Ancestry.com…go away.

This is a placeholder for the rage I plan to let loose on Ancestry.com.  Those fucking commercials are really starting to piss me off. 

The New Gender Inequality in the Workplace

Great strides have been made to reach equality in the workplace.  In 1963, women earned 59% of the wages earned by men – this has improved to 77% of men’s wages.  And even more significant improvements have been made in the younger workforce with women under 25 making 93.2% of men’s wages (2005 figures).  Although we’re not completely equal yet, we’re getting there.

Although pay may be getting closer, there is one area where we are taking significant steps backwards – and it’s not where you might think.  Women have moved past men in summer workplace comfort.  That’s right, men are being discriminated against in the summer wardrobe department.

The societal expectation that men wear suits every day regardless of weather is outdated and must be revisited.  Women have managed to rebel against traditional expectations of wardrobe and can get away with wearing sleeveless blouses, skirts and sandals.  You know what that boils down to?  Formal tank tops, shorts and flip flops.  It’s like a business suit for the beach.  And they love it.  Men?  We don’t get that pass.

Wearing a suit with tie in 90+ degree weather is simply cruel.  It doesn’t matter how breathable your fabrics are, when you arrive at the workplace you will be drenched, and after cooling off, you’ll be a little more ripe than you were when you got out of the shower.  If you are lucky enough to stay in your office building the entirety of the day, it’s not so bad and you can remove the jacket, maybe undo the top button and settle in to whatever comfort you can find.  However, if you are required to leave the building and enter the outdoor furnace, the sweat starts all over again.  And it is none too pleasant.  This can be compounded by metro cars with no air conditioning that are slightly over crowded so the real temperature on board is somewhere in the 135 degree range and there’s no room to take off your jacket so you stand there with your arms over your head holding on to the clammy metal bar for balance, shoving your ever increasingly moist armpit into some unsuspecting transit neighbor.  Not. A. Fan.

By the time you arrive at your meeting place, you are soaked from head to toe, the handouts/papers/notes that you brought with you have smeared because of your clammy hands.  You are hesitant to shake the hands of those in the meeting because you haven’t been able to stop sweating as your body temperature is still hovering somewhere around 110 degrees. This is not conducive to a successful meeting.

Women, on the other hand, have their minimalist outfits that allow them to perspire and cool down as nature intended.  I don’t hold that against them.  I mean, I’m all for acceptable business attire for women that, shall we say, let’s their skin breathe.  I just want business attire equity.

I do hereby submit for consideration a revolution against societal norms for summer business attire.  On days with no formal meetings, men should be not only allowed but encouraged to wear polos and khakis.  On business meeting days in the summer, ties are optional but  jackets are prohibited if the temperature is above 90.

Men will never be able to wear skirts in the workplace or sleeveless shirts, and that’s fine.  Women get the upper hand there.  I’m not asking for full gender equality of summer wardrobes, I just want to make strides towards equality.  How many more dress shirts must we ruin with sweat stains before someone will take notice?

News you can use…or lose, whichever

Since its raining outside and I don’t want to go run right now, I share with you a sampling of world events critical for intelligent conversations at your cocktail parties this evening.

Page 6 of New York Post does it again…

Not sure which is worse – Osama bin Wankin’ or “Whora Bora” or the photoshopped porn on his tiny TV.

Pippa Middelton got drunk a few years ago…

More pictures are coming out of Pippa downing the devil’s juice and running around without all of her clothes on.  A couple weeks ago, the “world” was abuzz with these photos of Pippa in her bra dancing with some dude.  According to the British gentleman on MSNBC this morning, more pics are coming and the Royals are just flummoxed.  But it’s not like she’s pulling a Britney or a Lindsay, she was 23 got a little drunk and danced without her top on (but with a bra).  Who hasn’t done that?  And how the hell was she supposed to know 4 years ago that her sister was going to marry a prince?  If the Brits can get behind Benny Hill, I think they can handle some scantily clad Pippa…I know the rest of the world can (and might even be looking forward to it)…

In a new twist on “an eye for an eye”

An Iranian woman who was scheduled to pour acid in her attacker’s eyes has to wait a little longer. 

Amenah Bahrami was attacked by Majid Movahedi after she refused to marry him.  He was so insulted that the threw a jar of acid in her face when she returned home from work in 2004 leaving her looking like this:

Photo above courtesy of the Guardian

She asked for and won the right to seek revenge by truly achieving an eye for an eye justice.  Movahedi was to be put under and Bahrami was then to use presumably an eye dropper to drop 4 drops of acid in each eye.  Iranian officials have endorsed the ruling as they seek to stem the tide of increasing acid attacks in the country. 

