ArsTechnica has a mini review of Google's translation service. They have switched from the rules based machine translation that they used to have and most machine translation services use.
I remember studying linguistic rules and statistical machine translation methods in college. Like the article suggests neither one is great but they can work well enough for someone to feel their way to the actual translation. The linguistic rules approach parses texts into an intermediary state using former grammar rules of the source language. The intermediary text is transformed into the target language former grammar rules of the target language.
The main problem with the linguistic rules approach is that it is similar to taking a sentence and marking it a parse tree and rearranging it into the parse tree of the target language and then changing it word for word. Another major problem is the grammars do not do too well with slang since there may not be a direct translation. The other problem is one of syntax there may be structures missing from the source that are needed in the target. For example, to properly translate "I went to the store" from English to Russian one needs to know if I traveled on foot or in a vehicle, since that changes the verb.
The statistical approach basically uses an algorithm to weigh the probability of the part of speech and/or meaning of a word. The statistics can be modified with the help of volunteers marking up a sentence or providing a more accurate translation. Given enough corrections and a large enough corpora the system can improve. Google appears to be using their index of web pages as a potential corpora and users of the service as the volunteers instead of the usual college student looking for beer money.
Googles approach reminds me of a few journal articles on using web pages as an inexpensive means to develop a corpus. Most corpori are rather expensive proprietary collections of text of language in everyday use. The statistical approach seems like a no brainer for Google since they have a corpori lying around and harnessing users even a poor algorithm is bound to get better. The linguistic rules approach only gets better with the development of more elaborate syntactical and transformative rules. The only question is what took Google so long to figure this out?
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Justice for the Jenna 6
This is an important case and a sad commentary on race relations in America. Here is the link to the Justice in Jenna site so that you can keep up with events and get involved. For those who may not have heard about the case NPR has a good run down of the facts but I'll try and present them here.
In the small central Louisiana town of Jenna there was a large shade tree outside of the high school. White students would sit underneath it while Black students stayed close to the cafeteria. At an assembly a Black student asked if he could sit under the shade tree and was told he could sit wherever he liked. Three White students who were part of the rodeo team tied nooses under the tree. The school gave the boys in school suspension, but the Black students though that the punishment was too lenient.
The Black students lead by star players on the football team organized a sit in under the shade tree. The authorities were called and the district attorney told the children, "with one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear."
There were fights though out the year which escalated into the school being burned down but who was responsible was not determined. Robert Bailey (16) tried to enter a party accompanied by other Black students that was attended by Whites. He was beaten up by some of the White boys and no charges were filed against them. During the fracas he was hit over the head with a beer bottle by Justin Sloan, who months later was charged with simple assault and given probation.
At a convenience store the next day Bailey argued with one of the White boys from the party who ran to his truck and retrieved his pistol grip shotgun. Bailey ran at the the armed teenager and wrestled for the gun. Eventually getting the gun away from the boy and heading home with friends. Bailey and his friends were charged with theft of a firearm, robbery, and disturbing the peace. The white boy who pulled the gun wasn't charged with anything.
Justin Barker (17) was bragging to friends that Bailey had been whipped by a White man. He was attacked by Black students when he went into the courtyard. The first punch knocked him out and some of the boys kicked him in the head. The wounds were slight enough that he was treated, released and out that very night at a social function.
Six Black students were charged with assault but the D. A., Reed Walters, bumped the charges to second degree attempted murder. The first trial is over with the defense resting its case immediately after two days of the prosecution presenting the charges. Mychal Bell was found guilty by the all white jury and faces a possible 22 years in prison.
Fo anyone who has a hard time understanding let's make it simpler. A black kid asks for permission to sit under a tree on the campus of the public high school that he attends and nooses are hung from it. The kids who did it get a slap on the wrist. Some of the Black students decide to protest by sitting under the tree and they are threatened by the district attorney. One of the Black students and his friends try to get into a party and he is beaten up. He argues with one of the kids from the party the next day and he has a shotgun pulled on him. He wrestles the gun away and is then charged with theft and related charges for getting the gun away from the guy (the gun turned out to be unloaded but there was no way for them to know that while the gun was pointed at them). A white kid boasts about the "gun thief" getting charged and is then beaten up, which wasn't right but charging the kids with attempted murder is idiotic and spiteful. At most they should have been charged with a mutual fight or assault, give them a fine or probation. The boy didn't have any life threatening injuries and was able to amble on down to a ring ceremony after being so "viciously" attacked.
I could do the whole metaphorical thing with the tree of intolerance and the shaded truth. But a case like this is just depressing and a stark reminder of how short a distance we've come as a nation in 40 years. I guess the defendants should take consolation that 40 years ago they would have been swinging beneath that shade tree instead of being lynched by the legal system and the tree turned into kindling.
In the small central Louisiana town of Jenna there was a large shade tree outside of the high school. White students would sit underneath it while Black students stayed close to the cafeteria. At an assembly a Black student asked if he could sit under the shade tree and was told he could sit wherever he liked. Three White students who were part of the rodeo team tied nooses under the tree. The school gave the boys in school suspension, but the Black students though that the punishment was too lenient.
The Black students lead by star players on the football team organized a sit in under the shade tree. The authorities were called and the district attorney told the children, "with one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear."
There were fights though out the year which escalated into the school being burned down but who was responsible was not determined. Robert Bailey (16) tried to enter a party accompanied by other Black students that was attended by Whites. He was beaten up by some of the White boys and no charges were filed against them. During the fracas he was hit over the head with a beer bottle by Justin Sloan, who months later was charged with simple assault and given probation.
At a convenience store the next day Bailey argued with one of the White boys from the party who ran to his truck and retrieved his pistol grip shotgun. Bailey ran at the the armed teenager and wrestled for the gun. Eventually getting the gun away from the boy and heading home with friends. Bailey and his friends were charged with theft of a firearm, robbery, and disturbing the peace. The white boy who pulled the gun wasn't charged with anything.
Justin Barker (17) was bragging to friends that Bailey had been whipped by a White man. He was attacked by Black students when he went into the courtyard. The first punch knocked him out and some of the boys kicked him in the head. The wounds were slight enough that he was treated, released and out that very night at a social function.
Six Black students were charged with assault but the D. A., Reed Walters, bumped the charges to second degree attempted murder. The first trial is over with the defense resting its case immediately after two days of the prosecution presenting the charges. Mychal Bell was found guilty by the all white jury and faces a possible 22 years in prison.
Fo anyone who has a hard time understanding let's make it simpler. A black kid asks for permission to sit under a tree on the campus of the public high school that he attends and nooses are hung from it. The kids who did it get a slap on the wrist. Some of the Black students decide to protest by sitting under the tree and they are threatened by the district attorney. One of the Black students and his friends try to get into a party and he is beaten up. He argues with one of the kids from the party the next day and he has a shotgun pulled on him. He wrestles the gun away and is then charged with theft and related charges for getting the gun away from the guy (the gun turned out to be unloaded but there was no way for them to know that while the gun was pointed at them). A white kid boasts about the "gun thief" getting charged and is then beaten up, which wasn't right but charging the kids with attempted murder is idiotic and spiteful. At most they should have been charged with a mutual fight or assault, give them a fine or probation. The boy didn't have any life threatening injuries and was able to amble on down to a ring ceremony after being so "viciously" attacked.
I could do the whole metaphorical thing with the tree of intolerance and the shaded truth. But a case like this is just depressing and a stark reminder of how short a distance we've come as a nation in 40 years. I guess the defendants should take consolation that 40 years ago they would have been swinging beneath that shade tree instead of being lynched by the legal system and the tree turned into kindling.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Building Blocs of the Gay Community
There was an article awhile back about the study the Equality Forum did of GLBT voting patterns in the Philadelphia mayoral primary. The interesting thing about the report is that gays and lesbians seemed to vote as a bloc for the eventual winner Michael Nutter. For those outside of Philly or who live here but don’t follow the local political scene, Nutter climbed up from next-to-last to first in a matter of months to win the nomination.
The methodology of the study was pretty interesting in that it necessarily relied on a number of key assumptions. It looked at the Census information for areas with large concentrations of self-identified same sex couples. Then looking at the poll results they were able to show that in areas with large same-sex couple populations Nutter received a plurality of the vote.
This is interesting for a number of reasons if one can take the interpretation of the statistics seriously. First it shows that the GLBT community can vote in a bloc to express political will. Used properly bloc voting can be a carrot or a stick to make sure more than lip service is paid to an issue. Used poorly and you wind up like the Black community nationally ignored by the Democrats until election time and trotted out by some Republicans as the boogeyman during elections but mostly ignored since there is little upside in trying to capture your vote.
For an example of how the bloc vote can go bad; Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan’s political advisor made a really good point when describing the Southern Strategy as reported by Bob Herbert in the New York Times. (Copy and pasted from Wikipedia).
