Splice Today

A Grand Old Party

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:12:22 -0400

Log Cabin Republicans exist. It’s a fact. But you don’t expect to end up going home with one—that is until you’ve had a bit too much to drink. Under normal circumstances (normal includes registered Democrats, natch), exchanging sex for a place to crash wouldn’t be the worst choice; but, as it turns out, Log Cabin Republicans are a strange breed.

I always forget how powerful a well-placed Mame quote can be with rich men twice my age. Nothing impresses them more. A few cocktails and rasped songs later—I come from the Elaine Stritch school of song—and Patrick and his U.S. flag lapel pin took off, leaving Thomas and me to fall into a cab to have dinner near his East Village apartment.

What the whole night hammered home for me wasn’t just that I’m not a little sissy boy, nor am I much into the daddy scene. No, what Thomas’ comments made me realize was the utter reliance I have on my voice. I understand that, being lanky and slouchy, I’m not the butchest ‘mo in town. But I always believed that having a deep voice undercut all of it; that if I could make it as raspy and resonant and dripping with self-awareness as I could, no one could possibly think that I wasn’t conscious of the appearance I presented and make a silent joke out of it. Apparently, however, Daddy Thomas didn’t see it like that. Which means that somewhere out there, a middle-aged Log Cabin Republican is picking up a skinny twentysomething in a bar, and saying, “I was with this guy once, who really got off on being spanked and called ‘Daddy’s sissy boy.’”

Fellow young gay men, I offer my sincere apologies for perpetuating his illusions. But maybe it’s just easier for Log Cabin Republicans to pretend they’re having sex with a little girl than with another man.

College Presidents Taking Cues From John Ashcroft

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:37:18 -0400

A day after ordering a graduate student's artwork be taken down, Southern Illinois University interim Chancellor Sam Goldman agreed Tuesday the work could be displayed if a cloth covered a photo of partially exposed buttocks.

The banner depicted women in a police lineup in costumes and poses that Weiersmueller said defy gender norms. One of the 27 subjects partially exposed her buttocks, which Goldman said could have negative effects on the public.

"I am not an art policeman, and I do not believe in any form of censoring, but the concern had to do with context," Goldman said. "We have families, children and all kinds of people walking on campus, so the question was, is it appropriate for them?"

Weiersmueller said he told her the complaints came from parents who were concerned after their children saw the banner.

She said she initially considered using a black halo on the buttocks to make a statement about censorship in media. Even with the cloth, the intent of her work comes through, she said.

"The two most important goals for me are to have the work shown and have an open dialogue about it," Weiersmueller said. "It was a compromise, but it was worth it for the sake of the image to be viewed."

Super Smash Brothers Theory, And Other Courses Worth Spending $40K A Year On

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:12:56 -0400

Universities everywhere base their entire business model on forcing you to take half a dozen completely useless classes for each one that will actually help you get smarter and find a job.

As a result, post-secondary education can be a mine field of dubious courses peddling the equivalent of academic snake oil, and some of them get downright ridiculous:

1. Super Smash Brothers Melee Theory and Practice

Taught at Oberlin College

Most pseudo-classes like this come with a course description that tries to play up the supposed academic value. Here they've tried to tell us the course covers "controversial issues concerning video games." However the extra $3 course fee for wear and tear on the controller pretty much gives away the real purpose. The only controversy being discussed in that class is whether to tell your parents that this is how you are blowing your college fund that they put off kidney surgery for.

Amazingly this course has 2.5 hours of class time a week, which is probably about 40 hours less than most of the students would normally play video games. Half of the course time is dedicated to time outside regular class time to practice and refine skills, time that may otherwise be wasted learning things that might actually lead to employment or sex.

2. Stupidity

Taught at Occidental College

Occidental College is a liberal arts college in LA. The Princeton Review has it on its list of The Best 361 Colleges, otherwise known as The List of All the Colleges in the U.S.

The course is supposedly an examination of stupidity "... ranging from the presidency to Beevis (sic) and Butthead (sic)." They don't name the president but we're going to guess it's not Lincoln. Also, right away we're doubting the quality of a course that wants to teach you about stupidity but manages to spell Beavis and Butt-Head wrong. These guys may know stupidity, but apparently they don't know Google.

The description slaps together a bunch of absurd academic jargon to try to legitimize the whole operation, with phrases like "Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing..." or our other favorite, "Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine." Is there some kind of college course random word generator they use for these things?

States Ditching Touch-Screen Voting

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:03:48 -0400

It's a good time to pick up an electronic voting machine on the cheap—provided you're not a stickler for things like "accuracy" or "security." States are scrapping tens of thousands of pricey touchscreen systems in response to mounting concerns about the machines' reliability.

After the butterfly ballot debacle of the 2000 presidential election, in which scores of elderly Floridians revealed a surprising fondness for Pat Buchanan, electronic voting was touted as the way to avoid any such fiasco in the future. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which allocated some $3 billion in federal grants to help states upgrade their voting equipment—$2 billion of which had been spent by the end of 2007.

Now, however, many of those states—including Alaska, California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee, and New Mexico—are ditching touchscreen kiosks with price tags as high as $5,000 each in favor of paper ballots.

Media Zeroing In On Young Voters

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:31:39 -0400

News outlets, especially broadcast media stations like CNN, Fox News and NBC, have begun to zero in on young and first-time voters. CNN has a "League of First Time Voters," which, according to the Web site, is a "resource to learn about elections basics" and a "community where you can express yourself and meet other League members." Unregistered citizens can also register to vote, learn information about the candidates and compare their stances on issues like the economic stimulus, energy, housing and immigration.

