Waitress Body Slams Groping Customer

Don't hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself!
-The Georgia Satellites

One Mr. Ryan Cherwinski was evidently so infatuated with the backside of one Miss Emelia Holden, a waitress at a restaurant that he was patronizing that he decided to reach out and touch it. Well that turned out to be a very bad idea, not only morally but consequentially. Holden reached out, grabbed Cherwinski and body slammed him before giving him a piece of her mind. Cherwinski was later arrested and charged with sexual battery. Now, not only will Cherwisnki get his fifteen minutes of fame as a man who's unable to keep his hands to himself, but he will also be known as a man who got his butt kicked by a woman. 

Emelia Holden, 21, didn’t hesitate to take matters into her own hands when a man groped her during her shift at Vinnie Van Go-Go’s in Savannah, Georgia on June 30.
In surveillance footage of the incident, 31-year-old Ryan Cherwinski is shown grabbing Holden’s backside as he walks behind her. Holden immediately turns around and grabs him by his collar and slams him into a counter.

Trump and Mika Brzezinski

If I were a foreign agent or diplomat observing the President of the United States I would certainly be taking copious notes on how easily the President can be baited into saying or doing something silly or nasty. Over and over again the President finds it necessary to engage in puerile insults or get into back-and-forth with media personalities. He also has a two-year-old's attention span and need for validation. And he has extreme sensitivity to anything that hints that he's not the most virile and ahem..largest man ever. Not for Trump anything that implies that he's not always right, not always heh-heh, ready to go, and not necessarily swinging the biggest bat in town. This is information which could be of interest and use to foreign decision makers at some point down the line, if it hasn't been already. 

For someone who claims to disdain the mainstream media Trump seems remarkably well informed of what they are saying about him. It's apparent, that far from dismissing the media and so-called intelligentsia, Trump desperately craves their approval and adulation. He needs it. He must have it. And when he doesn't get it, like the two-year-old he resembles he throws temper tantrums.

A segment on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in which co-host Mika Brzezinski said President Donald Trump was "destroying the country" might have been what led Trump to attack her viciously on Twitter on Thursday morning.

The segment took aim at a fake Time magazine cover featuring Trump that reportedly hangs at a number of Trump's golf clubs and properties, according to The Washington Post.

"Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a magazine about himself, lying every day, and destroying the country," Brzezinski said. Brzezinski also noted that on the fake Time cover, Trump was covering his hands "because they're teensy.

Bill O'Reilly Fired From Fox News

Apparently because of a combination of spousal pressure, bad publicity, and advertising losses Fox News owners Rupert Murdoch and his sons Lachlan and James decided to let go of long time employee and number one cable news host Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly had a long history of sexual harassment settlements. The New York Times recently ran a story detailing that the settlement amounts and number of settlements were higher than was publicly known. Bill O'Reilly took a previously scheduled vacation. Unfortunately for him this was right around the time of the Times story and new allegations of sexual approaches by former Fox news personalities or other associates. Faced with the loss of advertising revenue from departing companies, all of this O'Reilly mess was apparently too much for Murdoch and sons, who told Bill O'Reilly not to come back from his vacation. As Smokey might say, you have to be a stupid muyerfuyer to get fired on your day off. 
O'Reilly is a stupid muyerfuyer in many ways. He's also a very racist one. What's ironic about advertisers and O'Reilly's employer parting ways with him now over sexual harassment allegations is that O'Reilly has a very long history of making covertly and overtly racist comments. This is not just a question of people being too sensitive to someone born in a world that's for good or bad now gone. It's much more than that.

President Trump: Now What?

So Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. Imagine that. I didn't think he would pull it off but he did just that. To the extent that you are worried about what a Trump Presidency could accomplish in a wholly negative sense I share those concerns. But I would also question then why should any President have that much power. Since at least WW2 there has been an accelerating bipartisan tendency to concentrate power in the Presidency. People only seem to care about this when it's not their guy in the Big Chair. That is unfortunately just human nature. If people thought about this some more they then might discover that that is one of the exact reasons why the Founders created a form of government where power was split between several competing and independent branches. From my perspective the silver lining in an otherwise gloomy prospect of a Trump Presidency is that perhaps some people on the left will rediscover a fierce commitment to separation of powers, federalism, a Senate filibuster and states rights. It's surreal that before the election people in the media and on the left were warning Trump supporters that they needed to accept the results. Now some Clinton supporters are writing about the need to secede from the nation. This is real. Papers have been filed.