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…
Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now that you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'
The strategy is alive and well today one need only look at the “McCain’s Black Baby” phone calls in South Carolina during the Republican primary for the 2000 campaign. It was sleazy but effective, with an anonymous call votes for all candidates would be suppressed by those who would be offended that such an accusation would be made. But McCain lost the most because enough people would be disturbed by the alleged extramarital affair and/or the race of the woman involved. As a side note a similar issue was brought up about Nutter and Brady not being Catholic or Catholic enough, since the flyer endorsed Knox as being the one true Catholic anyone upset by the sleaziness likely took it out on him.
As the Atwater quote states candidates can’t be as blunt as they once were in trying to court a particular groups vote, at least when the way to do it is on the backs of another group. The McCain example notwithstanding subtlety is crucial. When politicians want to make political hay out of attacking the GLBT community they rarely come right out and say the Jerry Falwell line about 9/11 happening because of the gays, lesbians, feminists, and abortionists. Invectives like that will backfire; you say you’re against special rights and only for state’s rights. When someone brings up Loving v. Virginia and the possible precedent it sets for gay marriage with the 14th amendment, you say you’re against judges legislating from the bench and such decisions should be left to the legislature. As long as the voting bloc isn’t sufficiently large and the general public will take such answers you’ll get re-elected. The vocal voting bloc is itself a get out the vote tool for their opposition, which can be placated into a stable base.
A side note is that with the higher than average rates of Black and Latino voters attending mass regularly “family values” can be an effective wedge strategy. One needs look no further than the 2004 elections, opposition to gay marriage brought out the evangelical vote in large numbers. There are some obvious problems with this strategy though. There are only so many anti-gay laws that can be passed before you start to look a little mean spirited. The mean spirited bar is a moving target since the more out GLBT people heterosexuals know they tend to view homosexuality less negatively on average. The big problem is the statistic showing that negative feelings toward homosexuality are less among those under 40. Among those who will vote in upcoming elections speaking negatively, may backfire.
The election results are interesting because the five candidates were decent to good on the GLBT issues. One candidate, Dwight Evans, tried hard early on to cultivate the GLBT vote for his campaign but was dead last at the polls. The results may have a lot to do with the tangible legislation Nutter passed awarding domestic partner benefits to city employees.
The key to a successful bloc is to vote the issues and hold the candidates responsible for their votes. That’s how the NRA became such a force in politics. It’s a shame that the Logo “debates” were business as usual. We’ll get nowhere nationally kissing the asses of people who give us a kick in the shins in public. The Democratic candidates are better than the Republicans but not by much really.
Domestic partnership is a joke and like “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” would only serve to keep us in limbo. Domestic Partnership is a denial of equal rights. Using the argument that all but two of the candidates have expressed that gay marriage shouldn’t be recognized because it would violate the religious rights of churches is a way to sidestep the issue.
It's not like people want babies to get married. Under the same argument Rudy Giuliani isn’t married since he divorced his previous wife and under Catholic tradition one can’t get divorced, therefore the state should not allow Giuliani to enjoy any of the rights afforded married couples since his living arrangement would scandalize some religious institutions.
The point is the Catholic Church has every right to deny Giuliani Communion and refuse to officiate his marriage since it violates their religious beliefs but the state could not deny his rights because we don’t live in a theocracy, the same principles could be used for gay marriage. Only Kucinich and Gravel approach this view, Logo should have called the front-runners in the Democratic Party on it. Sure the Democratic Party is the lesser of two evils in this case but as Eugene Debs once said, “The lesser of two evils is still evil.” Politicians will give the least that they can to get you vote; don’t give it away for free.
The methodology of the study was pretty interesting in that it necessarily relied on a number of key assumptions. It looked at the Census information for areas with large concentrations of self-identified same sex couples. Then looking at the poll results they were able to show that in areas with large same-sex couple populations Nutter received a plurality of the vote.
This is interesting for a number of reasons if one can take the interpretation of the statistics seriously. First it shows that the GLBT community can vote in a bloc to express political will. Used properly bloc voting can be a carrot or a stick to make sure more than lip service is paid to an issue. Used poorly and you wind up like the Black community nationally ignored by the Democrats until election time and trotted out by some Republicans as the boogeyman during elections but mostly ignored since there is little upside in trying to capture your vote.
For an example of how the bloc vote can go bad; Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan’s political advisor made a really good point when describing the Southern Strategy as reported by Bob Herbert in the New York Times. (Copy and pasted from Wikipedia).
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…
Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now that you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'
The strategy is alive and well today one need only look at the “McCain’s Black Baby” phone calls in South Carolina during the Republican primary for the 2000 campaign. It was sleazy but effective, with an anonymous call votes for all candidates would be suppressed by those who would be offended that such an accusation would be made. But McCain lost the most because enough people would be disturbed by the alleged extramarital affair and/or the race of the woman involved. As a side note a similar issue was brought up about Nutter and Brady not being Catholic or Catholic enough, since the flyer endorsed Knox as being the one true Catholic anyone upset by the sleaziness likely took it out on him.
As the Atwater quote states candidates can’t be as blunt as they once were in trying to court a particular groups vote, at least when the way to do it is on the backs of another group. The McCain example notwithstanding subtlety is crucial. When politicians want to make political hay out of attacking the GLBT community they rarely come right out and say the Jerry Falwell line about 9/11 happening because of the gays, lesbians, feminists, and abortionists. Invectives like that will backfire; you say you’re against special rights and only for state’s rights. When someone brings up Loving v. Virginia and the possible precedent it sets for gay marriage with the 14th amendment, you say you’re against judges legislating from the bench and such decisions should be left to the legislature. As long as the voting bloc isn’t sufficiently large and the general public will take such answers you’ll get re-elected. The vocal voting bloc is itself a get out the vote tool for their opposition, which can be placated into a stable base.
A side note is that with the higher than average rates of Black and Latino voters attending mass regularly “family values” can be an effective wedge strategy. One needs look no further than the 2004 elections, opposition to gay marriage brought out the evangelical vote in large numbers. There are some obvious problems with this strategy though. There are only so many anti-gay laws that can be passed before you start to look a little mean spirited. The mean spirited bar is a moving target since the more out GLBT people heterosexuals know they tend to view homosexuality less negatively on average. The big problem is the statistic showing that negative feelings toward homosexuality are less among those under 40. Among those who will vote in upcoming elections speaking negatively, may backfire.
The election results are interesting because the five candidates were decent to good on the GLBT issues. One candidate, Dwight Evans, tried hard early on to cultivate the GLBT vote for his campaign but was dead last at the polls. The results may have a lot to do with the tangible legislation Nutter passed awarding domestic partner benefits to city employees.
The key to a successful bloc is to vote the issues and hold the candidates responsible for their votes. That’s how the NRA became such a force in politics. It’s a shame that the Logo “debates” were business as usual. We’ll get nowhere nationally kissing the asses of people who give us a kick in the shins in public. The Democratic candidates are better than the Republicans but not by much really.
Domestic partnership is a joke and like “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” would only serve to keep us in limbo. Domestic Partnership is a denial of equal rights. Using the argument that all but two of the candidates have expressed that gay marriage shouldn’t be recognized because it would violate the religious rights of churches is a way to sidestep the issue.
It's not like people want babies to get married. Under the same argument Rudy Giuliani isn’t married since he divorced his previous wife and under Catholic tradition one can’t get divorced, therefore the state should not allow Giuliani to enjoy any of the rights afforded married couples since his living arrangement would scandalize some religious institutions.
The point is the Catholic Church has every right to deny Giuliani Communion and refuse to officiate his marriage since it violates their religious beliefs but the state could not deny his rights because we don’t live in a theocracy, the same principles could be used for gay marriage. Only Kucinich and Gravel approach this view, Logo should have called the front-runners in the Democratic Party on it. Sure the Democratic Party is the lesser of two evils in this case but as Eugene Debs once said, “The lesser of two evils is still evil.” Politicians will give the least that they can to get you vote; don’t give it away for free.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
It was a "Big Black Man"
I don't know why people even use variations of this excuse anymore. It makes them look not only like liars, but racist jerks who think that the general public is even dumber than they are. The excuse goes something like this: "I'm not to blame it was some Big Black Man who caused me to (insert unlikely sequence of events)." It has to be said that it has a history of working.
As is mentioned in the article Charles Stuart made good use of the "Big Black Man" excuse when he killed his wife. The Boston police were quick to pursue the preposterous story and charge Willie Bennet. After Susan Smith drowned her kids in a lake she was able to convince the country to be on the lookout for a "Big Black Man" who kidnapped her kids and stole her car. Of course Hispanic men appear to be the new dark skinned bogeyman as evidenced by the runaway bride.
