Invisible Privilege

Just in time to piss all over Black History Month, right-wing nutbag and unjust Justice Antonin Scalia has characterized the Voting Rights Act as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement". Of course, normal people know that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought protections from impediments to voting that resulted in the disenfranchisement of black voters througout much of the country. By characterizing the right to vote as a "racial entitlement", Scalia denigrates the legacy of martyrs to the cause of civil rights such as James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. By characterizing the right to vote as an entitlement, Scalia denigrates the legacy of all of those who fought for the expansion of suffrage. Here is the text of Scalia's jaw-dropping statement:


Well, maybe it was making that judgment, Mr. Verrilli. But that’s — that’s a problem that I have. This Court doesn’t like to get involved in — in racial questions such as this one. It’s something that can be left — left to Congress.

The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a — in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was — in the Senate, there — it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term.

Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.

That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.

Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?


The problem with straight white male male privilege is that it is invisible to its beneficiaries. Straight white males tend to think of themselves as the "default setting" for humanity. Because they are largely free from discrimination (it has to be noted that most attacks on white male privilege are conducted by white males from a higher socioeconomic stratum), straight white males often believe that members of minority groups are similarly unaffected by discrimination, which leads the straight white males to view any protections extended to minority groups as "perpetuation of racial entitlement".

Tragically, straight white males don't view minorities in a correct light- minorities serve as the "canaries in the coal mine"- attacks on minorities often presage attacks on other groups. For instance, the predatory lending practices which largely affected minority lenders soon spiraled out of control and affected white homeowners living in exurban areas. Similarly, poor treatment of minority employees in the workplace presaged wage stagnation and job insecurity for the majority of Americans. Sadly, Mr Whitefolks didn't look at what was going down in black households and see the threat: "Coming to a theater near you."

A white, male middle class individual may look at Scalia's characterization of the Voting Rights Act and think, "What's the big deal?" After all, nobody's thinking of disenfranchising white male voters. Women know better- more than one conservative has verbally attacked women's suffrage. While straight white guys don't see any threats to their franchise, such threats are not inconceivable- after all, the current political climate is one in which proposed legislation could give corporations the right to vote, and the average white male clockpuncher would not fare too well if his corporate paymasters really had their way.

Of course, the real solution to the issue of voting rights would be to make voting a constitutional right, and to explicitly extend the right to all citizens over the age of eighteen, to expand the scope of the Voting Rights Act rather than to drop it.

Scalia being a corporatist (and arguably a fascist, just like his old man), it is not inconceivable that, not being content with attacking the franchise of minorities, Scalia would attack the franchise of the average white working class schmo. White guys, open your eyes and see that you enjoy a privilege that other groups do not. Failure to recognize this, and failure to defend the minorities you believe are getting "racial entitlements" could lead to you losing your current privileges. Those black people in Alabama aren't leeches sucking to lifeblood out of the Republic, they're canaries keeling over- ignore them at your peril!

Cross-posted at Rumproast.

A Brain in Jar? A Bodiless Star!

Wiley posted part of an article about the preservation of brains after death:


I have been read­ing about the Brain Preser­va­tion Foun­da­tion (BPF), which hopes that chem­i­cal and other meth­ods, includ­ing a refined ver­sion of plas­ti­na­tion, will enable brains to be pre­served with such fidelity that mem­o­ries, per­son­al­ity, and even iden­tity can be preserved.

This may well seem rem­i­nis­cent of the older cryo­genic preser­va­tion projects which have not always had a good press over recent years, though they still con­tinue to oper­ate and indeed have refined their processes some­what. But although the BPF also has a vision of bring­ing peo­ple back to life after their nat­ural death, it is in many ways a dif­fer­ent ket­tle of fish. It does not itself offer any kind of ser­vice but merely seeks to pro­mote research, and it does not expect to see a prac­ti­cal sys­tem for many years


Traditionally, attempts to preserve brains have been portrayed as sinister plots to prolong the depredations of evil dictators both terrestrial:





and intergalactic:





Sure, if you put an evil brain in a jar, you have an evil brain in a jar. Not a lot of good guys seem to get the treatment, with a memorable exception, and even then, he was just used as a glorified building superintendent:




Why wouldn't having your brain preserved outside of your body actually be a good thing? If the aliens want to put your brain in a jar and take it around to have interplanetary adventures, why fight it? Sure, it would suck to have your brain stuck in some facility on a remote planet running the sewer system, but it wouldn't be bad to have your brain taken along on jaunts to thirty-seven different celestial bodies—planets, dark stars, and less definable objects—including eight outside our galaxy and two outside the curved cosmos of space and time. Even better, maybe the Brain Preservation Foundation can preserve Taylor Swift's brain, so she can keep breaking up with dudes for millennia and writing songs about said breakups. Even better, Taylor Swift's preserved brain can be placed in a space probe so she could break up with every dude in the universe.

