The nature and meaning of "transgender" in a virtual world.

I thought this was interesting.

Prokofy Neva, as you know, is a well-known male avatar with a female operator.

There's a protracted dramafest going on inworld and across multiple forums about the JLU group and one of the subplots is about transgendered people.

That led Neva to make this comment in his blog...

"But Kendra didn't accept me. As I've found with a number of other m2f transgendered in SL, she thought I didn't have the right to call myself transgendered in SL. She thought only RL transgendered people were authentic, and if you had an avatar of the opposite gender, this was merely a kind of role-play or "fantasy" and "didn't count". It wasn't politically correct in her very rigid canon."

That caught my eye and my interest and led me to inquire...

"Am I understanding you correctly? You do consider yourself transgender?"

Neva's reply...

"Why are middle-aged males like yourself so prurient about this issue, LeeHere? Why do you think that is? Mitch Wagner was just the same way. I'm not required to discuss my private life with strangers on the Internet. And so I don't. I have a transgendered avatar that is the opposite of my RL gender as is well known. I think that is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, and I don't think I'm required to a) discuss any aspect of my private life or b) have to be an actual case of transgender in RL in order to be "entitled" to have such an avatar or be "authentic". I find it the worst sort of fascism when people claim otherwise. Gender police -- ugh! I don't have any plans for any RL operations of any type, I really don't like surgery."

Mine...

"I'm actually a middle-aged (43) female, Prokofy. I did not think I was being "prurient" about the issue and indeed I was not. You made an interesting comment and I asked about it. You opened the door and I walked through it, politely, gently and reasonably and with genuine interest. I can see that you are so often attacked that you keep yourself in a defensive posture, but I sincerely meant to engage you in a topic I thought both of us found interesting. I have never seen anyone refer to the use of an avatar with a gender opposite to their operator gender as "transgender" unless the operator identified as transgender in real life. I knew you chose an avatar opposite to your operator gender and I have seen you write about why you have made that choice, but I have never before seen you refer to that choice as "transgender." I am not questioning the legitimacy or the privacy of your choices. I read your blog post and had a "Hunh. That's interesting. I've never seen it put that way before." response. That's all. I did not assume you had plans for real life surgery or that you identified as transgender in real life, I thought perhaps you had a kind of philosophical view on the nature of transgenderism in the virual world. Seemed like, as I said, an interesting point for discussion. My apologies for inadvertently causing offense, but thank you for answering the question anyway."

I do think this is an interesting discussion for a number of reasons.

1.  The idea that an operator of an avatar with a different gender is "transgender."
2.  Neva's blog post.
3.  Neva's reaction to my question.

I find it's difficult to have calm, rational conversations with Neva.  No, I'm not jumping on the crazy-lady bandwagon.  I know that Neva purposely indulges in a kind of TalkRadio/Internet culture virtual swinging dick hyperbole that would make Limbaugh and WoW players proud, but I suspect that Neva is so often attacked that he just keeps himself in a defensive posture.  I'm not sure what the approach of a casual reader of  "Second Thoughts" should be on a hot-button topic at this point.  I think I was unexpectedly culling out a bit of that hyperbole and separating it from the herd of the total attack, so to speak, and it may not stand so well on its own legs in that particular field.

So if someone has an avatar with a different gender to the real life operator...is that "transgender"?  Is it entirely up to the operator?  Do people who are transgender in real life have cause for offense or criticism?  Is there room in a virtual world for both choices and philosophies?

Links:
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2011/09/joshua-nightshades-big-lie-and-the-griefers-exploitation-of-the-suicide-of-nikola-shirakawa.html

ETA:

Neva replied and so did I.

"LeeHere, I thought you were another variation of that Lee who hangs around Ross infohub all the time who is a middle-aged male and has his RL picture on his avatar even. You *are* being prurient. No, I don't find it interesting to discuss my life with you. I wish to refer to my avatar as transgendered. It seems accurate and perfectly legitimate. I don't believe in the Gender Police and I don't obey the Transgender Central Committee. Again, I don't have to prove any status *whatsoever* in RL to have a transgender avatar in SL, end of story, that's all he wrote." 

"I'm glad we cleared up the which "Lee" I am part. As for the prurient part, I think we will just have to agree to disagree. I thought it was an interesting question, a kind of philosophical inquiry. Again, thank you for answering the question, regardless. I'm content to leave it there. Have a good day. Happy blogging."

Germany Taxing Street Prostitutes

Dakota Cody posted the article on gV.  I twitched.  Here's more on the story...

• Bonn, Germany
• Implementation of automated tax pay stations similar to parking meters
• Prostitution is legal in Germany
• Street prostitution in Bonn, Germany is fairly organized
• The city built special garage structures where customers can park and have sex with prostitutes
• Brothel, bordello and sauna prostitutes are taxed
• Taxing street prostitutes was argued as fair and equal treatment of prostitutes
• Street prostitutes who earn no money still have to pay the automated tax machines
• The city of Bonn pays to have a private security company police the "performance area" and provide security for sex workers.
• The city of Bonn, Germany was also looking for "relatively simple" ways to increase revenue to offset the city's millions in debt.
• Prostitutes in Dortmund, Germany pay a similar tax, but they make their "tax ticket" payments at gas stations.
• Advocates for sex workers say the tax is unfair because the prostitutes already pay income taxes.  So they are taxed twice under the new system and it is not income-based.
• City officials say foreign-born street prostitutes who don't speak German struggle with the German income tax forms.
• Germany has a "sickness fund" for workers who make less than €46,300. Those who make more can utilize the sickness fund or opt out and get private insurance. Sickness funds are financed through a payroll tax.