Florida State Rep. Bob Allen would have done better to just plead out the solicitation charge. His tory that he offered 20 bucks and oral sex to an undercover officer because he was scared of the "Big Black Man" smacks of the Mandingo myth, the untamed "Big Black Man" understands nothing but violence and sex. The myth has been fostered in popular culture by pornography, obviously, music and television. Poulson-Bryant makes a decent point that the myth of the ubiquity of large penises among Black men leads to an idea of hyper-masculinity among Black men in the broader society. This idea of hyper-masculinity gives plausibility to the "Big Black Man" in the mind of the broader society. So much testosterone is flowing through their brains that they can't think clearly and only understand violence and sex.
Allen's excuse is rather odd when one considers that while hyper-masculinity has homo-erotic elements (just look at the cover of a hip-hop magazine) offering to give a robber some of the money from your wallet and a sex act would seem to increase the chances of getting hurt not lessen them. While homo-eroticism is part of hyper-masculinity in the Mandingo myth it is merely there as an underlying element more as a response of the observing male to the Mandingo who is sex personified. The hyper-masculine is hyper-heterosexual at least outwardly.
Allen's excuse also rests on the unstated racist assumption that the Blackness of a man further up the walk is equivalent to a gun or knife, a threat in itself that demands mitigation. According to Allen's account he made the offer of money and sex without provocation of what turned out to be a police officer. His excuse also has a unique twist on the gay panic defense. The gay panic defense had mixed success in the Matthew Shepard case.
Usually with gay panic the defendant says they went temporarily insane and had to kill the victim for coming on to them. It is a form of jury nullification basically saying that the defendant was within their right to prove their masculinity by killing the victim. In this case Allen turns gay panic on its head, "I had to offer him oral sex or he might have raped and killed me." Not to put words in Allen's mouth (poor choice of words) but this appears to be where his defense is heading.
If Allen is lucky he can find a jury racist and homophobic enough to reduce his sentence or perhaps let him off. I say homophobic enough since they would have to buy into the stereotype of gay men that they will have sex with anyone and if possessing enough power will rape smaller more fragile men, the prison myth. While their obviously is some rape in prison there are obviously some Black men with above average penis size. The two generalizations are combined in the "Big Black Man" myth to form a hyper-sexed, hyper-violent, thug who has a huge penis that he'd love to stick in the White man. It's miscegenation and homosexuality wrapped in a bow looking for the right jury, one that is bent on taking a stand for "traditional values" against a railroading Democratic government. Allen is taking a big risk because he is going to alienate not only the Black and gay vote, who probably wouldn't have supported him in huge numbers anyway, but also some of the conservative backbone of his constituency who may just stay home.
If the Republican party is lucky Allen will plead out before the next election gets too close. One congressman's hypocrisy has a quick way of branding the whole party, see how fast the Democrats dropped support of Jefferson. The Republicans seem to be playing it right so far, let him hang himself. If McCain is lucky no one will remember that this guy was his man in Florida. It doesn't help to appear to have a record of appointing felons when you're making a run for the White House. Once you get in you can spin this type of situation like a top. Every president in the modern era has had some questionable people in their cabinet but you don't want to start off with the plausible deniability game before the inauguration. To be honest Lyndon LaRouche has a better chance than McCain of winning the White House.
The Democratic party will probably just sit back and bide their time. This isn't a huge national issue but can provide a regional opening if they let Allen commit political suicide. They don't have to worry about the body they'll just blame the "Big Black Man."
As is mentioned in the article Charles Stuart made good use of the "Big Black Man" excuse when he killed his wife. The Boston police were quick to pursue the preposterous story and charge Willie Bennet. After Susan Smith drowned her kids in a lake she was able to convince the country to be on the lookout for a "Big Black Man" who kidnapped her kids and stole her car. Of course Hispanic men appear to be the new dark skinned bogeyman as evidenced by the runaway bride.
Florida State Rep. Bob Allen would have done better to just plead out the solicitation charge. His tory that he offered 20 bucks and oral sex to an undercover officer because he was scared of the "Big Black Man" smacks of the Mandingo myth, the untamed "Big Black Man" understands nothing but violence and sex. The myth has been fostered in popular culture by pornography, obviously, music and television. Poulson-Bryant makes a decent point that the myth of the ubiquity of large penises among Black men leads to an idea of hyper-masculinity among Black men in the broader society. This idea of hyper-masculinity gives plausibility to the "Big Black Man" in the mind of the broader society. So much testosterone is flowing through their brains that they can't think clearly and only understand violence and sex.
Allen's excuse is rather odd when one considers that while hyper-masculinity has homo-erotic elements (just look at the cover of a hip-hop magazine) offering to give a robber some of the money from your wallet and a sex act would seem to increase the chances of getting hurt not lessen them. While homo-eroticism is part of hyper-masculinity in the Mandingo myth it is merely there as an underlying element more as a response of the observing male to the Mandingo who is sex personified. The hyper-masculine is hyper-heterosexual at least outwardly.
Allen's excuse also rests on the unstated racist assumption that the Blackness of a man further up the walk is equivalent to a gun or knife, a threat in itself that demands mitigation. According to Allen's account he made the offer of money and sex without provocation of what turned out to be a police officer. His excuse also has a unique twist on the gay panic defense. The gay panic defense had mixed success in the Matthew Shepard case.
Usually with gay panic the defendant says they went temporarily insane and had to kill the victim for coming on to them. It is a form of jury nullification basically saying that the defendant was within their right to prove their masculinity by killing the victim. In this case Allen turns gay panic on its head, "I had to offer him oral sex or he might have raped and killed me." Not to put words in Allen's mouth (poor choice of words) but this appears to be where his defense is heading.
If Allen is lucky he can find a jury racist and homophobic enough to reduce his sentence or perhaps let him off. I say homophobic enough since they would have to buy into the stereotype of gay men that they will have sex with anyone and if possessing enough power will rape smaller more fragile men, the prison myth. While their obviously is some rape in prison there are obviously some Black men with above average penis size. The two generalizations are combined in the "Big Black Man" myth to form a hyper-sexed, hyper-violent, thug who has a huge penis that he'd love to stick in the White man. It's miscegenation and homosexuality wrapped in a bow looking for the right jury, one that is bent on taking a stand for "traditional values" against a railroading Democratic government. Allen is taking a big risk because he is going to alienate not only the Black and gay vote, who probably wouldn't have supported him in huge numbers anyway, but also some of the conservative backbone of his constituency who may just stay home.
If the Republican party is lucky Allen will plead out before the next election gets too close. One congressman's hypocrisy has a quick way of branding the whole party, see how fast the Democrats dropped support of Jefferson. The Republicans seem to be playing it right so far, let him hang himself. If McCain is lucky no one will remember that this guy was his man in Florida. It doesn't help to appear to have a record of appointing felons when you're making a run for the White House. Once you get in you can spin this type of situation like a top. Every president in the modern era has had some questionable people in their cabinet but you don't want to start off with the plausible deniability game before the inauguration. To be honest Lyndon LaRouche has a better chance than McCain of winning the White House.
The Democratic party will probably just sit back and bide their time. This isn't a huge national issue but can provide a regional opening if they let Allen commit political suicide. They don't have to worry about the body they'll just blame the "Big Black Man."
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Pop-up teacher reprise
The teacher who was facing 40 years for pornographic pop-ups in the classroom is getting a new trial. This is good news in my opinion since she was railroaded. It's understandable as soon as you mention sex and kids people's minds shut down. It's not right but understandable.
Another teacher had a similar incident this week. Fortunately she wasn't hauled into court. As is mentioned in the article the likely cause was the duplication center dubbing the educational material onto a porno tape.
Another teacher had a similar incident this week. Fortunately she wasn't hauled into court. As is mentioned in the article the likely cause was the duplication center dubbing the educational material onto a porno tape.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Top of the pops
Following a post on Angry Asian Man, I saw The New York Times has an interesting article on the challenges Asian American singers have in trying to break into the music industry. This could be seen on American Idol this year when Paul Kim was given the boot in the first round of voting. Despite being one of the best singers he couldn't overcome the fact that he was Asian.
The article goes on to talk about how racially ambiguous singers fair better. As someone who grew up during the 80's I could only think of how African Americans crossed over onto the mainstream charts. Creating a parallel market where acts such as Diana Ross and Michael Jackson could eventually break through. Performers such as Prince could start their careers with the mainstream in mind. Of course as the article states the Asian American market is about half that of the African American market. The Asian American market also has the problem of not being uniform because there are many subcultures and backgrounds, Japanese Americans or Korean Americans for example.
