoring the front door is broken and the elevator door jams a lot. I tell you “damn, you’re apartment building really sucks!” 

You respond “yea, well, other apartment buildings on this block suck too you know! I saw paint peeling in the bathroom of number 8! And the doorman at number 5 is really rude! You can’t prove that my apartment building is the worst!” 

You’re right, I can’t, because to do so would require me investigating every inch of every apartment building on the block, which would honestly take far more time and effort than I am willing to put into this. I can say that I suspect your apartment building is the worst, given what I have seen so far, but for all I know the building next door has a devil’s gate to Hell hidden in the basement that I don’t know about. Also, you have to define what you mean by “worst”, worst in structure? Damage? Security? Aesthetically? Anyway it doesn’t matter if you’re the worst, the second worst or the best. I never accused your building to be the worst, I simply told you there are some major problems with it. 

Unperturbed, you pursue the argument “Oh yea?! Well, number 6 over there had a fire in one of the apartments once! And number 10 only has seven floors instead of nine!” 

I start to get frustrated, because I’m not talking about the other buildings, I’m talking about yours. If there are other apartment buildings that also have problems that sucks, but it has no bearing on the horrible conditions of yours. The conditions of your building are no better if it is surrounded by worse buildings and no worse if it is surrounded by better buildings. The problems in your place stand on their own and I am criticizing them objectively, not comparatively. If there are problems along the entire block that might be indicative of another problem, perhaps the people that built them are corrupt and need investigating, but that is not the issue here. The issue is there are problems that you and everyone else who lives in this crap apartment building need to address, regardless of what others do in other buildings. 

Still unperturbed, you continue “You can’t be objective because you love all the other buildings and want to hate mine no matter what! Did you know that number 3 had a rat in the basement? I saw it! And number 9 has squeaky doors!” 

And this is where I abandon the conversation, because there is no argument to be made with a brick wall of stubborn. 

If someone takes issue with something that you like or respect, you need to address the specific criticisms that that person has. If they are right, take a good look at them and see if they have a point. Screaming at everyone else around you in order to deflect negative attention from yourself not only is a losing argument, it makes you look like a child having a tantrum. 

Extra brownie points to anyone who feels like turning the above exchange into a webcomic, we’ll call it “talking to Fox viewers” :)

Is It Just Me, Or Is It A Slow News Day?

Shocking shocking shocking. Today I just didn't know what to talk about. Here is where each and every blogger starts reeling off their excuses for such pitiless behaviour, but I swear I have some pretty good ones:

1. My PhD progess report is next week and I need to start my presentation
2. My boyfriend has injured himself at work so the entire cooking and cleaning load has fallen on my shoulders
3. I have a second job AND a gym membership
4. I have been asked to collaborate on a second project in tandem with my own so I need to learn everything about it before one of the Professors corners me and asks me something about it
5. I need to start reading papers to see where to bring my project from here since I am coming to the end of my current experiments

Put all that together and you get a big fat ARGH why am I tired all the freaking time??!!

So I decided to take a gander at cnn.com to see if there was anything of interest to grab my attention that I might waffle about. It seems as though CNN is having the same problems that I am today.

I open the US page, and this is the headline story: a 61-year old grandfather becomes the oldest man to ever score in a college football game. Aww, that's sweet, but really? The leading story? OK, let's head over to the Europe page:

Hugh Grant blasts British media over the phone hacking scandal. Little late to the party there aren't we Hugh? Got caught up in the backseat of a limo again? Seriously though, who gives a shit what Hugh Grant thinks about something, especially something that pretty much everyone agrees was "cowardly and shocking". Really not much of a debate to be weighing in on. Fine then, lets travel to Asia:

2 people are killed in a football stampede in Indonesia. Slightly more of a story, but hardly headline worthy. It might make the front page in an Indonesian paper, but of ALL OF THE THINGS happening in Asia this is the best most interesting thing you got? Ok fine. How about Latin America?

Chevron was fined $28M for an oil spill off the coast of Brazil. AAhh finally we're getting somewhere. This I am happy to hear. Sure it's chump change to Chevron, but let's hope they take it further and that finally some company has some accountability for their actions. Much better CNN.

Anyway, looks like we all need a little snooze today. I hope to get mine in between boxing and reading my predecessor's PhD thesis. What joy :)


And as for a lab update, the Professor was reminded of his promise of cake and champagne last Friday, after which he immediately agreed that it was a gross lapse on his part and that they will both ensure shortly. Still no cake and champagne though. We'll see what happens with this one...