There’s a whole lot of shit that’s wrong with this picture.  First, Movahedi is a chickenshit asshole and deserves to rot in prison but I’m not sure I can support burning his eyeballs with acid – even IF you make it slightly more humane by putting him under for the “procedure”.  Second, how the fuck does an “acid attack” become the growing trend in assaults?  How readily available is acid that burns your fucking face off?  Admittedly, I've not looked into it here in the US but I can’t believe they’re doing a whole lot of different shit where they are packing thermoses of acid do their day jobs in Iran. 

The premeditation for such an attack would seem to be fairly extensive.  I mean, no matter how pissed you are at the person who’s face you’re going to melt off, you’re going to want to take serious precautions to make sure you don’t melt any of your hand or arm off when you toss that toxic shit into their face.  Plus, you have to put it in the bottle or jar or spritzer or whatever it is that you are using as your carrying device.  That’s a lot of planning.

I suppose it isn’t that much different from getting pissed at somebody, going to the pawn shop, buying a hand gun, waiting 14 days, then going over and shooting them.  But there’s finality in that act.  Not right by any means but you’re intent is to kill someone.  Throwing a jar of acid in someone’s face – your are inflicting incredible pain, causing extreme disfigurement, in many cases I would assume blinding them, but you aren’t killing them.  You are fucking them over so completely but then allowing them to live out the rest of their life with the constant reminder of your sick and twisted revenge.

That is really, really, fucked up.  If I piss anyone off to the point they want to do severe harm, just shoot me, please. 

You can read more about this here, and here.

And today’s “Sign of the Apocalypse”

Disney has trademarked "Seal Team 6".  That’s right, the mouse owns the rights to all toys, clothes, movies, books, and any other money making product they can think of.  And they filed the papers 2 days after Osama’s death. 

Regardless how you feel about the American reaction to Osama’s assassination, I think we can all agree that trademarking the assassination team for use in product development is a little much.  I will not argue their heroism, patriotism or their importance to helping keep America safe from future terrorist attacks.  But something simply does not sit right with this. 

My recent epiphany

This story couldn’t have run at a better time.  I had been telling myself that I’d get back to writing the blog as soon as school got out and I was thinking about what my first topic would be…politics? Religion? DC Tourists? A rant about my immune system and how it fails to appropriately deal with common environmental irritants?  All reasonable topics.  Instead  I happen across the Huffington Posts who picked up a story from complex.com that lists Lawrence’s own Bourgeois Pig as the #5 best college coffee shop in America.  And that sealed it.

Now, I love my hometown.  I love the old time charm of Mass Street.  I love the fanaticism for KU.  I like the diversity in Lawrence.  I like the general acceptance of all people, regardless of race, gender, orientation and the like.  I like that it is an island of blue in a sea of red. 

When I read that the Pig was recognized as one of the best college coffee shops in America, I had a visceral reaction.  I was astounded that the place that I’ve always avoided would have been recognized in such a way.  I always felt like an outsider there – it was the artsy folks who didn’t take kindly to outsiders ruining their little haunt.  I always felt a bit of contempt from the people there that I would dare set foot in their eclectic little haven.  Fine, I get it.  You want to keep your place as it is and you don’t need anybody upsetting the balance.   So, I developed a general dislike for that place.  Then it got rated.  And it got me to thinking.  I don’t hate the Bourgeois Pig, I hate all coffee shops.  I mean, I fucking hate coffee shops.

Not to be cliché or to cover my caffeinist ways, but some of my closest friends go to coffee shops.  I don’t know what they do there, but I know they go.  As a rule, I generally enjoy coffee.  And I like free wi-fi when I need it.  But I fucking hate coffee shops.

Maybe the people who sit in coffee shops all day really are smarter than the rest of us, but I don’t think so.  Maybe the hipsters sitting in the corner reading the latest independent newspaper really is cooler than everyone else, but I doubt it.  I don’t understand how you can be that cool and that smart and not have anywhere better to be for hours during the day.

I understand using the coffee shop to do homework.  Caffeine is a great fuel for procrastinating by surfing the web on your laptop.  I get that business meetings can happen over coffee because their ubiquitous and since the beverage you just purchased can give you third degree burns you have to wait a while to enjoy which forces you to talk.  Same goes for first or blind dates.  So, the coffee shop is not without merit but do they all have to seem so pretentious?

