NYPD Officer Assaults Cyclist during Critical Mass

This is nuts.


But wait, it gets worse. Initially the cylist was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer. The police officer said in an affidavit that the cyclist deliberately ran into him (though you can clearly see the cyclist trying to go around him). The cyclist was held in custody for 26 hours.

At least the cop's father is proud of him: "These people are taking over the streets and impeding the flow of traffic. Then you gotta do what you gotta do," he said, not having viewed the video.

I must say: hooray for citizen journalism!

Disclaimer: it is possible the cyclist did something else really really bad earlier and the cops were specifically looking for him. Like maybe he was a terrorist with a ticking time bomb. It better have been that bad because a hit like that could have killed the guy (helmetless onto pavement!)

More at Democracy Now, Gothamist and the NY Post

He Really is Quite Savage

Who said this?

[W]hy was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], "When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], "I don't know, the dust got me." See, everyone had asthma from the minority community.

The same guy who said autism is a

fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.'

I'd say I'm shocked, but sadly, I'm not.

From Media Matters

See for yourself:

Bigotry: it's not just for adults anymore

New! "God Hates Fags" T-shirts, now in toddler sizes.

You know what they say: if you want 'em to grow up without a shred of care or compassion for fellow human beings - start 'em early. If you want 'em to become hate-filled, rage-filled, closed-minded, we suggest you work on 'em while they're still malleable. Start with these tees, so the message burns itself into their soft, innocent hearts. Ah, the next generation of little Pat Buchanans:

These kids are going to need some serious deprogramming later in life.

Statistically speaking, some of the kids whose parents dress them in these shirts are going to be gay themselves.

Reminds me of the fact that many (some even say most) victims of homophobic violence (bullying, gay-bashing, etc) are not even gay - but are usually those who others mistakenly think are gay. This is just one reason (you know, aside from the morality aspect) that even straight folk should be concerned about homophobia. Gay bashing is about more than just punishing homosexuality; it is also a method of enforcing social conformity. Boys are punished by their peers for stretching the strictures of masculinist behaviour. Of course, those who do the enforcing don't come up with the idea on their own, but pick it up from heterosexist society, communities, churches, and parents - especially those parents who buy their kids "God Hates Fags" t-shirts.

In case you weren't aware, godhatesfags.com is a website run by Fred Phelps, leader of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. They're the ones who have anti-gay protests around the U.S., including at some points showing up at the funerals of gay men, and have moved on to a general "God hates America" theme, due to all our depravity. He makes Jeremiah Wright (Obama's pastor) look like a teddy bear–at least he was just saying God ought to damn America.

From the fantastic site: Sociological Images

And I Thought my Bike Commute was Bad

Every time I travel on somewhere my bike I experience the heart-pounding feeling of impending death, and plenty of frustration. It seems Torontonians, especially the uptownians, have not yet realized their beloved car culture is dying. My bike commute usually consists of at least a handful of the following: people honking randomly at me as if to say "what are you doing on MY ROAD?", the delivery vehicles in the bike lanes, the cars stopped in the no-stopping-zones, the drivers too lazy to signal their lane change, the three or four cars that go through every red light, and the bike lanes with a 4 lanes of traffic and a raised streetcar right-of-way in the middle (St. Clair & Poplar Plains). Or I get caught in traffic because some impatient yahoo in a huge car wondering what's the blockage ahead (not considering that the blockage is more huge CARS) has to pull all the way over to the right to have a look, leaving not enough inches for wee little me and my wee little bike to get through.

But, I must say, my commute has NOTHING on this guy's.

Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Canada (along with three other good old-fashioned white colonial settler nations: USA, Australia & New Zealand) voted no. 143 other countries voted yes, so it passed anyways.

Wait... we voted no? To a non-binding declaration?

Yup, that's right: "No rights for you!"

Um. What gives the Canadian state the right to dictate who get rights anyways?

JJ is right, it is embarrassing, but unsurprising.

Underpaid women: Stupid Letters to the Editor

You know, I have no one to blame but myself. I know how the National Post makes my head spin, and yet some macabre force compells me to read it.

Anyways, today I found this little gem of a letter to the editor:

Underpaid women
Re: Why Men Earn More, editorial, July 23.

The bottom line is that if women want to earn as much as men, they have to behave like men in the employment marketplace. That usually means: work longer hours at intellectually challenging, personally unrewarding careers that offer a poor workplace environment, physical hazards, pay linked to performance, an imposition on nonworking lifestyle choices or some combination of the above.

Furthermore, women would have to take on more responsibilities, make family sacrifices and be more productive in the jobs they have. That's how men do it. Women can do it too, if they so choose.

Now I could politely tell the author to climb back into the cave from whence he came, and let us women go back to eating bonbons while our menfolk hunt for our dinner, but I think I'll take the high road today. Some facts might be a better response.

First, we need to get to the heart of his argument, which appears to be that women, compared to men:

1. work shorter hours in more rewarding and challenging careers
   
2. experience better workplace environments, and fewer physical hazards
   
3. are payed based on something other than performance
   
4. make poor lifestyle choices
   
5. take less responsibilities and make fewer family sacrifices
   
6. are less productive in their jobs than men.
   

