I guess this is one of those “for the record, here’s what I think” posts. An idea I’ve toyed around with for many years is notions of equivalency between various forms of violence. Most people I talk to seem to believe that physical violence is worse than emotional or psychological violence. For a long time I thought that was foolish. That violence of any sort is bad, but that for matters of retribution it should also be convertible.

The reason I came to think this is really just a holdover from elementary and middle school. (Like I’ve said, I was a particularly legalistic child.) In those years there were times I would get picked on or made fun of, but I lacked the social skills to retaliate in a non-physical manner. But you don’t need any particular skill to cause someone physical pain, particularly if you’re fine with fighting dirty. (I was also a competitive child. If I started a game I played to win.) So I came to believe that if I was taunted I had a right to respond as best as I was able, using the means that would be most effective, to deter the person from ever doing it again. (Think Ender’s Game. This is one of many, many reasons I’m very glad I didn’t read that book when I was young. The over-achieving smart kid with alien notions of morality did not need a book telling him it was ok to kill other kids who were bullying him.)

But the belief that, in some sense, physical and psychological/emotional violence were interchangeable with me a long time. Even in college I got into arguments with friends about this. Philosophically, I had a deep belief that how someone was hurt was irrelevant. That psychological and emotional violence could leave scars deeper and worse than physical violence, so why should physical violence be considered worse? In an absolute sense, I still believe this. Free from any societal context, I don’t think there is a difference.

Thankfully my notions of retribution have become considerably less Old Testament. I now believe many such instances of perceived bullying are due to one of two things. The first is that it’s just a miscommunication–a joke or teasing that didn’t work. I think this is true of some physical interactions as well, as not enough people at my college understood the difference between an actual physical fight and screwing around. The other possible reason for perceived bullying is that they really are being bullied and the other person is an ass. But I think this is much less common.

What’s also changed is my understanding of how we, as a community and society, view physical violence. In the context of society, physical violence is worse because everyone agrees that it’s worse. And so the assumption is that people committing violence know everyone agrees that it’s worse. They know they’re committing a societal taboo. Hence the stronger punishments for physical violence.

(At least, that’s sorta true. The big caveat is that society must think beating someone is worse than belittling them to a similar degree. That is certainly true in middle-class and upper-middle class cultures. But I don’t think it’s quite so true in lower-middle-class and lower-class cultures. Different forms of violence are more interchangeable there. And that’s part of why I think the legal system we have, written more to deal with a middle-class culture, is inadequate for cultures that don’t accept those values.)

Anyways, that’s how my views have evolved over the years. And this post is just me hashing through some of them more explicitly.

It’s been ages and ages since I posted here. And that’s partially because it’s been ages and ages since I though I had a really coherent thought. Or something really worth saying. But I guess I’ll break my silence with some hulu-inspired thoughts.

1. She-Ra was popular? Really? The 80’s were so strange.
2. And can anyone explain Speed Racer to me? Awful barely begins to describe it.
3. The Pink Panther cartoons haven’t aged well, at least for me. Judging my conversations with friends my age, very few of our beloved Saturday morning cartoons have. As far as I’m concerned, this is the foremost national tragedy on our agenda.
4. Airwolf seems like Knight Rider, except worse. When you’ve sunk below David Hasselhoff, you really need to reassess your life.

I’m still debating whether to resume trying to post, so no promises about when the next update will be…

It seems like  a good bet, based on the procrastinations on the net I and my friends have found, that the west coast may have finally corrupted me. Here’s my bountiful haul.

1. Stoning non-virgin brides youtube. Finally, a youtube video talking about what a state whose laws reflected Leviticus would look like.
2. Magnum PI/Han Solo Mashup. The only true crime is that I started googling for fanfic to see what I’d find.
3. Awkward Boners. A site dedicated to a perfectly natural problem coming up at the wrong moment. BONUS: You can vote for how awkward or understandable the guy’s position is.
4. New Links. I’ve found a new comic, Dr. McNinja, that I’m linking to. It’s great. Obsidian Wings has had some good stuff lately, so I’m linking to them too. Lolcats is too funny not to link to, and Ecocomics is a blog discussing the economics of the comic book world. It’s surprisingly funny. (Such as discussions about how big the construction business must be in the comic book world given how often everything is razed to the ground.) Under the same line of reasoning (humor) I’m also linking to encyclopedia dramatica and wikimaniacs. The later is funny, the former detrimental to sanity. Consider yourself warned.