Part of my confusion stems from the pride people take in their local coffee shop.  They are devoted patrons who will defend the merits of their barista (whatever the fuck that means) and the quality of their beans.  It’s coffee.  Yes, shitty coffee tastes shitty and quality coffee tastes pretty good but just about every coffee shop has “quality” coffee so what’s the draw?  The vibe?  A bunch of introverts working on their screenplay or filling out their match.com profile?  That’s not a vibe, that’s depressing.

I’ll grant you, a coffee shop in the winter time is a double bonus – you get in out of the cold to a warm space and they give you piping hot fluids.  If you want to hang out inside a coffee shop to warm your bones in the winter – by all means.  But outside of that, why would you stay inside a coffee shop to sip your coffee and judge the other customers?  It’s not like you’re getting a meal.  And a scone does not count as a meal.  It’s a fucking snack.  Where else do you walk in order a drink, no food, and sit down and it’s normal? A real bar.

People can’t walk into a bar and get a cocktail and leave so they are forced to sit down.  Also, most people like to have more than one so unless you’re walking from bar to bar it’s more convenient to sit in one place and keep ordering.  Plus, real bars have TVs.  And most will serve you real food.  I like real bars.  I fucking hate coffee shops.

The Pig, the catalyst for my self-realization that I’m a coffee shop hater, serves both booze and coffee so you have an interesting mix of too cool for school coffee drinkers and their alcoholic friends.  Admittedly, I don’t remember if I ever went there for booze, but I do remember walking by the back deck when all the hipsters were outside smoking and they were the same jackasses who saw swingers too many times and thought they personally could bring back the 50s.  So I’m pretty sure I would not have enjoyed my Jack Daniels in their company.

I understand the need for coffee shops.  You have to have someplace to complete the transaction between caffeine fiend and their supplier.  I also understand the need to have some tables and chairs to allow people to rest briefly and nibble on their scone or aptly named coffee cake.  But the sub-culture of coffee shops is what I don’t understand.  Maybe it’s because I was never introduced to the world of hipster coffee drinkers who are bound and determined to change the world one cappuccino at a time.  Maybe I just generally dislike hipsters and always have.  Whatever the reason, I fucking hate coffee shops.

Hiatus Ended!

The school year has closed and now I have time to write about important stuff – the random thoughts and rants that fill my mind.  My only creative release recently was my mildly popular Holiday Newsletter and then all creative juices were sucked dry for 4 more months as I waded through my graduate studies.  Well, only a few days removed from surviving that I’m back at the keyboard prepared to ramble on without fear of citations, accuracy, grammar, graphs, coherent arguments and anything else that requires more than a split second of thought.  So, instead of writing, reading, rewriting, pausing for the perfect word choice, using google to find the right word, idea, phrase, concept, theory, object, preposition, onomatopoeia, conjunction, etc.  I’ll just go with it.

Hope what follows is enjoyable to you, if so, come back.  If not, meh.

Donkra...Zebkey...wait, what?

Apparently the correct term I'm looking for is "Zedonk" - a hybrid mix of a zebra and a donkey.  How the hell would a zebra and a donkey mate you ask?  Good question.  The answer can be found most recently at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in northern Georgia.  "Well, Georgia, that explains it" -you may be thinking and I wouldn't necessarily argue with that logic but apparently this isn't totally out of the question.  This happens enough that there's a damn Wikipedia page dedicated to it.  

'Not only does it spook easily but it can also carry all your shit up a mountain.

This most recent occurrence is detailed in this gainesville times article.  The preserves founder and general manager, C.W Wathen (strong name by the way) said that in all his 40 years of running the preserve and having the animals running the fields together, he'd never seen anything like it. 

Mr. Wathen then goes on to specify that this particular zedonk displays the instincts of a zebra...to which I say - how the hell can you tell?  If it sees a lion approaching it runs like hell?  Apparently donkey foals will typically lay on their side sunning themselves - but this one sits up alert all the time as if it were scanning for predators.   

 Mr. Wathen specializes in - white tigers (genetically inferior animals that would have almost zero chance of survival in the wild) but contends that this may be one of the most unique creatures ever born on his preserve.  In a few weeks the foal will be allow to roam the 25 acre non-profit with the rest of the animals.  

The story ends with this amazing quote:

“We keep all the animals fed really well, so a lot of the animals that would normally be predators in the wild run together in the same areas here,” Wathen said. “In the wild they are competing for food, but here they don’t have to compete, so there’s no fighting.”