Fox News aired a special program last month entitled "The Y Factor," in which Heather Nauert, a Fox News reporter, described in detail the Y Generation. In an interview with Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics, they described this November's election as one in which a majority of young voters will take an interest in politics.

This comes at a time when only about a third of those in the younger-than-25 age demographic watch cable news, according to a study performed by the Pew Research Center. In the same demographic, another third get no news on a typical day.

Think Locally In File Sharing

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:23:23 -0400

Researchers at the University of Washington and Yale University have found that sharing files through peer-to-peer networking with neighbor computers instead of with far-away machines relieves pressure on the Internet-service provider by as much as five times and speeds up the transfer by 20 percent.

Besides being widely used for murky purposes, P2P is used by several media outlets to deliver legal video content and movies. Around 50 percent to 80 percent of all Internet traffic is generated by bandwidth-greedy P2P exchanges, and it is expected to grow, putting strain on Internet-service providers.

To solve this problem, the researchers propose a system they have dubbed P4P, which consists of sharing files preferentially with nearby computers. The researchers calculated that the average P2P data packet travels 1,000 miles and takes 5.5 connections through major hubs. The new system allows data to travel 160 miles on average and make only 0.89 connections, which reduces Web traffic on connections between cities, where there are more frequent bottlenecks.

Maybe The Music Business Is Finally Getting It

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:38:28 -0400

Jim Griffin consults for Warner, one of the four major music labels, and he sees a disturbing sight when he looks around at the digital music landscape. Taking music without paying for it may not be "morally voluntary," Griffin says, but he admits it has become "functionally voluntary." No civilized society, he adds, can endure "purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture." So Griffin's job is to help Warner monetize digital music, and he's convinced that the issue of payment for music is nothing less than "our generation's nuclear power." If our society can monetize music in a balanced, consumer-friendly way, the results will be awesome.

Speaking today at the Progress & Freedom Foundation's annual Aspen conference, Griffin made an impassioned case for music and the importance of monetizing it. He started from the premise, of course, that those who create art should be able to profit from their creative work.

Griffin's most intriguing idea, and one he's been pitching for some time now, is a voluntary, blanket music license; essentially, bringing the collection society model to end users. In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme.

While quick to stress that he isn't in favor of a compulsory (i.e., government-mandated) blanket license, Griffin is convinced that a blanket license is the way to make it almost frictionless for consumers to access a huge collection of music. How this would work in practice still remains unclear—would users be allowed to keep the music they download after they stop paying a fee? What about bands and labels that don't sign on? etc.—and some versions of the idea start to sound a lot like existing subscription services.

"Voluntary Deportation" A Smokescreen For Harsher Tactics

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:57:45 -0400

Last Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began a new pilot program that allows immigrants without proper documentation to leave the country voluntarily, without being charged with a crime. Officials won't ask any questions, and will even cover the plane ticket back to the country of origin.

The program was implemented in order to… well, that's part of the problem. The goals and reasoning behind this operation haven't been made clear. Why would we choose not only to allow illegal immigrants to leave the country without legal consequences, but actually pay for their plane ticket? How could this possibly be beneficial to the United States?

The answer is simple: public relations. This country's customs enforcers' notorious deeds have been getting a lot of bad press. This is just an attempt to humanize the methods and strategies that ICE and other U.S. custom services use.

Any program that involves removing people from this country will just waste time, energy and most importantly, tax payer money.This obsession with money and papers has to stop. Lack of papers is not a reason to break up families and ruin lives. We're people, not dogs; we don't need pedigrees to prove our worth.

Canadian Digital Rights Under Attack From The South

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:31:00 -0400

The introduction of new legislation regarding copyright should not come as a surprise to any informed Canadian. After all, ours is the country where peer-to-peer downloading is currently legal. Yet the recently released details of Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s Bill C-61 are a shock to many.

The bill describes explicitly what consumers can and cannot do. You can record a television program for later viewing, provided that you delete it as soon as you see it. Transferring music to your iPod is allowed, but you can only make one copy per device and keep the original. Copying DVDs is almost certainly prohibited. Media technology has progressed at such a rapid pace, Canadian law can barely keep up—making clear what is and isn’t allowed under the law is a welcome development.

But what the bill giveth, it also taketh away. It allows for an undeniably harsh 500-dollar penalty for peer-to-peer downloading, and an even more ridiculous maximum of 20,000 dollars for illegally sharing content. Illegal sharing includes actions as benign as posting copyrighted material on YouTube, or sharing MP3s on Limewire.

Simply put, consumer’s rights are firmly in the hands of media companies.

Accusations that the bill was ‘made in the US’ are well- founded. Pressure over the past few years from prominent American political figures, ranging from California governator Arnold Schwarzenegger to US ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, made it clear that American movie studios and record labels have had a hand in Canada’s recent attempts at copyright reform.

Baking Is Better Than Febreeze

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:20:07 -0400

It was the weekend. I had time. What's a better way to spend time than baking bread? Picture it, gently kneading the dough while watching tv or listening to music, letting out stress and frustration when you get to punch it down, filling your house with the wonderful aroma of baking bread, and of course, don't forget eating it.

Brioche is a rich buttery french bread, which is usually my bread of choice in restaurants. I had made it once before from the same cookbook with terrific results.

Wow! Baking bread at home is so easy, yet it produces fantastic results. I would even bake this just for the smell filling my house, not to say this bread didn't taste good though. This bread was really delicious. Light yet, rich and buttery at the same time. This is the ultimate grilled cheese bread.

I immediately froze one loaf, and dug into the other just as quickly, helplessly devouring half a loaf before my family could get in on the action.

Why buy Febreeze when you can bake bread instead?