Before the election people in favor of "immigration reform" were smugly reminding opponents that states and municipalities didn't get to make their own immigration law. Only the Federal government could create and enforce immigration law. And if the Federal government didn't want to enforce a particular immigration law there wasn't anything a state or city could do about it. Immigration was Federal policy. We couldn't have fifty states and thousands of cities creating immigration policy. But now some people who said that have seamlessly switched their view and are stating flatly that federal law or not, their particular city or state will resist any enforcement of immigration law that leads to deportation of illegal immigrants. So much for that whole federal supremacy idea, eh? We have people on the left endorsing what amounts to nullification! Apparently people, despite their partisan divides, aren't quite as different as they may think. It's ironic that it took Trump's election to bring that out.

I do believe that Trump is a racist and a bigot. I don't think that everyone who voted for him is one. A vote is a summation of many different values and concerns. Some people argue that all Trump voters are racist and that the Electoral College is racist. In this telling it was the racism of the American voter that cost Clinton the election. Trump certainly used dog whistles and even bullhorns to get the white racist vote. There's no doubt about that. The modern neo-Nazis are excited about Trump's election. Trump is taking advice from Steve Bannon, a man who has made selling racism a successful business model. Post election, we've seen a number of racist incidents. So I definitely understand the concerns. The problem with the "It's all racism!" explanation about Trump's victory is that it overlooks the fact that Trump won over over Midwestern and Pennsylvania white voters who had previously voted for Obama, in some cases twice. I'm not saying that just because you voted for Obama that means you're not racist. But I also doubt that Obama ever won over the hardcore explicitly racist voter. It's a safe bet that the people who were sharing monkey memes, joking about assassination and trading conspiracy theories about Obama's birth probably weren't voting for him. But many other working class and middle class white voters did vote for Obama. Clinton should have done better with those voters.

So in an election where Obama wasn't on the ballot, to blame the Democratic loss on racist white voters seems to violate Occam's Razor. If race is the sole or even primary voter motivation for everyone Obama never would have won relatively non-diverse states like Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio. This leads to the next point. The world is full of racists. I have worked with some in the past. I currently work with some. I have worked for some. You likely have as well. Usually I can't point and shriek "RACIST!!!" until that person either does what I want or stops being racist. That method only works where I have absolute control over that person. This is not the case with political parties. Political parties need voter support. This means that occasionally parties will have to appeal to white voters who are either racist or racist sympathizers. The Democratic party can not allow white people in regions like the Midwest and South to write off the Democrats. Some of those people heard, or were told by Fox News and talk radio, that Democrats don't care about people like you. If Democrats don't consistently challenge that misconception or worse, appear to confirm it, well then they're going to continue to have problems. And Democrats even saw turnout fall among their base.

The Democrats need to face that, President Obama, aside, large portions of their message are simply not resonating with the American electorate. There has been an over emphasis on cultural/social issues at the expense of class/economic ones. The Democrats lost the Presidency and with it the ability to name at least one and perhaps as many as two or three Supreme Court Justices over the next four years. The Republicans hold the Senate and the House. The Republicans hold the majority of state legislatures. The Republicans are the majority of state Governors and Attorneys General. In short at both the state and federal legislative and executive branches the Republicans are ascendant. This dominance is not just a matter of voter suppression or gerrymandering. The idea that changing demographics (the browning of America) would lead to a permanent Democratic majority turned out not to be true--at least in the short run. I think the Democrats forgot that. I think they got too comfortable with the (to them) self-evident horror of a Trump administration and decided that they didn't have to engage certain voters. 

It is tempting (and occasionally even accurate) to chide some white voters as racist and dismiss them as people who simply need to evolve. But if you are trying to win someone's political support, then insulting them or continually telling them that they're yesterday's news is a losing strategy. The Democrats have become too over identified with the coasts and with the cities. When the Democrats ran a lackluster candidate with limited personal charisma and high negatives they got rolled. But all is not lost. The election was very close. Since Truman it has been very unusual for one political party to win three Presidential elections in a row. George Bush last accomplished it in the 1988 election. It's difficult to run as a change candidate after eight years of your party holding the Presidency. That in and of itself was probably enough to make Clinton's campaign challenging, even before all of the noise about emails and deplorables.