Are any of these true?

1. Do women work shorter hours in more rewarding and challenging careers? When all women are compared with all men in paid employment, women's earnings in 2003 averaged only 63.6% of men's. This is indeed due in part to womens' shorter average paid working hours. (Of course, when unpaid work is added, women and men both work nearly 9 hours a day). Often paid working hours are not a matter of choice; women are overrepresented in part-time, contract and temporary work, and women are less likely to be paid for overtime hours. When adjusting for the difference in working hours, the gap decreases to 70.5% - that is, women make 70.5% of the average earnings of men working full-time for a full year. Lastly, more women than men head single parent households, which significantly impacts the quantity of paid hours worked. (Most data from here, here, and here) As to whether women work more rewarding jobs, that is probably fairly subjective, but we do know that women are overrepresented in the lowest paying jobs like cashiers, food service, and child care jobs and underrepresented in the highest paying occupations like senior managment, law, and dentistry. I suppose a case could be make that scanning bar codes all day is more rewarding than looking at nasty teeth, but otherwise I think most people would prefer the higher paying jobs - for the pay, the challenge, and the status.
   
2. Men do represent about 3/4 of those injured in the workplace - however, we do have labour laws for a reason. Willingness to be injured is fortunately not a requirement for a decent wage. This means we should continue trying to reduce workplace injuries overall, not demand women experience a greater share. There are other risks women face more than men: including sexism on the job, sexual harrassment, repetitive stress injuries, toxic chemicals. Do women have better working environments? Hard to say, but probably men and women both have equally shitty workplaces.
   
3. Are women paid for something other than performance, more often than men? This appears to be true, but it is not exactly a good thing. Pay-for-performance tends to result in higher pay not lower pay. So, yes please, we'd like some more of that, thank you. I expect it isn't likely to happen any time soon since the kinds of jobs that reward performance aren't typically nursing, teaching, and clerical.
   
4. Women make poor lifestyle choices. Where to even begin with this one. Most likely the letter writer is referring to having children, since I can't imagine what other lifestyle choices affect employment so differently for men and women. One thing: it takes both a man and a woman to make a baby, so why should a woman be poorer just because it is her body in which the fetus must grow? But, the fact is, we do, which is part of the reason reproductive choice is so important.
   
5. Women take less responsibility and make fewer family sacrifices. This is sort of funny. I suppose if you were to remove child care, and husband care, and elder care from the picture, then it could be true. Also, one of the things women know when they start a family is that they are making a big sacrifice - their job opportunities and pay almost certainly decrease - unlike men, who experience the opposite. That could be one of the reasons women are delaying marriage and children longer and longer.
   
6. Women are less productive than men. This I couldn't find any data on, either way. We know two things definitely improve productivity - one is technology, since improved technology allows fewer labour hours to accomplish more. The second is training and education. Neither of those are related to gender.
   

It is true than when women behave like men (mostly meaning not having any children), they tend to make similar wages.

The thing is, women, in some people's eyes, don't do the same work as men. They stay home having babies and knitting dirndls while the men are out hunting bear and fending off the Visigoths, so naturally they get paid less... It's easy to caricature this view (dirndls versus Visigoths, etc), but there may be some truth in it. Some research suggests that when women behave as men do--not having babies, mainly--the income gap largely disappears. If so (I won't claim the matter has been definitively settled), the question facing women is a stark one: What do you want, kids or cash?<Straight Dope>

Not very family friendly, is it?

The Whiner Files: Backpack Edition

Oh no! Not the backpacks! Grownups with backpacks - why that's nearly as bad as women who wear sneakers for their commutes. Selfish sneaker wearing women - caring about their own comfort more than they care about how their legs look to the menz.

Dude - let me 'splain. We don't have enough SPACE for everyone to drive. Some people can't even afford a car, or are too young to drive. Hence the subway. When you can't store your whole day's worth of stuff in your car, you have to carry it somehow. The backpack is the most body-friendly way to do that. If you don't like backpacks, you can carry a plastic grocery bag. And leave the rest of the backpack-toting world alone.

I find people are actually pretty careful with their backpacks and even when they aren't, if you ask them nicely to move, they cheerfully oblige. Let's practice together, in our non-bitchy voices: "Can you please move your backpack so I can sit down? Thanks."

What do people carry in their backpacks? Well, those lazy entitled students (though personally I find those whose parents drive them to school are a wee bit lazier and more entitled than those who take mass transit) usually have enough books and homework to keep them busy for 9.2 hours a day.

Now, I have shocking news. In this new age of peak oil and a warmed globe, you better get used to backpacks. Here's what I recommend: an umbrella for sudden weather changes, sweater (for the over-airconditioned buildings), wide-brimmed hat and big bottle of SPF2000 for melanoma protection. Maybe you should place the blame for the backpack scourge where it is deserved: on the shoulders of big oil.

Is there really nothing better to complain about? Like say, people starving or something? Or your favourite shampoo was discontinued? Come on.

You know what really gets me? People who say "napsack". WTF is a nap sack? Something to hold my supplies for the dream world? In conclusion, if you're going to whine about sacks or packs or backs or naps, please do not waste space in the NEWSpaper doing so. Get a blog like the rest of us.