Gem of the Day

thanks to Wonkette.

Smart vs Stupid

From Time magazine, see this article.  

An attempt either to lower expectations for Obama so that he has a greater chance of succeeding, or another way of playing into the Republicans' asinine game of "who has the worse ideas".  But the feeling I get from the article is more of an excuse for the Bush Administration - its ok that we appointed under-qualified people to important positions!

The fact that having a Nobel Prize winning scientist is treated as a rare treat instead of standard practice is disgusting.  Plus, his examples of "smart people behaving badly" completely miss the point.

"After researching more than 750 major business failures in great depth, we came to the conclusion that humans are wired for poor decision-making," says Chunka Mui, co-author of Billion-Dollar Lessons. "Ego, sunk costs, emotions, self-interest, etc. lead to blind spots. The not- so-intelligent have the same issues, it's just that the stakes are lower."

The question being.... What happens when you raise the stakes for a not-so-intelligent person? Utter catastrophe, maybe?

Why I call myself a feminist

Because when my grandparents were getting married, this is what they might have bought my mom for bedtime reading. 

My feminism consists of these general statements of purpose:

1) I expect to be treated as an equal - someone with ideas to contribute and ears to listen.  I will listen back.

2) My ideal would be that my body would not define how far I could succeed in life - instead, what I can accomplish would be the criterion for my success.

3) I want to be able to have children - any feminism that undermines the power of motherhood is not for me.  

my parents have told me that my utopian ideals about being respected as an equal are stupid, and that the obsession with beauty will never change.  Thus, I should "play the role" that is scripted out for me in society.  My feminism looks forward to a time when I won't be able to say that to my daughter, because it won't be true.

New Feature!!

It will be called:  Thoughts for the Day, and be ridiculously awesome.  No, it's actually just going to be the things that I haven't really fleshed out in my head, but want to talk about.  So, whoever wants to comment can comment, and we'll have a discussion about it.

1) Re. Specter's party switcheroo, what about Joe Sestak?  He was widely considered to be a great challenger for Specter in the general election, and he has a TON of support around here.  I haven't heard a single thing about him or his chances.  Where does he fit in the party, and what should I be thinking about?

2) Support for the Arts:  So far, except for a little bit with the National Foundation, I haven't heard a big deal coming from the Obama administration supporting the arts.  Should there be more concern with the Arts funding-wise coming from Washington?

3) Bohemia - I want it to exist now, but I don't think it does.  In the age of Obama, is there a leftist counter-cultural movement anymore?  If I want one, is it possible to find one?  Or am i too much of a square to be comfortable with what I might find?    Just so people know, I am not talking about a rural nudist utopian type of community.  More of a La Boheme-ish thinkers community.  Are Hipsters the modern equivalent?

My Latest Experiment

So, here goes.  I'm starting this blog for these reasons:

1) I need a better way to procrastinate than checking the same political blogs every 10 minutes.

2) I have been inspired by my friend Daniel, who has a blog of his own (Pensons) and I want to be as cool as he is.  It's mostly political commentary, with a dash of journalism interest, plus a very strange (sorry Daniel, I had to say it) obsession with high speed rail legislation - although I did have something to do with showing him how cool the train actually is.....

3) I want a blog that combines political commentary and commentary on the arts, and I think that I'm the one to do it.

4) The fact that I have started this means that I'm ridiculously hubristic in thinking that anyone will actually read it.  So I'm going to see if anyone actually bothers with this besides me.  Call it an experiment.  Ooo!  Maybe I'll do some artsy art piece about blogging someday.  Probably won't happen, but whatever.

5) I want to have a place to talk - I can only talk about half the things that interest me to each of my friends.  So call this blog my bestest friend ever.  BBFF - Best Blog Friend Forever, or something equally cheezy.....

So there's the introduction.  Welcome, and there'll be more coming soon, provided finals don't attack me posthaste.