Links:
http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/bonn-germany-introduces-ermm-parking-meters.2510/
http://news.yahoo.com/german-city-introduces-parking-meter-prostitutes-184644020.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/world/europe/01germany.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8731046/Bonn-prostitutes-to-use-parking-meters.html
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/30/sex-tax-street-prostitutes-in-bonn-must-now-pay-meter-for-a-nights-work/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14730704
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/08/taxation
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/24/health-care-around-the-world-germany/
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/23/world/paying-for-health-german-way-special-report-medical-care-germany-with-choices.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Germany

Don't You Want to Know?

That's another question I get a lot.  I was adopted as an eight-week-old baby.  People want to know about my biological parents and then they want to know why I never looked for them or information about them.  "Don't you want to know?"  "Not really, no."  "Why not?  "Well...why?"

People magazine, a celebrity gossip and entertainment news mag,  used to, when I was growing up, do a fairly regular feature article, maybe once a year or so, for no apparent reason, on adopted kids.  The articles were always blatantly biased in favor of biological families.  The adopted children interviewed were always ones in extreme circumstances, abusive relationships, various and sundry trauma.  They would describe feeling a disconnect from their adoptive parents and would go on some quest to find their "real" parents.  These articles never included interviews with the MANY adopted children who grew up in happy homes feeling a true and deep connection to their parents, or even the many children who grew up in unhappy biological-family homes and felt no connection to their biological parents.

The nuclear family is a relatively, in human history, recent societal construct, but boy we sure do romanticize it, market and protect it, don't we?

I grew up in a nuclear family, but it was one created by my parents and marriage and adoption.  I was eight weeks old when it came together.  I never knew any other family.

My mother created a warm and wonderful home.  Kids from the neighborhood wanted to come to my house after school.  She greeted me with home-baked after-school snacks and a genuine interest in my day and the most marvelous stories, some from the history of her country (England) and some just totally made up and full of fantasy.  She sat up with me when I was sick, she applauded at my school plays, she helped me make Halloween costumes, she shopped for back-to-school clothes and prom dresses with me and thought I was beautiful.  She took me to Australia when I turned 18 and to Italy when I turned 30.

My father did hokey magic tricks for me and the neighborhood kids.  He bought me a science kit and went on nature walks with me and pointed out plants and rocks and winds and the sun and stars.  He swam in the pool with me and horsed around and threw catch and later taught me to play golf.  One Halloween I was wearing a full leg cast, which had not been anticipated, as such things usually aren't, so the situation made wearing my planned Halloween costume impossible.  My parents jury-rigged a last minute costume out of stuff around the house.  I couldn't walk from house to house to trick-or-treat, so my Dad carried me, cast-and-all, to each door so I wouldn't miss out on my favorite holiday.

People would ask me if I knew where my "real" parents were.  My answer was always, "yes."

Why Marriage?

People ask me why I never got married.  My question back is often, "why should I have?"

Christine O'Donnell walks out on Piers Morgan

"'You're being a little rude,' O'Donnell says after questions on her gay-marriage stance."

Oh dear.

"Morgan did inquire about O'Donnell's views on sexual abstinence. During the 2010 election season,video footage from years earlier surfaced showing O'Donnell suggesting if she could, she would stop the whole country from having sex."

I'm glad she's not running for office at any rate.



Links:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44182931/ns/today-entertainment/?gt1=43001
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/08/piers-morgan-christine-odonnell-walks-off-tea-party-troublemaker.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/christine-odonnell-hangs-up-interview-radio_n_930360.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/christine-odonnell-piers-morgan_n_930321.html

Bert, Ernie, Welfare, HIV and Palestine on Sesame Street

Interesting blog article on Coilhouse.net, made current and relevant again by the latest furor over Bert and Ernie.


Welfare, HIV and Palestine on Sesame Street



Should Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie get married?

Dvorak: A gay couple on "Sesame Street," but not this pair

Donation Links for Navy Seals and American Soldiers

Links:
http://www.navysealfoundation.org/
https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/07/afghanistan.fatality/
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/08/06/general-us-us-afghanistan-seals_8606178.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44043847/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/?gt1=43001

The College Payoff

The Value Of College: Earnings Tied To Major, Degrees & The Undereducated American

Links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/college-value-worth-payoff_n_918781.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/college-major_n_866359.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/recent-grads-college-investment_n_885557.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/13/negotiate-young-women-college-graduates-first-job_n_875650.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/03/college-bubble-burst_n_857082.html
http://cew.georgetown.edu/collegepayoff/
http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/undereducatedamerican.pdf
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/education.pdf
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/psychology-socialwork.pdf
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/arts.pdf
http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/humanities-liberalarts.pdf

The Messiness of Events

Anthony Bourdain and Roberto Salas, photographer, on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Cuba episode.

Anthony Bourdain:  "Does the camera always tell the truth?"

Roberto Salas:   "No, the camera is one of the worst liars in the world."

Anthony Bourdain:  "I wouldn't have expected you to say that.  Why do you...?  What do you mean?"