There is still hope since there is so much talent waiting in the wings there just need to be that one big hit in the mainstream. As soon as the mainstream audience is used to seeing an Asian singer in their living room it gets easier for the next act, but never easy. Nat King Cole having his own show paved the way for the rappers and singer one sees today. The irony of it all is that because of the stereotypes that many have of Asians and the market realities the first big Asian star is probably not going to be Asian American.
The recent interest in J-Pop crossing into the mainstream may eventually translate into more tours and CD sales (or downloads if the regionalization of iTunes and other stores ever gets looser). Because of the stereotype of a fifth generation Japanese American as being straight off the plane from Japan this interest could be used to promote domestic singers and bands. A bit of a long shot but waiting for the industry to judge people on talent and not the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes is going to take longer and a lot more luck. Just look at Living Colour or Bad Brains two of the best heavy metal/fusion and punk bands respectively but they've never really gotten as far as white bands with less talent. The British invasion is not a direct parallel but is a study in the sound and look of an American subculture being ignored until it is repackaged and shipped back from another country. The mainstream market likes to fit people into niches Asians do classical and Blacks do hip-hop and never the twain shall meet.
The article goes on to talk about how racially ambiguous singers fair better. As someone who grew up during the 80's I could only think of how African Americans crossed over onto the mainstream charts. Creating a parallel market where acts such as Diana Ross and Michael Jackson could eventually break through. Performers such as Prince could start their careers with the mainstream in mind. Of course as the article states the Asian American market is about half that of the African American market. The Asian American market also has the problem of not being uniform because there are many subcultures and backgrounds, Japanese Americans or Korean Americans for example.
There is still hope since there is so much talent waiting in the wings there just need to be that one big hit in the mainstream. As soon as the mainstream audience is used to seeing an Asian singer in their living room it gets easier for the next act, but never easy. Nat King Cole having his own show paved the way for the rappers and singer one sees today. The irony of it all is that because of the stereotypes that many have of Asians and the market realities the first big Asian star is probably not going to be Asian American.
The recent interest in J-Pop crossing into the mainstream may eventually translate into more tours and CD sales (or downloads if the regionalization of iTunes and other stores ever gets looser). Because of the stereotype of a fifth generation Japanese American as being straight off the plane from Japan this interest could be used to promote domestic singers and bands. A bit of a long shot but waiting for the industry to judge people on talent and not the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes is going to take longer and a lot more luck. Just look at Living Colour or Bad Brains two of the best heavy metal/fusion and punk bands respectively but they've never really gotten as far as white bands with less talent. The British invasion is not a direct parallel but is a study in the sound and look of an American subculture being ignored until it is repackaged and shipped back from another country. The mainstream market likes to fit people into niches Asians do classical and Blacks do hip-hop and never the twain shall meet.
Monday, February 19, 2007
An epistle on epithets part 1
I’ve been reading Covering by Kenji Yoshino – well I actually bought it awhile ago but got sidetracked – and I’ve been thinking about the problems some celebrities have had with epithets. Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Isaiah Washington and most recently Tim Hardaway have run into some difficulties for using slurs. The religious, racial and sexual derogatory terms that were used by Gibson, Richards, and Washington / Hardaway respectively have force mainly in how they differentiate the target from the “norm.”
This categorization and classification as being different grants the more “normal” or “ideal” among us power – to greatly summarize Foucault – in the form of the gaze. The epithet is in a way the verbal expression of the gaze; it allows one to point to those who have not successfully assimilated themselves as being freaks outside of normal human discourse. It is a means to objectify the targets of the gaze and the epithets subjugating humanity and reducing them merely to the epithetic difference.
I’ve been the target of all three of the types of epithets that the above-mentioned celebrities espoused as have several others. The most recent controversy over “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isiah Washington’s use of the “F word” struck a nerve because so many people trotted out the same old tropes. First some people I know who shall remain nameless – who know that I am gay, mind you - said that it wasn’t a big deal because he was using the word to deny using the word. T. R. Knight, the person he was ostensibly referring to with his comments stated that Washington said them in October during the big kerfuffle. The brouhaha forced Knight out of the closet. This is the “you people have always been so thin skinned.”
The other trope is the old “some of my best friends are (insert oppressed class I just insulted)” which Washington brought out when he brought up his role in Spike Lee’s “Get on the Bus” as a Gay Black Republican. While it is true he was a poster boy for Mary Cheney, PFLAG and others it doesn’t give him a free pass on the use of epithets. If it did Richards could have just pointed to Kramer having an African American attorney after his outburst.
The other trope is the old “ruler contest” that is trotted out every time you have one person from a minority insult another minority. I saw this when some people jumped to Washington’s defense saying that if he is fired it is a sure sign of racism on the part of the producers. The reasoning works like this, Blacks have suffered through slavery, segregation and are still given less pay and opportunities in professions like acting so therefore the “F word” is bad but not as bad as the “N word” so Knight and everyone else should get over it.
The last trope that I’ll bring up is the “but you say it” argument. While I’m a Black Gay Man I try to avoid using the N-word or the F-word, because they have a dark history attached to them. Other people believe that they should be reclaimed, they tend to forget that reclaiming in the modern age means commercialization. When you commercialize a word it goes beyond the confines of the group. By using the words in pop culture it implicitly gives permission to people not of the effected communities to use them. Hence, “why can 50 Cent say it and I can’t?”
While it is true that the overwhelming audience of hip-hop is suburban Caucasians, one has to wonder why so many of them have the urge to use the N-word to show that they “are down with their boys.” I’ve never felt the urge to sling a few anti-Semitic words at my Jewish friends to show my affection.
The main problem is that on the one hand people argue that these are just words and they have no real power and on the other they show the power of the words by pleading to be able to drop them casually in polite conversation. If the words are not meant in a harmful manner then why insist on using them when others say that they are harmful to them.
For those who still think that people are just blowing things out of proportion and wish to affect a more laissez faire attitude in their speech they should try a simple experiment. The experiment goes like this replace their speech with the entire hip-hop lexicon, not just spinners, n****s and f*****s but b*****s and h*s as well. Do this regardless of the audience or to whom the term applies. For example a man should refer to his girlfriend as “this is my b***h, she’s chill wit’ whatevah.” No one who had any respect for his girlfriend would say something like this. Why would it be acceptable to say we can dance like some n****s (a la Paris Hilton)?
This categorization and classification as being different grants the more “normal” or “ideal” among us power – to greatly summarize Foucault – in the form of the gaze. The epithet is in a way the verbal expression of the gaze; it allows one to point to those who have not successfully assimilated themselves as being freaks outside of normal human discourse. It is a means to objectify the targets of the gaze and the epithets subjugating humanity and reducing them merely to the epithetic difference.
I’ve been the target of all three of the types of epithets that the above-mentioned celebrities espoused as have several others. The most recent controversy over “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isiah Washington’s use of the “F word” struck a nerve because so many people trotted out the same old tropes. First some people I know who shall remain nameless – who know that I am gay, mind you - said that it wasn’t a big deal because he was using the word to deny using the word. T. R. Knight, the person he was ostensibly referring to with his comments stated that Washington said them in October during the big kerfuffle. The brouhaha forced Knight out of the closet. This is the “you people have always been so thin skinned.”
The other trope is the old “some of my best friends are (insert oppressed class I just insulted)” which Washington brought out when he brought up his role in Spike Lee’s “Get on the Bus” as a Gay Black Republican. While it is true he was a poster boy for Mary Cheney, PFLAG and others it doesn’t give him a free pass on the use of epithets. If it did Richards could have just pointed to Kramer having an African American attorney after his outburst.
The other trope is the old “ruler contest” that is trotted out every time you have one person from a minority insult another minority. I saw this when some people jumped to Washington’s defense saying that if he is fired it is a sure sign of racism on the part of the producers. The reasoning works like this, Blacks have suffered through slavery, segregation and are still given less pay and opportunities in professions like acting so therefore the “F word” is bad but not as bad as the “N word” so Knight and everyone else should get over it.
The last trope that I’ll bring up is the “but you say it” argument. While I’m a Black Gay Man I try to avoid using the N-word or the F-word, because they have a dark history attached to them. Other people believe that they should be reclaimed, they tend to forget that reclaiming in the modern age means commercialization. When you commercialize a word it goes beyond the confines of the group. By using the words in pop culture it implicitly gives permission to people not of the effected communities to use them. Hence, “why can 50 Cent say it and I can’t?”
While it is true that the overwhelming audience of hip-hop is suburban Caucasians, one has to wonder why so many of them have the urge to use the N-word to show that they “are down with their boys.” I’ve never felt the urge to sling a few anti-Semitic words at my Jewish friends to show my affection.
The main problem is that on the one hand people argue that these are just words and they have no real power and on the other they show the power of the words by pleading to be able to drop them casually in polite conversation. If the words are not meant in a harmful manner then why insist on using them when others say that they are harmful to them.