Ingress? Ingress! Hit the Egress!

Mystery solved... My co-worker **REDACTED** managed to intercept one of the visitors who have been showing up at our workplace at odd hours and had this individual explain in detail what she was doing. It turns out I was wrong about these folks engaging in a "geocaching" or "waymarking". Our visitors are actually playing a massively multiplayer computer game that actually takes place in the real world, an "Augmented Reality" game (I tend to augment my reality with booze, myself) called Ingress. The game seems to be analogous to a "capture the flag", or maybe "king of the hill", game with two teams of players taking position of a particular area called a "portal" in the game. Well, one of these "portals" happens to be in our goddamn parking lot. Oddly, the game participants that my co-workers have met have seemed to assume that my co-workers were familiar with the game terminology, and confused the hell out of them with their talk of portals. Generally speaking, it's good to eschew jargon when talking to the mundanes, people.

At any rate, the participants don't seem to be aware that our parking lot is private property. Speaking for myself, I generally consider nightfall to be the time when I tell people they need to vamoose. The site is open to the public for a certain time of the year, for a certain number of hours a day. During the daylight hours, I usually approach people on the premises and give them a quick introduction to the site, and to our operations. At night, I'm usually less indulgent- people get a curt, but not rude, "Can I help you?" People who need assistance get it, others get the hint. Suffice it to say, people pulling into the lot late at night are not exactly greeted with open arms. It's usually a "get a hotel room" or "don't even think of trying to cop here". Last Saturday, at about quarter to midnight, when I arrived for the graveyard shift, there was an "Ingress" guy in the lot. Quarter to midnight? Beat it, man! Shouldn't you be out drinking, or meeting a nice girl? Wouldn't that be better than having a large, fierce looking man bark at you in a cold, dark parking lot on a Saturday night?


Here's a trailer for the game:





Here's an example of the gameplay:





This thing being a worldwide, massively multiplayer competitive game, I can envision this situation potentially turning into a weird nerd "turf war", with various team members lying in wait to retake the "portal" in our parking lot from their adversaries. Needless to say, I wrote the oddest memo of my entire worklife to the head of my department, complete with links to show him that I'm not delusional. I think the next step is to contact the moderators and request that they move the "portal" off our property. We have a really cool, really distinctive, destined-to-be-iconic landmark across the street from us, on public property. This landmark would be a perfect "portal", and there's plenty of street parking to boot. My co-worker already sent a complaint to the "Ingress" website, shouting to the ether that participants were on private property at odd hours. He's been the poor fellow who's had the most contact with the players.

I'm a fairly nerdy guy, as any regular reader could ascertain, but, like Dr Kenneth Noisewater, I find certain aspects of "Nerd Culture" to be exasperating- among them an occasional obtuseness towards societal norms which, among other things, can lead one to set foot on private property at a quarter to midnight. I don't need my reality augmented, I'm really just here trying to earn a modest paycheck. The last time my reality was augmented, things weren't pretty. Don't take it personally, Ingress players, like Rebecca Watson explaining to d00dz that they shouldn't make passes at women in enclosed spaces at 4AM, I'm trying to help you avoid getting arrested, or maced, or both.

When you play Ingress, don't transgress.

At Last, Comes the Spring

I've had it with winter- last Friday morning, working during the wee hours, I was wearing five layers of clothes to cover my "core" during my outdoor forays, due to the cold and the fierce wind. Thankfully, the wind has died down and the cold has somewhat abated. More significantly, I heard the distinctive trill of the red-winged blackbird this morning. Forget the woodchuck, the boid is the true harbinger of spring throughout much of North America.

Also on the bird front, the geese are very vocal, with large migratory flocks honking overhead. We always have a resident population of geese around here, taking advantage of the stretches of open water, but the migratory population has eclipsed the stay-at-home bunch. Oddly enough, the wiki indicates that Canada geese have been introduced to New Zealand... can I get a confirmation from a reputable Antipodean, preferably a science talking guy (or gal)? We also have some visiting Ring Necked Ducks and mergansers both hooded and common, but they tend to leave us as the weather gets warmer. While the juncos are with us year-round, they tend to be the most common small birds to stay the winter. You can recognize them by the flash of white seen at the edges of their tails as they fly off, the shy little things.