Roberto Salas:  "Because the mind that's behind the instrument is what goes into the image.  I don't deny the fact that at the beginning I was totally enamored of the whole system of what was happening in Cuba.  My images reflect that.  Fidel for me is an exceptional individual.  If I didn't feel that way, maybe I wouldn't have taken the pictures that I took of him."

Quick blurb about The Miracle of Freedom by Chris and Ted Stewart on Entertainment Weekly's "Nonfiction Top 10" list for July 22, 2011:

"Freedom, written by a pair of brothers, outlines seven key historical steps toward the development of a free society, but strangely the abolition of slavery is not one of them.  Sales of the book have skyrocketed since Glenn Back gave it a shout-out."

Product description from Amazon:

"In The Miracle of Freedom, Chris and Ted Stewart make a strong case that fewer than 5 percent of all people who have ever lived on the earth have lived under conditions that we could consider free. So where did freedom come from, and how are we fortunate enough to experience it in our day? A deeper look at the human record, write the authors, reveals a series of critical events, obvious forks in the road leading to very different outcomes, that resulted in this extraordinary period in which we live. They identify and discuss seven decisive tipping points: 1. The defeat of the Assyrians in their quest to destroy the kingdom of Judah 2. The victory of the Greeks over the Persians at Thermopylae and Salamis 3. Roman Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity 4. The defeat of the armies of Islam at Poitiers 5. The failure of the Mongols in their effort to conquer Europe 6. The discovery of the New World 7. The Battle of Britain in World War II The journey to freedom has been thousands of years long."

The Stewart brothers are also the authors of Seven Miracles That Saved America.

"-The unlikely discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

-How (and why) desperate English colonists were able to survive the starving time at Jamestown

-The Battle of New York during the Revolutionary War

-The miraculous creation of the United States Constitution

-Abraham Lincoln's desperate prayer that turned the tide of the Civil War at Gettysburg

-How a series of extraordinary events changed the Battle of Midway during World War II

-The preservation of Ronald Reagan's life from an assassin's bullet, allowing him the time he needed to help extend freedom around the world"

Links:
No Reservations, the Cuba episode - http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Anthony_Bourdain/Episodes_Travel_Guides/Cuba
APB Speaker Profiles - http://www.apbspeakers.com/speaker/roberto-salas
What He Saw at the Revolution - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/arts/design/12gran.html
Entertainment Weekly - http://www.ew.com/ew/books/
GlennBeckBookList - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP89kL8mLIo
Amazon Product Description - http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Freedom-Seven-Tipping-Points/dp/160641951X
Amazon Product Description for Seven Miracles That Saved America - http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Miracles-That-Saved-America/dp/1606411446/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311470559&sr=1-1

Hostile History

I confess I'm feeling a little hostile towards Walter Benjamin and historical materialism.  I'm working through it though.  I do appreciate his contribution to discussions beyond the "this, then that" narratives of history, but he gets referenced so bloody often and it all feels so...overwrought and indulgently righteous at the moment.   Like I said, I'm working through it.

From Wikipedia:

"Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist. His work, combining elements of historical materialism, German idealism and Jewish mysticism, has made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory and Western Marxism, and has sometimes been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory."

"Theses on the Philosophy in History is an essay by Walter Benjamin."

"In the essay, Benjamin presents a critique of what he calls 'historicism,' a notion of history that conceives of the past as a sequence or “causal nexus” of events that are fixed, and which give rise mechanically to the present and future. According to this concept of history, the work of the historian is simply to explain “the way it really was,” by uncovering and arranging historical events in their proper order of appearance, retelling the past as a lifeless series of moments that follow each other 'like the beads of a rosary.'"

"Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883) as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. The non-economic features of a society (e.g. social classes, political structures, ideologies) are seen as being an outgrowth of its economic activity. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded by thousands of Marxist thinkers. It now has many variants."

"Historical materialism can be seen to rest on the following principles:

• 1. The basis of human society is how humans work on nature to produce the means of subsistence.

• 2. There is a division of labour into social classes (relations of production) based on property ownership where some people live from the labour of others.

• 3. The system of class division is dependent on the mode of production.

• 4. The mode of production is based on the level of the productive forces.

• 5. Society moves from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class, by overthrowing the "political shell" that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This takes place in the superstructure of society, the political arena in the form of revolution, whereby the underclass "liberates" the productive forces with new relations of production, and social relations, corresponding to it."

"Historicism is a mode of thinking that assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place and local culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglects the role of traditions. Historicism therefore tends to be hermeneutical, because it places great importance on cautious, rigorous and contextualized interpretation of information and/or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental and immutable interpretations."

"Historicism may be contrasted with reductionist theories, which suppose that all developments can be explained by fundamental principles (such as in economic determinism), or theories that posit historical changes as result of random chance."

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Concept_of_History_/_Theses_on_the_Philosophy_of_History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicism

Dissecting the Croak, Part III

The Things They Carried

Speaking of "The Things They Carried"...awesome fucking story.  I loved it. Funny, sad, bittersweet, cleverly and consistently structured. Humanizing. Ingenious. The theme of carrying weight so appropriate and descriptive of things tangible and intangible and so consistently and appropriately applied, yet never so much so that it weighed the work down.