What? you let camels and donkeys and zebras run around with panthers and tigers?  Maybe you keep the carnivores and the herbivores separated - just in case.  I don't care how well fed you keep big cats, they still have instincts to hunt and need that physical stimulation to keep them sane and healthy.  I can't believe that dude keeps all his critters together but admittedly, they do things differently in backwoods Georgia.

I'm now inspired to investigate what other weird hybrids are on display for our viewing pleasure in this wide world of genetic manipulation...perhaps a topic for an in-depth report to come.

How "Now That's What I Call Music" gave me an aneurysm.

Playlists are something that I take very seriously and take a fair amount of pride in.  From the time I was 10, I've been a huge fan of the mix-tape. I would pull out the vinyl versions of Journey "Escape" and Air Supply "whatever the hell that one album was called" and write down on a pad of paper how long "open arms" was listed as and then add up the time so I could be sure to fill up the 45 minutes on one side of the tape with very little downtime.  This attention to detail continued into the digital age and the introduction of cds.  I'd still use the calculator to make sure I had just the right amount of music - and that the songs conveyed the appropriate message.  Itunes made that job so much easier.

I have been fortunate enough to have been asked by some close friends to make a playlist for their wedding.  They are getting married in small town Iowa and there is some concern that the local DJ that they've hired may not have the sort of tunes people will want to hear when they want to shake their respective booties.  Having a general fondness for pop music, they thought I would be a good candidate to put together a CD or 2 for them to share with the DJ (because they are fairly confident that if I were to give him the songs in any other format - jump drive, an iPod, etc.- that he wouldn't know what to do with it).  I was very pleased and promptly got to work on it.  It was fairly clear early on that I was going to need to acquire some more music to make sure this playlist was of the proper quality for this occasion. 

I ventured onto Amazon and started perusing the "Now That's What I Call Music" for the past 20 years - great source of songs that you had completely forgotten about.  Now, the dance songs from the late 80's and the majority of the 90's were all fairly innocuous.  C&C Music Factory "Gonna Make You Sweat" is a song sure to get Aunt Betty and your 15 year old niece out on the dance floor.  Great.  As I moved into the late 90's and early 00's there was a swift transition towards much...shall we say...more vulgar and questionable language.  Will this fly in rural Iowa? 

Now, mind you, these songs are bad ass dance jams.  "What's Luv" by Fat Joe and featuring Ashante before she made it big?  Great beat.  But you know how that song starts out? Fat Joe says "Put the fucking mike on."  Yikes.  Nelly's "Hot in Herre" is no saint either.  Fortunately he's rapping quick enough that most of his more questionable for mixed company lines are slightly more difficult to discern - but the chorus of "so hot in here I want to take my clothes off" might be a little risque.  Then we have Fifty with "In da club" which is also harder to catch the language but he's not shy with dropping "fuck" whenever he feels it.  The last case study for my playlist experiment is Jay-Z's "Can I Get A" which is one of my favorite songs of that era...and is filled with the language that I'm all of a sudden very conscious of.  This is very unfortunate.

How does one reconcile the need to get down with the need to respect some people's desire to not hear "fuck" "bitch" and "nigga" at frequent intervals?  I mean, really, you can only have so much Miley Cyrus before people contract diabetes.  And although "YMCA" is a suitable standard - nobody in the wedding remembers when that song was popular.  People dance to the music that was popular when they were in school - both high school and college- because that's when people do the most dancing.  The best dance songs of our youth were really disrespectful and I loved it - still do actually.  I can, in good conscience only put so many pop-rock songs in the mix.  "Jessie's Girl" and "Your Love" are great songs but f-me, they can't carry the whole load.  I need heavy hitters like "The Humpty Dance" and "My Milkshake".  I mean, it brings all the boys to the yard!

I know, I know, there are clean versions of all the songs I've referenced but then it seems like I'm giving in to the man.  I have to buy a whole new version of a song that's radio friendly so I have two version of every great dance jam - one that's acceptable for little susie and one that's good for the 20 & 30 somethings?  I'm not sure how I feel about this plan.

Regardless of how this playlist dilemma plays itself out - this was a wonderful exercise strolling down memory lane and refreshing my memory of all the great hip/hop and rap songs that I had shoved in the back of my brain. I've downloaded the playlist and listen to it on my commute and get jiggy on the metro when people aren't looking.  Great way to start the day.

Damn you compilation CDs and your memory jogging ways!  I fear my masterpiece of a playlist is going to be gutted and the soul ripped right out of it.  And this is why I'm having an aneurysm.