Someday I’ll write a reflective post about my own experiences in an inner-city-ish high school. But for right now, I recommend this article by a TFA-er (Teach for America). I don’t really agree with his conclusions about what should be done, but it’s always, always good to remind oneself how clueless many people are about the reality of teaching in an inner-city school.

(Not to say that it’s utterly joyless or a waste of energy and talent. It isn’t the same as WWI trench warfare or some other hackneyed analogy. But it’s just not something to do to make a difference in the world, or because you want a fulfilling job. The efforts of any one individual will, most of the time, amount to nothing. Nearly debilitating disappointment is standard if you can’t handle people wasting opportunities. Said differently, the biggest problem isn’t that it’s challenging, though it is, it’s that it’s draining. In every way imaginable. And it’s even worse if you don’t understand where the students are coming from, like many of the TFAers.)

Since when is it wrong to think Admiral Ackbar is cooler than Boba Fett?

I really like this chart for displaying population/population density.

I’m not a big fan of Michael Pollan, the food bodhisattva who has written tons about the evils of current food practices. I haven’t read much of his writings, particularly his more scientific writings like Omnivore’s Dilemma which is supposed to be very good. My issue is more with his recommendations for what should be done. I think it’s nonsense. He says we should eat “traditional” diets, but is somewhat evasive about what exactly a traditional diet is when what we eat has been changing drastically since people started moving into cities and worldwide trade became the norm. And more to the point his recommendations are rather classist and ignores that there is a trade off betwen health and taste, and that different people make different choices. For more details there’s this classic essay by Orwell and this very insightful post at The Edge of the American West (the comments at the post are also very good).

So why did I title this post “AWESOME!”? Because even though I dislike Pollan, I really like Marion Nestle. Her book Food Politics was great, if a little repetative. And best of all, I don’t have to listen to my roommate talk about her and her amazing insights. So I’m very happy to learn she has a blog! That she updates regularly!  Great!

I’ve mostly stayed off the blogs for the past two weeks, but I spent some free time yesterday catching up with some of the major blogs. I found a few intersting things.

1. Here’s an interesting post on the failure of international peace efforts in the Congo. It’s fascinating because it talks about the erroneous assumptions the international actors had, including a refusal to deal with sub-national issues and a deep-seated belief that elections would miraculously solve everything. Sound familiar?

2. A post by Kevin Drum on California’s ongoing budget crisis. He takes the point of view that Californians just expect too much state service for the amount of money they’re willing to pay. I ‘m very curious about how this will be resolved. Particularly because California is someplace much political evil comes from, so it’s someplace I look to to get an idea of what’s coming down the pike. (The other place being Texas. I look to Florida for ridiculous political stunts, but not freakish policy.)

3. Another series of posts I found via Kevin Drum. They’re all about education policy though, which is different from his normal fare. I really like them because they’re specifically about issues of socioeconomic segregation in schools. I need to think about the posts more though before I offer any sort of response, so for right now I’m just going to dump the series of posts, in order.

1. Across Distinct Lines, by Dana Goldstein
2. Matt Yglesias applauds
3. Kevin Drum comments
4. Kevin Carey scolds
5. Kevin Drum says his mea culpa

The posts are, of course, more complicated than my 1 word summaries. Go read them if socioeconomic segregation in schools is something that interests you.

UPDATE: This comparison of Japanese and Korean bank crises in the past two decades is also quite good.

Teh tubes of the internet are indeed bountiful and plenty.

Turns out not only does trekkie-dom have Memory Alpha, a wikipedia style site for Star Trek. There is ALSO Memory Beta, a wiki for non-cannon Star Trek.

And, of course, if you’re in more of a Joseph Campbell mood then there’s Wookieepedia. These are clearly tools of mass distraction.

I wouldn’t take Forbes magazine advice on a lot of things, but in a recent issue they had a listing of the worst cities for jobs. In fact, they made the list for each of big, medium, and small cities. However, the lists were put into REALLY ANNOYING slideshows. I hate that. So I’m doing a public service and just putting the lists here. (Remember, the higher the rating the worse the city is for jobs.)

The lists are long, so I’m putting them below the fold.