For those who still think that people are just blowing things out of proportion and wish to affect a more laissez faire attitude in their speech they should try a simple experiment. The experiment goes like this replace their speech with the entire hip-hop lexicon, not just spinners, n****s and f*****s but b*****s and h*s as well. Do this regardless of the audience or to whom the term applies. For example a man should refer to his girlfriend as “this is my b***h, she’s chill wit’ whatevah.” No one who had any respect for his girlfriend would say something like this. Why would it be acceptable to say we can dance like some n****s (a la Paris Hilton)?
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Pop-ups and jail time
A substitute teacher is facing 40 years for porno pop-ups during class in CT. This is despite the PCs running an unpatched, version of Windows 98 without antivirus, pop-up blockers, or spyware blockers. The teacher is being thrown under the bus by the school district on this one because parents want their pound of flesh. The only other alternative is to point the finger at the IT staff of the district for not doing a better job of network security. To be fair locking up the teacher or the staff in this case seems to be going a little too far. The children being exposed to pornography wasn't the intent of anyone involved in this case.
One thing that should be considered in relation to school libraries and even public libraries is the balance between privacy and security. One of the problems of large institutions is the desire to maintain a homogeneous environment and lack of disposable funds. Because of this the lowest common denominator in security is usually what is maintained. At the very least, a browser with a built-in pop-up blocker should be the default, antivirus and anti-spyware software has to be on every computer no matter what the operating system.
I'm hoping that she will get an appeal with a judge that actually understands that pop-ups are not sought out. I'm not holding my breath.
One thing that should be considered in relation to school libraries and even public libraries is the balance between privacy and security. One of the problems of large institutions is the desire to maintain a homogeneous environment and lack of disposable funds. Because of this the lowest common denominator in security is usually what is maintained. At the very least, a browser with a built-in pop-up blocker should be the default, antivirus and anti-spyware software has to be on every computer no matter what the operating system.
I'm hoping that she will get an appeal with a judge that actually understands that pop-ups are not sought out. I'm not holding my breath.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The Becky
The Language Log Blog just announced the winner of the Goropius Becanus Prize. More accurately, Jeff Nunberg announced it on Fresh Air. The award goes to a person or organization that has "outstanding contributions to linguistic misinformation.
I'd have to agree that this is a very good choice. I found the assertions that I heard in her radio interview on Radio Times to be just someone trying to cash in on stereotypes in disregard to actual scientific studies. For the sake of convenience here are the search results for articles talking about the "scientist" on the LLB.
The fact that she got so much attention and that actual linguistic research doesn't get too much of love is probably due to the preference for sound bite research that affirms stereotypes. The Northern City Vowel Shift didn't exactly burn up the phone lines on the radio. Still people have an interest in the sideshows of linguistics and science, researchers just have to do a better job of bringing people into the real show. A couple of letters to the editor or some such to say, "that was interesting load of crap but the true research is even more fascinating." I mean the fact that most studies show men talk just as much or more than women raises a number of interesting questions about gender roles and power. The stereotypes are not only wrong but pretty boring.
I'd have to agree that this is a very good choice. I found the assertions that I heard in her radio interview on Radio Times to be just someone trying to cash in on stereotypes in disregard to actual scientific studies. For the sake of convenience here are the search results for articles talking about the "scientist" on the LLB.
The fact that she got so much attention and that actual linguistic research doesn't get too much of love is probably due to the preference for sound bite research that affirms stereotypes. The Northern City Vowel Shift didn't exactly burn up the phone lines on the radio. Still people have an interest in the sideshows of linguistics and science, researchers just have to do a better job of bringing people into the real show. A couple of letters to the editor or some such to say, "that was interesting load of crap but the true research is even more fascinating." I mean the fact that most studies show men talk just as much or more than women raises a number of interesting questions about gender roles and power. The stereotypes are not only wrong but pretty boring.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Small pipes part 2
The fact that almost everyone outside of Japan and Korean gets screwed on broadband speeds and prices is one of my favorite topics. I've had reason to think about the situation since the Verizon FiOS TV roll out in the Philly area but not in Philadelphia. Of course part of the reason Verizon hasn't rolled out the service in Philadelphia is because of issues over franchise fees as in Chicago. With the change in the congress we might see movement on NetNeutrality and statewide franchise agreements. Basically, municipalities prefer to negotiate with telecoms for franchise fees to offer programming. This allows a large municipality such as Philadelphia or Chicago make a lot of money in fees and taxes. Telecoms don't like this because it cuts down on profits. Statewide or federal franchise agreements allow telecoms to maximize profits and can speed up the roll out to some areas. The potential problem is that there may not be franchise agreements to carry local stations or to provide community services that municipalities can barter out of tlecoms.
An article that I read on Ars lays out what I've noticed over the years, there is more competition but the prices are increasing instead of getting lower. This makes sense for the reasons pointed out in the article that it is hard to move from one service to another. That is assuming that one even has a choice which a lot of people do not. My brother recently dropped Comcast after getting tired of their crappy service and high prices. For example, his old house was about twenty yards from a regional office where the trucks came from for installations but he had to wait nearly a month for a sometime between 9 and 5 installation. He's going with Verizon's FiOS but I live in the city and am thus screwed. Frankly, FiOS is overpriced in the greater scheme of things when one can get 100 MBPS in Japan and Korea. There are some differences in taxes and culture but the biggest thing is there is no real competition.
The Brand X decision is partly to blame and an inept FCC deserves a lot of blame as well. From an economic standpoint what the telecoms are doing makes perfect sense. If you can deliver the same product for more money why wouldn't you? Even the incremental increases of 1MBPS for the same price in the face of competition is rather insulting since they could go even faster. Of course profits would only remain steady doing that.
An article that I read on Ars lays out what I've noticed over the years, there is more competition but the prices are increasing instead of getting lower. This makes sense for the reasons pointed out in the article that it is hard to move from one service to another. That is assuming that one even has a choice which a lot of people do not. My brother recently dropped Comcast after getting tired of their crappy service and high prices. For example, his old house was about twenty yards from a regional office where the trucks came from for installations but he had to wait nearly a month for a sometime between 9 and 5 installation. He's going with Verizon's FiOS but I live in the city and am thus screwed. Frankly, FiOS is overpriced in the greater scheme of things when one can get 100 MBPS in Japan and Korea. There are some differences in taxes and culture but the biggest thing is there is no real competition.
The Brand X decision is partly to blame and an inept FCC deserves a lot of blame as well. From an economic standpoint what the telecoms are doing makes perfect sense. If you can deliver the same product for more money why wouldn't you? Even the incremental increases of 1MBPS for the same price in the face of competition is rather insulting since they could go even faster. Of course profits would only remain steady doing that.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
The Language Thing
There was a bit of a translation controversy in the news. The outsourcing of the translation of Iraqi documents to amateurs on the Internet leading to the publication of nuclear weapon blue prints is kind of predictable, after all Saddam Hussein's nuclear program prior to 1991 is the reason Iraq was under sanctions. Open source intelligence has its uses, but you'd have to be pretty stupid to publish classified information that you haven't translated. That was the whole point of the site but that ground has already been covered.
I've been playing around with some more interesting language resources recently. The British National Corpus is a free corpus that can be analyzed for linguistic information. A free corpus is a rarity, usually they cost a few thousand dollars or you have to create your own. It's a pretty fun site in a language nerd kind of way. The Linguistic Data Consortium has some very interesting articles and a decent collection of corpora. New articles are free and the membership is reasonable if you have an organization paying for it. I've been playing around with the sites a bit checking the frequency of words, POS, reading articles, and anything else I can think up. Even if you don't have any experience with linguistics or natural language processing you should have some amusement from the two sites. At the very least you don't have to worry about revealing classified information.
I've been playing around with some more interesting language resources recently. The British National Corpus is a free corpus that can be analyzed for linguistic information. A free corpus is a rarity, usually they cost a few thousand dollars or you have to create your own. It's a pretty fun site in a language nerd kind of way. The Linguistic Data Consortium has some very interesting articles and a decent collection of corpora. New articles are free and the membership is reasonable if you have an organization paying for it. I've been playing around with the sites a bit checking the frequency of words, POS, reading articles, and anything else I can think up. Even if you don't have any experience with linguistics or natural language processing you should have some amusement from the two sites. At the very least you don't have to worry about revealing classified information.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Adam4Adam and Murder
Michael Sandy the nephew of "Calypso Rose" was lured to his robbery and eventual death by a chat on Adam4Adam. A4A is a gay chat site. This case isn't the first or the last of Internet robbery/beatdown attempts. One of the murderers apologized but the charges should go up to homicide, robbery and hopefully a hate crime. There are larger issues here. The depravity of the perpetrators of these crimes has power because of the larger society that perpetuates the closet. The closet makes the survivors of these hate crimes reluctant to come forward. Sadly in this case Michael did not live to see his attackers be punished. I talked to Michael a few times and he seemed like a wonderful guy. Its a shame something that shouldn't happen to anyone happened to such a nice guy.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Meme: Gays Tied GOP Hands on Foley
This is a perspective put forth by Newt Gingrich and the Family Research Council on the Foley affair. Will Bunch has already taken it apart and show how ridiculous it is as have the comments to his article.