The Democrats are not dead. They just smell that way. What they really are is mostly dead. And as Miracle Max would tell you there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. The Democrats need to regroup and rethink both their approach and policy emphasis. What seems eminently reasonable on the coasts may be a harder sell in the Midwest or South. As Senator Sanders is pointing out it's not enough to emphasize sex or racial status as change agents in and of themselves. Those things must be integrated with class and cultural components. This Democratic regrouping is not going to be easy. But it must start with Democrats listening to people they may disagree with or even despise and explaining to them why voting Democratic makes sense. "Racist/Sexist/Homophobic" can't be shorthand for "you're an evil irredeemable person who is not worth engaging". The Democratic regrouping has to include the realization that demographic change won't necessarily be the party salvation. Despite taking a hard line on illegal immigration and insulting Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, the largest Hispanic group in America, Trump got 30% of the Hispanic vote. Romney got 27%. Trump also received a higher level of Black support (8%) than Romney did (6%) despite a long history littered with allegations of housing discrimination and racially tone deaf statements. So the Democrats can't just assume that not being as bad as the Republicans will bring their base out to vote for them. It's time for some soul searching on what it means to be a Democrat. I think the Democratic next moves should include getting rid of the current House leadership and cleaning house at the DNC. Trump can do a lot of short term damage. Trump will be President with all of the power that our constitution and his predecessors have given that position. But the Republicans have only the slimmest Senate majority. This can easily change in 2018. And if Trump is as malevolent and incompetent as advertised he could be a one term President. But first the Democrats have to understand why they've lost so much and change tactics accordingly. 

Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly: Period Politics

I wrote before that Donald Trump is incredibly thin skinned for a man of such immense wealth. This was not any great insight on my part by any means. It's so obvious a blind man could see it. Trump does not take criticism well, sees slights everywhere and very quickly gets in beefs with folks over the most asinine things. Of course he or his supporters would say that someone who takes criticism well tends to get a lot of criticism. From this POV the best thing to do is to attack immediately and set expectations. I think Trump tries to live by the Office Space lawyer's advice passed on from his imprisoned client to "kick someone's a$$ the first day or become someone's b****." The other thing about Trump is that rather than attack someone's argument or theories he always attacks the person's intelligence, wealth, appearance or immutable characteristics. Trump did this most recently with Fox News personality and Republican debate moderator Megyn Kelly. In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon Trump made a dismissive reference to Kelly's period as a way of explaining what he saw as her undue aggression. He also retweeted a reference to Kelly as a bimbo. These comments, tweets and retweets all obviously caused some current and former Fox News personalities to attack Trump. Other conservatives have rescinded invitations to Trump to speak. I am loving this. It's amazing and amusing to me that a right wing movement that has said far worse things about the President, the First Lady and their children is now up in arms because of what Trump says about Megyn Kelly. Republicans already take it as an article of faith that President Obama is a man with no class. Heck, during the Democratic 2008 debates President Obama came under some criticism from fellow Democrats (wrongly in my opinion) for merely telling rival Hillary Clinton that she was "likable enough". I don't think the President would have been elected or re-elected if he were on public record telling anyone that the only reason some woman was attacking him or doing something else to annoy him was because she was on her cycle. Time will tell if these comments damage Trump's brand among conservatives. But they show that whatever else he is Trump is not a deep thinker or a man who is able to or willing to make intelligent arguments when faced with opposition. So maybe he is the perfect candidate for a Republican base that is increasingly filled with know-nothings.

"@timjcam: @megynkelly @FrankLuntz @realDonaldTrump Fox viewers give low marks to bimbo @MegynKelly will consider other programs!"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015

1st step: "anchor was on her period," says repub candidate. 2nd step: minions go, "hooray it's blunt." third step: lose election.

— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) August 8, 2015

Megyn Kelly's period is the third rail of American politics.

— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) August 8, 2015

I am reminded of that passage from The Return of the King, where Sam and Frodo, hiding from an Orc patrol, witness two Orcs arguing before one murders the other and runs off. Emerging from hiding, Sam cynically remarks if this sort of friendliness would spread around Mordor, half of the good guys' problems would be over. But Frodo cautions otherwise:

"But that is the spirit of Mordor, Sam; and it has spread to every corner of it. Orcs have always behaved like that, or so the tales say, when they are on their own. But you can't get much hope out of it. They hate us far more, altogether and all the time. If those two had seen us, they would have dropped all their quarrel until we were dead."
Once this little intramural Republican sexism kerfuffle is over I am sure the Republicans won't have any new interest or understanding in changing how they talk about women or so-called women's issues. Fox News will continue to remain a bastion of barely repackaged racism and proud ignorance. And Kelly will continue to be a champion of that. It is what it is. After all, should Trump win the nomination, I am certain that Fox News will champion him against his Democratic opponent. Whoever comes out of the Republican gauntlet as winner is very likely to be hostile to some values which I hold dear. But for now, I am just sitting back and shaking my head. Ironically if Trump had taken the high road (LOL) and provided some reasons to support the argument that Fox News was trying to take him down, this whole controversy could have been avoided. But if Trump did that he wouldn't be Trump. One wonders exactly how Trump would know if or when Kelly is having periods. Does he have a special spidey sense for such things? And ultimately Kelly takes orders from Roger Ailes, like everyone else at Fox News. Will Trump go after Ailes?

Dean Baquet Replaces Jill Abramson At New York Times

You may have heard that the New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. recently fired Executive Editor Jill Abramson and replaced her with Managing Editor Dean Baquet. Baquet becomes the first Black person to serve as Executive Editor. Abramson's dismissal was met with wails and shrieks from many prominent women in the media who were immediately either convinced or worried that Abramson's termination was based in sexism. I waited to write on this because (1) I wanted to see if any other information about this termination arose (it did), (2) I was very busy at my own job and lacked the time to write and (3) I wasn't convinced that it was something about which I had enough interest to write. But I got a little amused and even annoyed by some of the hysterical hyperventilating happening around this incident. So now that the crisis has hopefully dissipated in my own workplace and my job is safe, I have a little time to share some thoughts about what I now think of as a much hyped non-event.

When your former co-workers give a standing ovation to the person who replaced you it could indicate that you weren't super well liked. I've had both men and women bosses. If you're younger than 60 and have worked any serious amount of time in corporate America you probably have also had bosses of both genders. I wouldn't dare speak for you but I've had women bosses that I admired, respected, and emulated and those that I despised and hated with the white hot intensity of one thousand supernova. And the same is true of male bosses to whom I've reported. Some were decent. Some were middling. Some were superstars. Some were incompetent. Some were downright malevolent and/or bigoted.

In a former workplace I once worked with a black contractor who was a few years older than me. Our company was flexible on start time, especially for direct hires, but expected everyone to put at least 8-9 hrs each day. Most us started between 6 AM and 8 AM. 8:30~9 AM start times were considered late and would cause some raised eyebrows or snide comments. On a good day this fellow would not arrive until 9:30 AM. 10 AM wasn't uncommon. He never stayed late. His tardiness caused problems with management and resentment with peers. One morning he wasn't around when a business group manager needed him for something important. And when he did arrive he ignored her requests. Well that was a mistake. She took a personal interest in documenting his late arrivals and bad mouthing him to her fellow managers and supervisors. Shortly afterwards the man was fired. There is a stereotype of black men being incompetent or tardy. I've dealt with it. But if you really are consistently tardy and get fired you or your friends can't whine about stereotypes. That stuff is on you. Similarly if (and I say if because nobody outside of a few people at the NYT really knows what happened) Abramson really was an abrasive and/or ineffective leader then terminating her was just and fair. If not then I expect a lawsuit will result and we'll be able to read about it in the papers. It's important to remember though that men get fired for among other reasons, being abrasive, including one of Abramson's predecessors at the NYT. Just because someone gets fired for what some people might deem stereotypical reasons, doesn't automatically mean that the firing was unjustified. There actually are a few harsh unpleasant women in this world. According to the NYT, contrary to what some of Abramson's media partisans claimed about her unequal pay, Abramson's compensation was comparable to or exceeded that of her male predecessor.

On Saturday, Mr. Sulzberger said, as he did in an earlier public statement, that Ms. Abramson’s pay package in her last year in the job was 10 percent higher than Mr. Keller’s. “Equal pay for women is an important issue in our country — one that The New York Times often covers,” Mr. Sulzberger wrote. “But it doesn’t help to advance the goal of pay equality to cite the case of a female executive whose compensation was not in fact unequal.”

Until Saturday, Mr. Sulzberger had said only that her removal was due to “an issue with management in the newsroom.” His new statement cited a pattern of behavior that included “arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues.” Mr. Sulzberger said that he had wanted Ms. Abramson to succeed and had discussed these problems with her. But he ultimately concluded that “she had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back.” The decision to replace her, he said, was “for reasons having nothing to do with pay or gender.”