Lieutenant Cross attempts to redistribute the weight he carries, prioritizing the weight of responsibility for his men over the weight of his fantasy love for Martha, the girl back home. But can he, the soldiers or anyone put the intangibles down? Can you lighten the load or merely replace one intangible for another like Freud’s screen memory? The “messiness of these events” are contained and carried in packs on backs, in feet on humps, in minds, hearts and guts and turned into O’Brien’s narrative of the Vietnam War. A catalog of things the soldiers carried turns out to carry a lot of emotional weight.

Note:  "The Things They Carried" is a short story within a book called The Things They Carried.  I read a comment written by a vet on one of the sites I surfed who said O'Brien's book was a precious gift to Vietnam vets.  The other comments by vets on various sites indicated a similar, shared affection for O'Brien and his book.  Also, there is a beautiful message from father to son in that video I posted.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Things_They_Carried
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Brien_(author)
http://www.rajuabju.com/literature/thingstheycarried.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/133518.The_Things_They_Carried
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125128156
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127133594
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/02/136503834/returned-combat-veteran-anxiety-trumps-logic
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/04/wednesday-on-the-newshour-writer-tim-obrien.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnNMUYJ9fm8  (Youtube has the entire story as an "audio book" from PRI in seven parts.)

Chameleon Lenny

I just read "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta" a short story by Kate Braverman. It was written in 1990 and won the Best American Short Story 1991 and the O.Henry Prize. It was orginally published in Squandering the Blue, a short story collection.

Kate Braverman said:

"I once said that “Tall Tales” is my version of “Little Red Riding Hood” at the millennium in Los Angeles. It’s an ancient story, an archetypal tale, set beneath the tattered palms in the ruined California tropics under all that vivid and tawdry blue. It’s about predators in a cutting-edge city at the end of a mean thousand years.

'Tall Tales' is about the legacy of Vietnam, which continues to infect the American conscience, often in unexpected configurations. It’s about tarnished consciousness and some unspeakable sordid pulse at the core of the American Dream. On one level, its about the irresistible lure of evil, it’s strange sheen. It’s about relationships between men and women itself. It was here before us and it will remain when we are gone. It has something to do with sexual obsession and the glamour of danger and the fragility of ordinary life. It’s about power and survival in a landscape where the boundaries between dream and reality have dissolved, probably to a rock-and-roll beat."

It's a good story.  I found it intensely creepy and disturbing in no small part due to the fact that I "know" that guy.  I "know" Chameleon Lenny.  I've met him and interacted with him and I know what he is about.  I left him behind.  I like him back there.  In my past, not my present or future.

So yes, the story reminded me of guys I've known in my own life, as well as points made in recent essays I've read for class including one by Marita Sturken (who referenced Freud and his theory of "screen memories") and others we have read about history and cultural memory (American Political Lit).  It reminded me of the current conversation going on in my Black Lit class about pimps and whores and playing the (psychological) game.  The story reminded me of the lyrical significance of sense memories and sense descriptors used in “The Gangster We Are All Looking For” by lê thi diem thúy (more readings from class).  Here so much is blue, blue, blue.  “There is only this infected blue enormity elongating defiantly.  The blue that knows you and where you live and it’s never going to forget.”  Blue is like a screen memory.  Her addiction, the chameleon, is a load she can replace, but never put down.  Much like the death of Lavender for Cross in “The Things They Carried" (another reading and a fantastic story.)

The story reminded me of movies by Adrian Lyne and Zalman King. Stories about dysfunctional desire that is as much of a game as the one in the pulp fiction books we’re reading for that Black Lit class. 9/12 Weeks, Wild Orchid, Fatal Attraction. Chameleon Lenny and what he offers are a fatal attraction for the narrator of “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta.” Hollywood glorifies him. Society makes him a kind of hero.  This woman takes him like a drug.

The story reminded me or made me think of a lot of stuff, which I suppose is the mark of a good story or an indication of where my mind is at, particularly being in the midst of a bunch of analytical lit classes.  Of all the stuff it reminded me of, though, it reminded me most of men and situations I have known in my own life. I know this guy. I have sense memories stored in my body too, which is why I felt a little sick reading “Tall Tales From The Mekong Delta.” I understand the draw. I understand the consequences. I also want to reach through the story and stage an intervention. I know Chameleon Lenny. I’ve met him before.  She should run, not walk.


Links:
http://www.katebraverman.com/talltalesfromthemekongdelta.html
http://www.katebraverman.com/talltales.html
http://www.amazon.com/Tangled-Memories-Epidemic-Politics-Remembering/dp/0520206207
http://wrt.syr.edu/pub/reflections/19/salibrici.html
http://lozoquals.blogspot.com/2010/12/book-review-tangled-memories-by-marita.html
http://ushistory.wikispaces.com/Sturken+-+Memories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gangster_We_Are_All_Looking_For
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Things_They_Carried
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Brien_(author)
http://www.rajuabju.com/literature/thingstheycarried.htm

Olivia Newton-John's Daughter Defends Graphic "Horror Film" Video As "Artist's Job"

Olivia Newton-John's daughter defends graphic video

People are talking bans for the music video because they feel the video legitimizes or glorifies suicide.

"The video shows Chloe appearing to snort a powdery substance, lying in a bed with slit wrists and holding a gun to her head. After the death of Amy Winehouse, the project has been steeped in controversy.