The argument goes like this: the GOP knew something was wrong with Foley's relationship with the congressional pages but they were so afraid of offending the gay community that they could not stop him or start an investigation. The problem is that the Republican party won the last election largely on the idea of an amendment to the constitution on the idea of banning gay marriage. When sodomy laws were deemed unconstitutional by the courts Republicans like Rick Santorum made comparisons to bestiality and incest. It's pretty hard to make the case that the GOP is afraid of appearing non-PC by getting tough with a pederast. That is also part of the problem to make the homophobia argument you have to assume that gay men in general are attracted to teenage boys, I myself find most guys under 25 kind of scrawny with boring personalities. Maybe that's just me. But to use the FRC correlation that homosexuals are 3% of the population and 1/3rd of molestations are male-male and therefore endemic of homosexuality then the necessary corollary follows that the 97% of men who are heterosexual are responsible for the majority of child molestation over 66%.
It is a dumb attempt by the FRC to try and protect the GOP by diverting attention from the congressional leadership and put the harassment of teenage pages by a staunch conservative Republican into the hands of the Democrats. The FRC has obviously not thought this argument through because if it was true, which it obviously isn't, then the GOP put getting elected above protecting children. It argues the Democratic point from the other position, its unintentional but with a few weeks before the election the press may pick up on that point. If it was a day before the election it might be a useful, if cynical argument. A few weeks before you have to wonder who their political advisors are and if they really want the GOP to keep the seats.
Foley is trying to argue that alcohol and molestation as a teen is the cause of the problem. He is perhaps thinking that he can resurrect his political career. He might as well forget it his current (former) election battle was heavily in his favor before the revelations, as the former LA governor once said "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." He wasn't caught in bed but IM is pretty close. Hastert can save himself but he'll probably drag the party down to losing the House. The press loves a story of a politico pimping out kids.
It's not that I'm enamored with the Democrats it's just that they are the more honest liars in this instance. To quote another LA governor Huey P. Long once said, "The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the neck down."
The argument goes like this: the GOP knew something was wrong with Foley's relationship with the congressional pages but they were so afraid of offending the gay community that they could not stop him or start an investigation. The problem is that the Republican party won the last election largely on the idea of an amendment to the constitution on the idea of banning gay marriage. When sodomy laws were deemed unconstitutional by the courts Republicans like Rick Santorum made comparisons to bestiality and incest. It's pretty hard to make the case that the GOP is afraid of appearing non-PC by getting tough with a pederast. That is also part of the problem to make the homophobia argument you have to assume that gay men in general are attracted to teenage boys, I myself find most guys under 25 kind of scrawny with boring personalities. Maybe that's just me. But to use the FRC correlation that homosexuals are 3% of the population and 1/3rd of molestations are male-male and therefore endemic of homosexuality then the necessary corollary follows that the 97% of men who are heterosexual are responsible for the majority of child molestation over 66%.
It is a dumb attempt by the FRC to try and protect the GOP by diverting attention from the congressional leadership and put the harassment of teenage pages by a staunch conservative Republican into the hands of the Democrats. The FRC has obviously not thought this argument through because if it was true, which it obviously isn't, then the GOP put getting elected above protecting children. It argues the Democratic point from the other position, its unintentional but with a few weeks before the election the press may pick up on that point. If it was a day before the election it might be a useful, if cynical argument. A few weeks before you have to wonder who their political advisors are and if they really want the GOP to keep the seats.
Foley is trying to argue that alcohol and molestation as a teen is the cause of the problem. He is perhaps thinking that he can resurrect his political career. He might as well forget it his current (former) election battle was heavily in his favor before the revelations, as the former LA governor once said "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." He wasn't caught in bed but IM is pretty close. Hastert can save himself but he'll probably drag the party down to losing the House. The press loves a story of a politico pimping out kids.
It's not that I'm enamored with the Democrats it's just that they are the more honest liars in this instance. To quote another LA governor Huey P. Long once said, "The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the neck down."
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Queer Response to Gay History in Philadelphia
A lot of people in Philadelphia are up in arms over the school district recognizing gay and lesbian history month. Most of the parents seem to be objecting because "it involves sex." That is a very narrow minded definition of homosexuality, I've always been gay even before I knew what sex was. In a way the reaction of the parents and the 70% of people who voted in the local CBS poll on whether the school district should have the calendars are the reason there is a need for the school to recognize Gay and Lesbian month. Parents flipping out and taking their kids out of class because "Gay and Lesbian History Month" is printed on a calendar they may not even notice. In a city with a climbing murder rate and a school system that is under funded and undermined continually by the state to have parents put their prejudices against a some of the students, potentially their own children, is offensive.
It isn't the first time that the school district has received flak for the calendars. People complain about Black History month and the noting of Ramadan. The district also notes Asian and Pacific Islander Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Jewish and Christian holidays. The school district has to train students to compete and work alongside others in a global marketplace with people of different nationalities, races, genders, and sexual orientations. The school district has to be The only problem I have with the calendar is that there are no lesson plans to go along with it. They have the opportunity to tie in many other communities as well. There areBayard Rustin, Sappho, Socrates, James Baldwin, Bessie Smith, Alan Turing, , Michael Foucault, Virginia Woolf. The list really is endless lesbians and gay men have contributed to the world as much as anyone else to fear talking about their existence is to give into the belief that acknowledging their existence is somehow going to "turn" the kids gay is as idiotic as thinking Rosh Hashanah or Ramadan being marked is going to "turn" the kids Jewish or Muslim. It would be nice if things worked that way then September 21st of every year all violence would stop.
It isn't the first time that the school district has received flak for the calendars. People complain about Black History month and the noting of Ramadan. The district also notes Asian and Pacific Islander Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Jewish and Christian holidays. The school district has to train students to compete and work alongside others in a global marketplace with people of different nationalities, races, genders, and sexual orientations. The school district has to be The only problem I have with the calendar is that there are no lesson plans to go along with it. They have the opportunity to tie in many other communities as well. There areBayard Rustin, Sappho, Socrates, James Baldwin, Bessie Smith, Alan Turing, , Michael Foucault, Virginia Woolf. The list really is endless lesbians and gay men have contributed to the world as much as anyone else to fear talking about their existence is to give into the belief that acknowledging their existence is somehow going to "turn" the kids gay is as idiotic as thinking Rosh Hashanah or Ramadan being marked is going to "turn" the kids Jewish or Muslim. It would be nice if things worked that way then September 21st of every year all violence would stop.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
America's Pipes Don't Measure up for Broadband
I have a bit of an interest in Internet connectivity. Not just because I work in IT, not just because I work with a lot of people who are part of the digital divide but in part I like to download the sweet multimedia content that's available. The problem is that broadband is expensive and in comparison to other developed countries kind of slow. Ars points to a report by the Consumer Federation of America, Consumer's Union, and Free Press.
One thing that gets forgotten in the paying more to get less reality of American broadband is that the policies of the FCC and the companies perpetuate the digital divide. Yes, the gap is shrinking a bit but still 16th in penetration and 15th in terms of growth, is to be frank pretty piss poor performance especially when one considers the price we pay. For example, Verizon offers FiOS at 30 Mbps / 5Mbps for $179.95 per month, yet in Japan or South Korea one can get 100 Mbps /100 Mbps for $35 and $32 per month respectively.
The reason Americans get screwed is that in most metropolitan areas customers have at most two broadband providers. Others have only one and in large swaths of the country there are none. There is no real profit driven reason for cable or DSL providers to provide service in rural areas, just ask Verizon why they don't want to offer FiOs in Swanksville and other areas in westwern PA. The duopoly and the inherent lack of real competition is due in no small part to the Brand X case and the subsequent FCC ruling on DSL. Cable and DSL providers don't have to lease their lines to competitors and can therefore charge highly for rather slow speeds and poor customer service.
Congress is trying to fix some of the problems with broadband. They are trying to overturn bans on municipal broadband which some states have passed. Municipal is one strategy to bring in much needed competition but congress could go further. They could require broadband providers to lease the lines. The broadband companies are given exclusive right of way in many locales. Doing so would not only shrink the divide in large cities but could help in rural areas. There is a lot of dark fiber that companies are putting to use that can be lit for consumers. If competitors can lease lines then the larger companies would have to compete on price and speed, there would be an incentive to get more customers in unserviced areas because of the competition in former monopoly areas.