I'm looking forward to spring, though I'd be lying if I said that winter doesn't have its pleasures. I have the privilege of spending a lot of time outdoors, so I can observe the seasonal changes. The avian "changing of the guard" is one of my favorite ways to gauge the succession of seasons. Of course, I'll now have to check out the part of the property where the snowdrops come in... so many old friends to welcome back!

Still Got the Chops With the Old Axe

I'm really digging the new single by Johnny Marr, nee John Maher (Monsieur Marr changed the spelling of his surname, in part, to avoid being confused with fellow Manchester musician John Maher, the drummer for The Buzzcocks). Johnny Marr, whose jangly guitar sound was one of the defining characteristics of the music of legendary 80's britpop purveyors The Smiths becames a sought-after session musician and music producer. The new single, from a soon-to-be-released album The Messenger, is pure power pop... to put it in terms of "Manchester" bands, the music is more akin sonically to the music of The Buzzcocks than that of his old band, The Smiths, a band which, sadly, was never fronted by Foghorn Leghorn. Marr's voice is not as distinctive as the warblings of his former bandmate Stephen Patrick Morrissey, but it's a credible voice for a power pop anthem:





I wonder why Monsieur Marr didn't decide to become a frontman in his own right before now, but this move is better late than never, I suppose.

Seems Like a Charming Fellow

One of today's top local stories is the arrest of a local jackass who threatened various individuals on Facebook, including all of the "traitor scum" who voted for the Kenyan Usurper. Besides his "using Facebook to threaten millions of fellow citizens" hobby, he also indulged in the hobbies of driving while intoxicated, collecting weapons, and threatening his landlord. Like I said, a charming chap, a truly charming chap. For his bloviations, he's been charged with three felony counts of making terroristic threats, one count of felony weapons possession, two counts of misdemeanor weapons possession, and one count of harassment, a violation.

The "money quote" in the story is his landlady's characterization of the Facebook felon: In the end, she called Mulqueen “ineffectual, sort of the legend in his own mind. This was all the Internet, you know.”

Poking around the t00bz, it seems that this dumbass at least tried to get involved in a Tea Party group and considered himself a member of the "Sovereign Citizen" movement. Further poking reveals that he joined a local Tea Party group on January 26, 2012... how soon before the local teahadis claim he was a "liberal plant" who joined up in order to discredit the movement?

Unexpected Guests

My workplace parking lot is adjacent to a main county road, and people occasionally pull into it after hours for various purposes. Usually, they are checking maps or GPS systems, or answering phone calls or text messages, in the decent weather, we sometimes get "visitors" who are too cheap to get a hotel room for their amatory endeavors. Once in a while, someone with car trouble will pull into the lot. In the wee hours of the morning, the local constabulary often parks in the lot, which gives them a good vantage on the main road.

Typically, I will approach a "strange" car in order to ascertain the intents and purposes of the occupants- I always preface a conversation with, "May I help you?" I like to let people know that I am not immediately hostile to their presence, but I won't brook any nonsense. Should the occupant(s) actually need assistance, directions given, help with a flat tire, I can typically get them on their way in a few minutes. If I can't be arsed approaching a car, I will bust out a two million candlepower spotlight we have on hand, and will shine it across the parking lot into the car. This technique, which one of my co-workers is inordinately fond of, invariably convinces people to leave the premises. Typically, though, I like to know who is on the premises at any given time and, more importantly, get them off the premises in timely fashion. I cut some slack during the blizzard for a local guy who parked his car in our lot overnight because the side streets were a mess, and I generally get contact information for anyone who cannot move their car due to mechanical problems.

In the past two weeks, we've had a strange trend. I haven't personally experienced it (I've been working the graveyard shift lately), but two of my co-workers related a half-dozen incidents in which people have stopped in our parking lot after hours, sometimes as late as 11PM, and have wandered around the parking lot, checking out their smartphones. All of these individuals have been similar demographically... all well-spoken males of similar age and ethnic background. As it turns out, all of these gentlemen belong to a geocaching or waymarking (I'm not sure which) club which has chosen coordinates in our parking lot for their "scavenger hunt". They're a nice bunch of harmless eccentrics, but it would have been good of them to let us know to expect a slow but steady stream of visitors at odd hours. At the very least, it would relieve them of having a gruff, no-nonsense employee growling "We're closed!" at them.

For details on geocaching, this is the go-to site, for waymarking, go here. If you get involved in the hobby, I'll probably see you within a few months, just don't take it personally if I growl at you if you arrive after dark.