'It's so funny -- I don't think I went that far,' says Chloe. 'It was a metaphor for what I was going through, so I wasn't like, 'Yeah I want to slit my wrist or put some electrical devices in a bathtub.' It was just about being in a lot of pain and dying inside in front of the one you love and them not noticing what you're going through.'

Still, after receiving such strong negative feedback, Chloe released a more positive video with the intention showing her fans that she's 'alive and well.'

What do you think of the video? Is it art, or is it going too far?"

She says it is "the artist's job to challenge ideas."  Maybe she can find some inspiration or relief in her Dad's teepee.

Links:
http://www.etonline.com/music/112804_Olivia_Newton_John_s_Daughter_Chloe_Lattanzi_on_Her_Graphic_New_Music_Video/
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43933901/ns/today-entertainment/
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/olivia-newtonjohn-silent-on-daughters-graphic-shockrock-music-video-20110725-1hw36.html
http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/07/chloe-lattanzi-olivia-newton-johns-daughter-makes-horrid-inscrutable-video.html
http://instinctmagazine.com/blog/chloe-lattanzi-says-play-with-me-in-her-cray-cray-new-video?directory=100011
http://www.starobserver.com.au/celebrity-2/2011/07/22/dark-road-for-newton-johns-daughter/57450
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYou42GVpRQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJZRZDxqao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWa-K8xHUos

Newz Blurbz. Oh the humanity! (July 28, 2011)

Today's theme is alcohol.  Amy Winehouse possibly dying from alcohol withdrawal, a drunk road-raging driver killing someone with his car and then pounding his chest like a gorilla before demanding that the cops shoot him in the head, a father and stepmother enjoying a night of drinking with their drug-addicted and suicidal son who dies after the festivities, doctors recommending annual screening for alcohol and sexual assault issues, teens in England abstaining and being "less tolerant of drinking."  Those story details caught my eye.  Paz de la Huerta just annoys me.

Amy Winehouse: Family believes singer may have died from alcohol withdrawal

Paz de la Huerta Admits to Smackdown With The City Star, Ordered to Sober Up

Witness to fatal crash: SUV driver pounded chest 'like a gorilla'

Las Cruces Father And Stepmother Charged After Death Of Suicidal Son

"A father and stepmother are charged with intentional child abuse for providing alcohol to their suicidal and drug-addicted 15-year-old son who lost consciousness and died 10 days after a night of drinking with his parents."

Women Should Be Screened for Alcohol Abuse at Least Annually

"Obstetrician-gynecologists should screen and counsel women at risk of drinking and alcohol dependence, especially those who are pregnant or at risk of pregnancy; and health care providers should routinely screen all women for history of sexual assault, according to two Practice Bulletins from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published in the August issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology."

More teens abstain from alcohol, NHS figures reveal

"More than half of younger teenagers in England are abstaining from alcohol, the latest figures from the NHS Information Centre show."

"Chris Sorek, the chief executive of Drinkaware, said: 'These statistics are not just encouraging because they show a drop in the number of children who have tried alcohol, but also because they show a positive shift in attitudes.'"

Q&A: The Author of Unwasted Talks About Socializing Sober

"I was bothered by all of those addiction memoirs—I call them “junkie lit.” They're voyeuristic, focusing on the wild and crazy episodes, and then there's this burning bush moment in the last chapter when the addict decides to quit. The books remind me of romantic comedies in which the struggle of a couple getting together is the whole movie. But real life comes after that."

Dissecting the Croak, Part II

Four Theorists Deconstruct a Joke

I will number each sentence or unit of meaning in the following joke so it will be easy to identify it in the discussion to follow.

The Tan

1.  A man goes to Miami for a vacation.
2.  After a few days there he looks in a mirror and notices he has a beautiful tan all over his body, with the exception of his penis.
3.  He decides to remedy the situation, and have a perfect tan all over his body.  So the next morning he gets up early, goes to a deserted section of the beach, undresses, and starts putting sand over his body until only his penis remains exposed to the sun.
4.  A couple of little old ladies happen to walk by shortly after the man has finished shoveling sand all over himself.
5.  One notices the penis sticking out of the sand.  She points it out to her friend.
6.  "When I was twenty, I was scared to death of them."
7.  "When I was forty, I couldn't get enough of them."
8.  "When I was sixty, I couldn't get one to come near me."
9.  "And now they're growing wild on the beach!"

So why is this amusing?

Superiority theorists:  We feel superior to various characters in this story.  The punch line (#9) can be taken as a revelation of ignorance.  And the segments preceding it reveal a good deal about her sexuality and frustration.

Incongruity theorists:  The fundamental absurdity of a penis sticking out of the sand instead of being between a man's legs, where it belongs (in the first place) and of a person thinking that penises can grow wild on the beach, like wildflowers (in the second place) is the source of the humor.  One expects penises to behave and to stay shielded from public scrutiny.  The punch line (#9) reveals the incongruity.

Psychoanalytic critics:  The humor generated from the joke stems primarily from its sexual content.  The humor is related to sexuality and the matter of sexual development in people and, in particular, to sexual hunger.  The punch line (#9) represents a kind of wish-fulfillment, a sexually paradisiacal state for this woman where penises grow wild on the beach and are thus easily attainable and in as great a quantity as may be desired.  Sexual repression, which Freud postulated as being the price we pay for civilization, is no longer a dominating force.  The man, it could be argued, also has unconscious exhibitionist tendencies.  There may also be a regressive aspect to the woman, who does not seem to know that penises always come attached to men - a means, a good Freudian might argue, of escaping from penis envy.