LINK
Of course what else will a boss say about someone whom he just fired, right? So I wouldn't necessarily take everything Sulzberger says as gospel. Still it is a reminder that there are usually at least two sides to each story. It's not as cut and dry that male bosses get away with acting unpleasantly and female ones don't. If you are a boss at any level your job includes overseeing and evaluating people's work. You must let them know where they're doing great work, where they could improve and occasionally even unilaterally give them opportunities to succeed elsewhere. But it's also just as important if not more so to get people who want to work for you and with you. Because sometimes if your perceived management style failings are greater than the benefit the company obtains from keeping you on, your actions and attitude could be helping you to dig your own grave, figuratively speaking of course.

I am just dismayed at the rush of judgment by so many people to assume that Abramson's firing was a case of sexism. From what I can tell Abramson tried to dilute Baquet's power and role by bringing in another woman to take away some of his workplace responsibilities. Not working at the NYT I couldn't say if this was justified or not. But I do know, particularly in hyper competitive workplaces, taking work from someone is often seen and meant as a precursor to a less than excellent performance review or worse as cover for pushing them out. There's a HUGE difference between you going to your boss and requesting that s/he hire someone because you're doing the work of five people and your boss deciding on his/her own that the work you're doing isn't quite up to par and you need help. Given that Baquet was a previous finalist for Abramson's job he apparently saw her move as a preemptive strike and responded accordingly. Sulzberger had other issues with Abramson and that was that. Now it's true that Abramson has every right to hire as she sees fit. But let's reverse the genders/management roles. Say Baquet is Executive Editor. If he had tried to hire another Black man to help Abramson do her job the same people complaining about Abramson's firing would be pointing to Baquet's aborted hiring attempt as proof of sexism and the old boy's network. They would be cheering Baquet's firing as a blow against sexism and for transparency.

Heads I win. Tails you lose.

There is racism, sexism and every other ism in the world. That's obvious.
But before we lead a lynch mob on behalf of Abramson, who apparently was not underpaid, let's find out what's going on first. It sounds to me like she made a power play and lost. It happens. It happens to men all the time. Now that more women are in high paid, high stress positions, it will happen to them as well. That's my take anyway, with the evidence I see.

What are your thoughts?
Do you think that abrasive women are still treated differently than abrasive men?
If you work for other people what qualities do you look for in a boss?

Federal Judge Richard Kopf Supports Professional Dress For Women: Called Sexist

This issue of professional dress never really goes away because humans are animals when you get down to it. I enjoy writing about it because it amuses me. A long time ago when I was working in a different industry and for a different company than I do now, I and a few of my fellow plebes were leaving for the day and happened to share a elevator ride down to the lobby with a firm partner. This man was known to be chronically irascible. I think we all hoped to just spend the 20-30 seconds needed to reach the lobby in silence. No such luck. The partner noticed that one of us, fortunately not me, was dressed in what he considered to be a cheap and unimpressive suit. As the firm's business model involved sending people worldwide selling or producing quite expensive accounting, financial and information technology solutions, the partner was concerned that my co-worker was not representing the firm professionally. The partner told the employee that "We pay you too much to dress as s**** as you do." He asked him where he got that suit and told him to take it back. We reached the lobby. Everyone else scattered but the partner and my hapless co-worker remained behind. The partner wasn't finished with his lecture. I learned the next day that after the partner had finished tearing this guy a new one, he arranged for his own tailor to create a group of new suits for the employee.

For certain businesses and at certain levels within those companies, how you dress is almost as or equally as important as what you know or how well you do your job. This has changed somewhat in America as casual workplaces have become more common but certain industries haven't really budged all that much. There are expectations of a professional demeanor and style. This is true for both men and women. I no longer am required to wear a suit every day but the managers two and definitely three levels above me are always in suits.

A Nebraska federal judge named Richard Kopf made what he thought was an obvious, self-deprecating and humorous short observation about the need for women lawyers to dress in appropriate, that is, non-sexy, attire. He did so on his blog, which you can read here if you're so inclined. 

True story. Around these parts there is a wonderfully talented and very pretty female lawyer who is in her late twenties. She is brilliant, she writes well, she speaks eloquently, she is zealous but not overly so, she is always prepared, she treats others, including her opponents, with civility and respect, she wears very short skirts and shows lots of her ample chest. I especially appreciate the last two attributes...

From the foregoing, and in my continuing effort to educate the bar, I have three rules that young women lawyers should follow when considering how to dress for court:

1. You can’t win. Men are both pigs and prudes. Get over it.

2. It is not about you. That goes double when you are appearing in front of a jury.

3. Think about the female law clerks. If they are likely to label you, like Jane Curtin, an ignorant slut behind your back, tone it down.