On a somewhat related note this puts the whole anti-network neutrality of the cable and telephone companies in perspective. It's bad enough they want to throttle down the speeds of companies that don't pay extortion but the speeds of the fastlane are pretty damn slow.
One thing that gets forgotten in the paying more to get less reality of American broadband is that the policies of the FCC and the companies perpetuate the digital divide. Yes, the gap is shrinking a bit but still 16th in penetration and 15th in terms of growth, is to be frank pretty piss poor performance especially when one considers the price we pay. For example, Verizon offers FiOS at 30 Mbps / 5Mbps for $179.95 per month, yet in Japan or South Korea one can get 100 Mbps /100 Mbps for $35 and $32 per month respectively.
The reason Americans get screwed is that in most metropolitan areas customers have at most two broadband providers. Others have only one and in large swaths of the country there are none. There is no real profit driven reason for cable or DSL providers to provide service in rural areas, just ask Verizon why they don't want to offer FiOs in Swanksville and other areas in westwern PA. The duopoly and the inherent lack of real competition is due in no small part to the Brand X case and the subsequent FCC ruling on DSL. Cable and DSL providers don't have to lease their lines to competitors and can therefore charge highly for rather slow speeds and poor customer service.
Congress is trying to fix some of the problems with broadband. They are trying to overturn bans on municipal broadband which some states have passed. Municipal is one strategy to bring in much needed competition but congress could go further. They could require broadband providers to lease the lines. The broadband companies are given exclusive right of way in many locales. Doing so would not only shrink the divide in large cities but could help in rural areas. There is a lot of dark fiber that companies are putting to use that can be lit for consumers. If competitors can lease lines then the larger companies would have to compete on price and speed, there would be an incentive to get more customers in unserviced areas because of the competition in former monopoly areas.
On a somewhat related note this puts the whole anti-network neutrality of the cable and telephone companies in perspective. It's bad enough they want to throttle down the speeds of companies that don't pay extortion but the speeds of the fastlane are pretty damn slow.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Meme: Surviving the race
As anyone who is interested in such things already knows Survivor will be dividing people into tribes based on race. There isn't an obvious library angle on this but race is an interesting and persistent social construct. A number of people have already pointed to the Herbert Spencer inspired quality to the whole endeavor of "survival of the fittest." There are calls to boycott the show, since it does have the unfortunate potential to degenerate into racist boosterism based on arbitrary criteria taken out of context in the same way as the bestselling but disproved Bell Curve.
Ever since the first Survivor almost everyone tries the same strategy as Richard Hatch. Form alliances and lie and cheat anyone not in your alliance and then lie and cheat those in your alliance until there is only three left. Then it is a simple matter of either winning the last challenge or being such a villain throughout the show they take you to the final two because who would vote to give a million dollars to a guy who faked his grandmother's death. With this the lying and backstabbing can have the accusation of race traitor, racist, and Uncle Tom that race baiting always brings out. Some critics point out that it is a crass attempt to pull up sagging ratings of the show by having people root for their own race, which I think is true. Unfortunately the coarser language that comes with race baiting probably will be edited out for family viewing. The race war would have to be fought over the water cooler instead. Which with the show losing steam isn't going to amount to much fighting.
What would have been more interesting is an examination of the idea of race. Race is not a scientific categorization despite the fact that most people would think it is. In fact the host found out that lumping people under Asian puts together people who see ethnic divisions and may have tensions with other "Asians." If he did more searching he would find some people from the West Indies who do not see themselves as being Black or "Blacks" from Africa who do not see themselves as being in the same race as "Blacks" in America. Race is one of the most arbitrary ways to categorize human beings what constitutes a race is highly influenced by the society one is raised in. In America race is defined largely by visual cues even when the visual cues aren't there. A light skin Black man is Black even if he can pass for White.
Whiteness itself is an interesting concept. It took decades for the Irish and the Italians to be considered White. The Jewish community is considered White by the mainstream sometimes but as a minority that is separate and apart at others. The lines are flexible and exist only to hang myths upon. Those myths that tell people to clutch their purse when a black man approaches, that Asian men are all foreigners, and that Latinas are sex crazed freaks. They aren't remotely true in most cases but they let you shut your brain off for a few minutes, and that is what reality TV is all about.
If someone is looking for good resources that treat the construct of race in a meaningful way there are a few choices. There is the series "Matters of Race" that aired on PBS. It examines the meaning of race from a number of perspectives. Race: the Power of an Illusion provides an interactive site to learn about the realities of race. It's a good site for teens and younger kids. There are a lot of books on the subject of Race but two recent ones to mention are Covering: The Hidden assault on Our Civil Liberties by Kenji Yoshino and What White Looks Like by George Yancy. Covering deals in part with race but also gender and sexual orientation. It is an interesting take on the need to assimilate, when is assimilation necessary and when is it the destruction of the self. What White Looks Like tries to expand the field of White studies which is in its infancy by having professors in Black studies tackle philosophical concepts of Whiteness put forth by Foucault and others.
Ever since the first Survivor almost everyone tries the same strategy as Richard Hatch. Form alliances and lie and cheat anyone not in your alliance and then lie and cheat those in your alliance until there is only three left. Then it is a simple matter of either winning the last challenge or being such a villain throughout the show they take you to the final two because who would vote to give a million dollars to a guy who faked his grandmother's death. With this the lying and backstabbing can have the accusation of race traitor, racist, and Uncle Tom that race baiting always brings out. Some critics point out that it is a crass attempt to pull up sagging ratings of the show by having people root for their own race, which I think is true. Unfortunately the coarser language that comes with race baiting probably will be edited out for family viewing. The race war would have to be fought over the water cooler instead. Which with the show losing steam isn't going to amount to much fighting.
What would have been more interesting is an examination of the idea of race. Race is not a scientific categorization despite the fact that most people would think it is. In fact the host found out that lumping people under Asian puts together people who see ethnic divisions and may have tensions with other "Asians." If he did more searching he would find some people from the West Indies who do not see themselves as being Black or "Blacks" from Africa who do not see themselves as being in the same race as "Blacks" in America. Race is one of the most arbitrary ways to categorize human beings what constitutes a race is highly influenced by the society one is raised in. In America race is defined largely by visual cues even when the visual cues aren't there. A light skin Black man is Black even if he can pass for White.
Whiteness itself is an interesting concept. It took decades for the Irish and the Italians to be considered White. The Jewish community is considered White by the mainstream sometimes but as a minority that is separate and apart at others. The lines are flexible and exist only to hang myths upon. Those myths that tell people to clutch their purse when a black man approaches, that Asian men are all foreigners, and that Latinas are sex crazed freaks. They aren't remotely true in most cases but they let you shut your brain off for a few minutes, and that is what reality TV is all about.
If someone is looking for good resources that treat the construct of race in a meaningful way there are a few choices. There is the series "Matters of Race" that aired on PBS. It examines the meaning of race from a number of perspectives. Race: the Power of an Illusion provides an interactive site to learn about the realities of race. It's a good site for teens and younger kids. There are a lot of books on the subject of Race but two recent ones to mention are Covering: The Hidden assault on Our Civil Liberties by Kenji Yoshino and What White Looks Like by George Yancy. Covering deals in part with race but also gender and sexual orientation. It is an interesting take on the need to assimilate, when is assimilation necessary and when is it the destruction of the self. What White Looks Like tries to expand the field of White studies which is in its infancy by having professors in Black studies tackle philosophical concepts of Whiteness put forth by Foucault and others.
Monday, July 31, 2006
The evils of video games proven ...
... not quite but close. Ronaldinho the Brazilian phenom who took leisurely strolls through the finest stadiums in Germany in the last World Cup is using marathon sex and PS2 sessions as an excuse for his lackluster performance. He had to give some excuse when the sports rags and blogs point out that he plays harder for Barca than he's ever played for his country. This would have been the end of it had a playboy editor not done any detective work on the model who contacted the tabloids. Which led others to question whether she even exists.
The excuse is interesting because it reinforces the meme of the selfish, testosterone drenched sports stud. The idea that he would put winning the world cup at risk to sneak off to his girlfriends place for sex and to play a simulation of the same world cup is a little odd. Naturally the ultra macho stance makes some suspicious that he is hiding something. Maybe not like MAX but maybe like Esera Tualo. Personally, if he couldn't take off from sleeping with his girlfriend or boyfriend for a month to lead his team to the biggest championship in sports he shouldn't be on the pitch for Brazil 4 years from now. Although, from past experience I could see why he wouldn't come out if he has anything to come out about.