Cognitive perspective:  The jokes establishes a play frame which is generated by the man's bizarre behavior - his desire to tan every inch of his body.  This play frame allows us to view the crazy notion that penises might grow wild on the beach as humorous, something not to be taken seriously.  The semiotic analysis of this joke shows something else.  The punch line (#9) sets up a paradigmatic opposition which contrasts nature with culture.  It is this set of polar oppositions that gives us an insight into the real meaning of the joke.  Whether people realize this at the conscious level is beside the point.

This entire blog post is an excerpt from the Introduction chapter, pages 5-7, of "An Anatomy of Humor" by Arthur Asa Berger.

Link:
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=aZkRJJnc6BUC&pg=PA57&dq=Davies,+Christie.+Ethnic+Humor&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#v=onepage&q=Davies%2C%20Christie.%20Ethnic%20Humor&f=false
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Humor-Arthur-Berger/dp/0765804948

Dissecting the Croak, Part I

One day this frog was bored, so he decided to call the psychic hotline.The psychic asked the frog, "what do you want to know." "Tell me something about my love life," said the frog. "In the very near future you are going to meet a very beautiful young woman," said the psychic.  "Cool, where? at a disco or a party?" said the frog."No," the psychic replied,"next month in her biology class!"

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it."  - E.B. White

"Almost all the jokes that I have found touch on a certain social boundary, susceptibility or 'threshold of embarrassment.'  The most popular joke categories deal with sensitive questions like sex, gender relationships, foreigners, aggression, religion, money, sicknesses, death, disasters and scandals.  Much of the pleasure of humor lies in the short-lived, playful, light-hearted overstepping of a social boundary." 

"...the most widespread jokes are without a doubt jokes about sex and gender relationships..."

"...I can easily distinguish elements crucial to the understanding of all categories of jokes:  the distinction between jokes in which a boundary is transgressed and jokes that themselves transgress a social boundary."  - from "Good humor, bad taste: a sociology of the joke" by Giselinde Kuipers

"Joking entails a dynamic process where the characteristics of the joke teller and the audience interact with the embedded meaning of the joke.  It is the interactions among these factors that determine whether efforts to be funny are acceptable or not."

"Freud argues for the cathartic effect of joking, especially in areas of unconscious turmoil about human sexuality and aggression.  Humour is seen as a safe outlet that prevents the teller from expressing his hostilities in more destructive ways." - from "No Laughing Matter: Boundaries of Gender-Based Humour in the Classroom" by Aysan Sev'er and Sheldon Ungar

"We know that when we verbally depreciate the humanity of people it is much easier to treat them in inhumane ways."  - from "An Anatomy of Humor" by Arthur Asa Berger

Boundary-pushing jokes and sacred cows.
Do sacred cows make the best hamburger?
Is it so wrong it's right?
Do you sometimes laugh against your better judgment?
How do you maintain the balance between funny and offensive?
How far is too far?  When and how does a joke become a boundary transgression?
Bad taste or much needed levity?
Where's the line, how is it determined, how do you know it, who sets it, why and who polices it?
Are older people more easily offended than younger people?  Are women more easily offended than men?  Are Americans more easily offended than Europeans?  And if so, why?  And does it matter?
Do jokes based on tropes of discrimination and bigotry like race, gender and sexual orientation let the hot air out of the balloon and tweak the destructive accepted conventional wisdom of the time and place or only add to the destructiveness and propagate hate and ignorance?  Do ethnic jokes, for example, "reinforce stereotypes and hostile feelings" or do they help people "deal with hostility verbally instead of physically"?
Is "politically correct" a worthy and achievable ideal?  Useless or overused?
Are some of our greatest modern social commentators and philosophers comedians?
Do people just need to lighten the fuck up?


Links:
http://www.froggyville.com/jokes.htm
http://www.bookbrowse.com/quotes/detail/index.cfm?quote_number=228
http://books.google.com/books?id=uk_WHTCTN9YC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=boundaries+of+humor+and+jokes&source=bl&ots=uDr0R__FjJ&sig=Ifxovpm2HrShoakZxnXI7i3mLTA&h
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2959937
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=aZkRJJnc6BUC&pg=PA57&dq=Davies,+Christie.+Ethnic+Humor&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#v=onepage&q=Davies%2C%20Christie.%20Ethnic%20Humor&f=false

Yale Frat Pledges' Rape Chants & Yale Suspends Frat for Sexism

October 2010

"No means yes.  Yes means anal."
"My name is Jack. I'm a necrophiliac. I fuck dead women."

"Yale University didn't wait for federal civil rights officials to determine whether the presence of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was contributing to a hostile sexual environment. The University has banned George W. Bush's old frat from the campus for five years."

"The fraternity chants that helped launch a federal investigation raise an old question: is it ever right for Yale to suppress or punish speech?"

"First Amendment advocates, however, are less than pleased. 'Whether we like what DKE did or not—and I don’t—their chants were protected speech,' says Nathaniel Zelinsky, a rising junior. 'It’s kind of an unsettling conclusion to come to, but we don’t want to make content-based decisions on speech.'"

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUEq75i_z-A
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2011_07/feature_freespeech.html
http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2011_07/feature_titleix.html
http://bigthink.com/ideas/38479
http://www.drudge.com/news/144341/yale-suspends-frat-sexism

The Psychology of Online Forums

Excerpt from "The Psychology of Online Forums" by Alicia White on Yahoo's community-created content site:

"Ethnomethodology is a sociology theory that describes how people in certain situations, such as online environments, create the false impression of a collective social order when they don't understand, or perhaps don't care to understand each other fully. Inevitably, the different points of view within this forged community can lead to total anarchy if not intensely moderated by an unbiased member.


Within these online communities, notions of hierarchy are quickly established by the more seasoned posters who exhibit a rather skewed sense of importance and authority. Cliques are formed and mimic real life by picking on weaker or less popular individuals within the group.


In forums saturated with women, passion and possessiveness trumps kindness and rationality. In male-oriented groups testosterone takes over as insults fly, everyone suddenly belongs to Mensa and the discussion can turn into something along the lines of locker room bullying. Above it all, sarcasm reigns supreme, of course sarcasm doesn't easily translate online."

Gotta love a gender-line analysis in a place where nobody knows your name, let alone your DNA.

"Forums have become widely-known for their hostility and major corporations have begun to take notice. David Benady of Marketing Week points out how corporations often use forum hostility and social structure to their advantage. Benady discussed the advertising tactics of BMW marketing executives:


'They have their own blogger IDs such as Scott 26. They certainly come on forums around new model launches. They are not high-posting users, they just come on and say this is coming soon. BMW deliberately tries not to sound as intelligent as you would expect a marketer to.' [Steve] Davies argues that brands need to understand the psychology of online forums, where people crave self-esteem and status, both as individuals and for the whole community. By giving advocates exclusive pieces of information that they can then disseminate to a forum, it creates goodwill. Potential brand advocates can be identified on forums from users with the highest post counts or the ones starting the most widely read threads. But Davies says it is important the brand owner doesn't put any spin on the information it contributes to a discussion. Instead, it should simply give data and information and hope the advocates spin it themselves.'(Benady, 2007)'"

"One could say an online forum is a microcosm of society; however, a true microcosm would be comprised of unique individuals with a full range of interests and backgrounds."

"People might suffer from low self-esteem, shyness, or a physical disability that prevents them from feeling comfortable enough to socialize with others in real life. For these people forums can be greatly therapeutic and fulfilling. Some people are passive-aggressive or have other control issues and find themselves in an environment where they are free to assert their aggressive nature in full force with no repercussions. Others can be tremendously passive in real life yet anonymously they are finally given a voice in a place where their opinions mean something to a captive audience. Also present are 'trolls' that are just itching to start flame wars no matter that the topic is about and live to argue."

More psychological lingo thrown about by someone who is not trained in the field. But we all use the language now, right? Do we even know how to describe the behavior anymore without reverting to our mental pop psych library?  And what about the apparent irony or hypocrisy of people who use the language while also deriding the field?  Ever been accused of projecting or being passive-aggressive by someone who would never deign to visit one of those "quacks"?

"Class consciousness is brought into the mix by individuals who suffer from inadequacy or lack of validation and feel compelled to flaunt their real life social status, education, Mensa affiliation, employment or monetary status (whether genuine or fabricated) in an attempt to make others feel insignificant or to catapult themselves into the stratosphere of the forum's rank structure.


No matter what the individual's agenda or personality happen to be, people become intertwined in the drama of forums find it addicting and empowering to behave antisocially. One of the aggressors in a show's forum was a married mother of three who accumulated over 30,000 posts over a year and a half. That equals out to an average of 54 posts a day, seven says a week. The addiction can be very real and staying angry for that period of time can't possibly be good one's health."

Class consciousness and prejudice in a potentially "utopian" virtual world fascinates me.

"I've seen others who according to their own dialog, are online all day playing games and complain when their children are hungry or that they want attention period."

The world's new addiction...the internet. Hook up and bliss/zone/amp up and out.

"Certainly not everyone who steps foot into these forums are monsters or addicts, it's just that the monsters have a habit of taking over."

"There's a difference between healthy debating and blatant antagonizing. In an online setting where you can't see facial expressions or always sniff out witty sarcasm, people can easily misconstrue others' intended words. Next time you find yourself in a hostile thread, try to take the high ground and shrug off offending comments. Users should also try to gracefully respect comments that differ in opinion even if they are unpopular statements about highly controversial topics."

"If you are the offender, and are going off for the gratification of starting chaos or inflating your own self-esteem, perhaps seeking therapy might be in order or at least ask yourself why you harbor so much animosity towards the world. It is never okay to rationalize personal attacks with anonymity. Respect the person's rights, regardless of viewpoint. I'm just waiting for the day when someone turns around and sues a forum's host for damages caused by anxiety, high blood pressure or a heart attack. The way forums are going these days it's bound to happen sooner than later."

Noted for future reference.

"Published by Alicia White
Alicia is a former air traffic controller who lived in Japan for several years. She's currently a freelance writer in California, and a full-time pre-med student.   View profile"

"Yahoo! Contributor Network.  Contribute content like this. Start Here."