The excuse is interesting because it reinforces the meme of the selfish, testosterone drenched sports stud. The idea that he would put winning the world cup at risk to sneak off to his girlfriends place for sex and to play a simulation of the same world cup is a little odd. Naturally the ultra macho stance makes some suspicious that he is hiding something. Maybe not like MAX but maybe like Esera Tualo. Personally, if he couldn't take off from sleeping with his girlfriend or boyfriend for a month to lead his team to the biggest championship in sports he shouldn't be on the pitch for Brazil 4 years from now. Although, from past experience I could see why he wouldn't come out if he has anything to come out about.
Monday, July 24, 2006
It's all about semantics
Peter Norvig, CEO of Google, posed a few tough questions to Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (WWW) at the recent conference for the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. As any one who is deeply involved in information retrieval or metadata research know Berners-Lee is pushing the Semantic Web as the biggest thing since teh Interweb. The basic idea of the Semantic Web (SW) is that web pages will be written in a way that computers can extract meaning from them in order to perform various operations. For example, your computer could automatically buy tickets for the movie, you’ve been reading about on the Internet, at your favorite theater at a time that will fit in with your schedule. Berners-Lee first described it in his landmark article for Scientific American.
Norvig’s criticism of the Semantic Web is that proponents need to factor into account incompetence, unwillingness to comply and dishonesty. The incompetence that he mentions is a problem on the World Wide Web now with web designers using non-standard markup technique. The unwillingness to comply or competition approach has been seen with HTML and I doubt SW will be any different. If one were the leader in selling widgets web wide why would one rewrite their entire website so that competitors could search their data. The deception aspect is pretty obvious to anyone who has clicked on a link high in their search results and being directed to a porno site when that isn’t what they were searching to find. He had more criticisms in a paper in 2005 but I guess you don’t want to berate the father of the WWW at a conference during the Q & A.
Berners-Lee took on the criticisms one by one, on compliance he suggested that powerful search engine companies can force others to reveal their data to store in Resource Description Frameworks (RDF). RDFs are part of the backbone of the SW and I’ll get to those shortly. On security / deception he pointed out that the Semantic Web requires explicit digital signatures on files. This would allow Semantic Web engines to only index trusted signatures and ignore unsigned Semantic Web pages.
The astute reader will notice that Berners-Lee did not touch incompetence. Some of the people who have commented on this story before and some of the people who I have talked to who are Semantic Web true believers say that advanced authoring tools will solve this. To which I say, B.S. if advanced tools could solve this problem why aren’t all web pages valid? Sure you have some that are still hand coded but most web masters are using DreamWeaver or some other WYSIWYG web editor. The problem of course is that different browsers treat tags differently in some cases the same browser will treat the same page differently depending on the version of the browser.
There are problems dealing with semantics in the semantic web which nyone who has studied natural language processing would expect. I don't think that the W3C has found a magic bullet to solve language translation problems but it still could be useful. Pushing the boundaries of technology in such a way could spur on some real developments in natural language processing and information retrieval. Eventually the SW may be a reality in a few more decades.
Norvig’s criticism of the Semantic Web is that proponents need to factor into account incompetence, unwillingness to comply and dishonesty. The incompetence that he mentions is a problem on the World Wide Web now with web designers using non-standard markup technique. The unwillingness to comply or competition approach has been seen with HTML and I doubt SW will be any different. If one were the leader in selling widgets web wide why would one rewrite their entire website so that competitors could search their data. The deception aspect is pretty obvious to anyone who has clicked on a link high in their search results and being directed to a porno site when that isn’t what they were searching to find. He had more criticisms in a paper in 2005 but I guess you don’t want to berate the father of the WWW at a conference during the Q & A.
Berners-Lee took on the criticisms one by one, on compliance he suggested that powerful search engine companies can force others to reveal their data to store in Resource Description Frameworks (RDF). RDFs are part of the backbone of the SW and I’ll get to those shortly. On security / deception he pointed out that the Semantic Web requires explicit digital signatures on files. This would allow Semantic Web engines to only index trusted signatures and ignore unsigned Semantic Web pages.
The astute reader will notice that Berners-Lee did not touch incompetence. Some of the people who have commented on this story before and some of the people who I have talked to who are Semantic Web true believers say that advanced authoring tools will solve this. To which I say, B.S. if advanced tools could solve this problem why aren’t all web pages valid? Sure you have some that are still hand coded but most web masters are using DreamWeaver or some other WYSIWYG web editor. The problem of course is that different browsers treat tags differently in some cases the same browser will treat the same page differently depending on the version of the browser.
There are problems dealing with semantics in the semantic web which nyone who has studied natural language processing would expect. I don't think that the W3C has found a magic bullet to solve language translation problems but it still could be useful. Pushing the boundaries of technology in such a way could spur on some real developments in natural language processing and information retrieval. Eventually the SW may be a reality in a few more decades.
Monday, June 19, 2006
The Beautiful Game and the Ugly American
The world's greatest sports spectacle is going on but you'd hardly notice from most American sports coverage. The local news does not give a run down of the days results, show highlights or even mention that the quaterly tourney is taking place except when the U.S. team is playing.
While I'm a huge soccer fan and am TiVoing each and every game to watch later I realize I'm of a distinct minority of Americans. Soccer has never been a very popular sport in America whether that exceptionalism is because of the full sports space in America or fears of globalization. While there was a well documented lack of organization of soccer clubs in the early stages of American sports space and some may fear the communist menace of football I think the success of the women's team and the constant prodding to enjoy the world's sport makes it a non-starter.
There is a certain level of misogyny and homophobia surrounding soccer in the U.S. it is seen as being safe,and unmanly. The fact that the U.S. women have been so successful compared to the lackluster performance of the men confirms the stereotypes for many. The fact that so many people have been pushing soccer for so many decades inadvertently turns off many who feel the foreign media is being condescending.
The lackluster performance of the American team this year is not helping to spread interest in the sport. The fifth place world ranking was a joke and this team tried hard to confirm it when they stepped on the pitch in their first match against the Czech Republic. They didn't play like a team at aall, they played like a team of prima donnas. It is the same problem that I saw in England's first match, they couldn't get organized or motivated but England has enough talent to sleepwalk into the round of sixteen. The U.S. isn't Brazil they can't wait for the game to come to them like Ronaldo is doing this World Cup. The team played a decent game 9 against 10 in the Italian game but complaining about a bad referee is pointless. If you are a good enough team calls go your way, if you're not they won't it is the same in every sport everywhere. To be honest the two teams that seem to be lkeaving their hearts out on the field are Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago. When the U.S. goes up against Ghana I'll be pulling for the miracle of America making it to the next round but won't be too sad if Ghana wins.
Soccer probably will never overtake even hockey in popularity in America but I'll keep watching the beautiful game. I try to avoid ABC's and ESPN's coverage, the least they could have done is get announcers who know the games terminology calling play by play.I have the TiVo set for Univision, the announcers know what they are talking about and it helps with my Spanish. I'll need to speak to the most likely football fans in America.
While I'm a huge soccer fan and am TiVoing each and every game to watch later I realize I'm of a distinct minority of Americans. Soccer has never been a very popular sport in America whether that exceptionalism is because of the full sports space in America or fears of globalization. While there was a well documented lack of organization of soccer clubs in the early stages of American sports space and some may fear the communist menace of football I think the success of the women's team and the constant prodding to enjoy the world's sport makes it a non-starter.
There is a certain level of misogyny and homophobia surrounding soccer in the U.S. it is seen as being safe,and unmanly. The fact that the U.S. women have been so successful compared to the lackluster performance of the men confirms the stereotypes for many. The fact that so many people have been pushing soccer for so many decades inadvertently turns off many who feel the foreign media is being condescending.
The lackluster performance of the American team this year is not helping to spread interest in the sport. The fifth place world ranking was a joke and this team tried hard to confirm it when they stepped on the pitch in their first match against the Czech Republic. They didn't play like a team at aall, they played like a team of prima donnas. It is the same problem that I saw in England's first match, they couldn't get organized or motivated but England has enough talent to sleepwalk into the round of sixteen. The U.S. isn't Brazil they can't wait for the game to come to them like Ronaldo is doing this World Cup. The team played a decent game 9 against 10 in the Italian game but complaining about a bad referee is pointless. If you are a good enough team calls go your way, if you're not they won't it is the same in every sport everywhere. To be honest the two teams that seem to be lkeaving their hearts out on the field are Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago. When the U.S. goes up against Ghana I'll be pulling for the miracle of America making it to the next round but won't be too sad if Ghana wins.
Soccer probably will never overtake even hockey in popularity in America but I'll keep watching the beautiful game. I try to avoid ABC's and ESPN's coverage, the least they could have done is get announcers who know the games terminology calling play by play.I have the TiVo set for Univision, the announcers know what they are talking about and it helps with my Spanish. I'll need to speak to the most likely football fans in America.
Marking time
I just finished my course on metadata in digital resources. I did a short study on the use of TEI that somebody might find interesting.
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