Link:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/504197/the_psychology_of_online_forums.html?cat=9

Amateur Hour on the Internet

Publisher's overview on Barnes & Noble of "Cult of the Amateur" by Andrew Keen:

"Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show.


In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement.


Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors.


In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented.


The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions.

Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us."

From Barnes & Noble:

"On his blog, Andrew Keen described The Cult of the Amateur as a short, sharp murder story in which all of us are the victims. A longtime Silicon Valley insider and participant, he grew disillusioned with the Internet renaissance that he had once touted. "What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering," he writes, "is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment." In The Cult of the Amateur, he describes how digital Darwinism is decimating the ranks of cultural gatekeepers, journalists, editors, creators, and other specialists and replacing them with the loudest and the most opinionated bloggers. In addition to its impassioned critique of phenomena such as MySpace, YouTube, and Wikipedia, Keen's book contains important insights about business, political, and social trends."

Wikipedia entry says:

"Andrew Keen (born circa 1960) is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view that the Internet and Web 2.0 may be debasing culture, an opinion he shares with Jaron Lanier and Nicholas G. Carr among others. Keen is especially concerned that the Internet undermines the authority of learned experts.

In 2006 in an essay in The Weekly Standard, Keen wrote that Web 2.0 is a "grand utopian movement" similar to "communist society" as described by Karl Marx. He stated it "worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone – even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us – can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 'empowers' our creativity, it 'democratizes' media, it 'levels the playing field' between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is 'elitist' traditional media." He describes Free Culture proponent Lawrence Lessig as an "intellectual property communist".

His book The Cult of the Amateur, was based on this essay. The book is critical of free, user-based Web sites such as Wikipedia that attempt to provide information, and was published on June 5, 2007, by Doubleday Currency. In a BBC World Service documentary on Wikipedia in 2011, Keen recommends vigilance when reading Wikipedia."

Is our internet culture a threat to our society and economy?


Links:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-cult-of-the-amateur-andrew-keen/1012778989
http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Keen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cult_of_the_Amateur
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/books/29book.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jul/20/computingandthenet.books

Psi Shrinkers Roll Call

The original Psi Shrinkers were:

LeeHere Absent
Orfeu Miles
Stephie
FuckWad Occam's Barber
Mitch Wexler
Just Jordan (JJ) SCIF Princess
Queen Tsani
dadatic
LadyKatzen
TreZen
Vito
Jigs



The Asylum R&P included:

LeeHere Absent

Stephie

FuckWad Occam's Barber

Just Jordan (JJ) SCIF Princess

Chaos Factor

RedBaby Rita

dadatic

LadyKatzen

TreZen

SophieKat

Maryanne
Murasaki
Mani
Ell
Loveheart

Membership, that is to say, participation, is pretty much open to anyone who likes to get a little deeper into conversations about they way people think and behave and is open to a variety of opinions and forms of expression.  Not for yawners or the bored or disengaged.

Psi Shrinkers & Real Life Resources

News of the World, Paul McMullan, Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant

This guy McMullan is a real piece of work.  I feel sure he must be trolling on forums somewhere because I recognize both his rhetoric and his tactics.

Steve Coogan, Greg Dyke, Hugh Grant, Paul McMullan, News of the World

True Blood as Political Satire (Repost from SC MKII)

I think the killing of Gary Cole so early is part of this season's obvious and major wake up call to readers of Harris' Stackhouse series that the "True Blood" writers have taken control of the story and taken it somewhere completely different so everyone will be surprised. This season is the biggest and clearest departure from the source material yet.

I think anyone tuning in now is, unfortunately, missing out on the original cleverness, wit and political satire of season one. I admit that subsequent seasons just don't have the "bite" of the first season.

I absolutely loved the poking parallels of season one. It was almost like a game to find all the "pokes" as some were in the storyline, but some were a little more subtle, like signs on the road or posters on the wall. I freakin' loved it. The use of the vampire culture as a metaphor for minorities and gays was made new again, fresh and fun and even thought-provoking. I really wish they would infuse more of that back into the show to balance out the soapiness of it.

I'm in a Black Lit (America post 1900) class right now and I'm in another Lit class where the focus is American historical literature related to homosexuals, Communists and Socialists (also post 1900) so the comparisons are thrown into sharp relief.

There is a classmate who sits next to me in both classes who is also a fan of vampire literature in general and the Stackhouse series and "True Blood" in particular. Seems like every class we turn to each other and utter one word from the vampire lore with a knowing wink. For example, we read "Black No More" by George Shuyler and the professor was talking about "Black clubs" being popular in the 20s and 30s (Harlem Renaissance), but that these particular "Black clubs" weren't really clubs for Blacks (Blacks had their own), but rather "Black-like" clubs with Black performers creating the "Black experience" for curious Whites and Blacks who wanted to mingle with Whites. We turned to each other and said, "Fangtasia."

The scene in season one where the guy who looks like a "stereotypical" vampire freaks the college-looking kids out in the convenience store and after they leave in terror, the guy who looks like the Southern truck driver, who is an actual vamp, terrorizes the vamp-wannabe (vigger?) and tells him never to impersonate a vamp again? Priceless. There is SO much in that one scene. It's both hilarious and thesis-ready. Don't get me started! lol

Yeah, I'm a fan. Just don't call me a fangbanger. 




http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/showpost.php?p=379561&postcount=11