Leaving aside the oddity (to me) that a federal judge has his own blog, I understood the point the judge was making. He was speaking primarily of courtroom attire but as I pointed out these issues occur in every workplace. There have been several instances in my work history where people have been admonished, cautioned or disciplined for inappropriate attire. This included a woman sent home for wearing capri pants and a man bluntly told both on and off the record that his habit of wearing jeans guaranteed that he would never get promoted. And he never was.

Needless to say the judge's observations didn't go over very well with some people. Roughly half the comments on his original post are him explaining or apologizing while he made a more complete explanation/apology in a follow up post. Obviously all the usual suspects predictably weighed in to call him sexist, lecherous, accuse him of objectifying women and so on. I don't think his point was out of bounds. There are ways in which people can dress that are more appropriate for the nightclub or dance scene than the workplace. People notice and make assumptions. Making assumptions is wrong of course but people still do that. And noticing is always going to happen. I have written before that if a lady goes through the trouble to put certain things on display it would be rude for me not to notice. It's just human nature.

I don't think that women or men should or can spay/neuter themselves when they go into the workplace. But it's not too much to ask that explicitly sexy clothing be discouraged at work. It can lead to serious misunderstandings, lack of focus and harassment claims. Those last are worst case scenarios of course. But I think at the minimum it's somewhat disingenuous to have created a corporate environment where almost anything can be construed as sexual harassment and yet have some women dress in a manner that is designed to invite notice, commentary and sexual interest. It is true that your style of dress says absolutely nothing about your skill set. It is also true for women that if you come to work in a skirt that barely covers your lower half and a top that shows off your upper half, you will get a different level and kind of interest from (especially male) peers and supervisors. Anyone who claims otherwise is likely not being truthful. 

Pointing this out is not being sexist. It's being realistic. As I've written before if you have a skirt that is so short that you must struggle to get out of your chair without showing everyone everything or are wearing a top so low cut that men's eyes constantly drift, chances are your clothing might be a tad provocative for your workplace. That is unless you work for Hooters. It's all about time and place.

Thoughts?

Hot for Teacher-Adult Actress Teacher Stacie Halas Fired

I've got it bad
I've got it bad
I've got it bad
I'm hot for teacher
Hot For Teacher-Van Halen

It's been a minute since I was in grade/middle school. I don't remember having crushes on any of the women teachers there. I knew virtually nothing about their personal life and wasn't that interested. It was big news when occasionally their boyfriend or husband would pick them up from or drop them off at school. I mean who knew that Miss or Mrs. so-n-so actually had a life outside of the classroom? Of course I was a bit of a solipsistic young lad and the times were more conservative so it wasn't surprising that I didn't know anything about a teacher's extra curricular life or her activities and lifestyle before she became my teacher. Of course, as the Stacie Halas story shows us, maybe it's a good thing that I didn't know anything about my teachers' lives prior to them becoming an educator.

32 year old Stacie Halas was a California middle school teacher who was recently fired from her job. She lost her appeal of that firing as well. Why was she axed? Well she was terminated from her position because she was, prior to working as a teacher in her current school, but perhaps not other schools, an adult film actress. Evidently some other teachers and/or students recognized Halas' .... (ahem)... face and did some quick research to make sure. Once this information became public, Halas was let go. People found interviews in her movies in which she talked about being a teacher and hoped her other job choices would not be discovered. I wonder who got the job of downloading and reviewing those movies, purely for research purposes of course.

Her lawyer, Richard Schwab, said Halas had tried to be honest but was embarrassed by her previous experience in the adult industry."Miss Halas is more than just an individual fighting for her job as a teacher," he said Tuesday. "I think she's representative of a lot of people who may have a past that may not involve anything illegal or anything that hurts anybody."

Halas has been on administrative leave since the video surfaced in March. Teachers then showed administrators downloads of Halas' sex videos from their smartphones. 

In hearings, former assistant principal Wayne Saddler testified that, at the start of a sex video, Halas talked about being a teacher, and he felt her effectiveness in the classroom had been compromised.

In October, Oxnard Unified School District spokesman Thomas DeLapp told CBS Los Angeles that once students were able to find the videos of Halas on the Internet, they made it difficult for her to be an effective teacher."We even had kids who were referring to her by her stage name in class, from catcalls in the back," DeLapp said.

LINK

Of course there are other jokes I could make about this but right now I don't have any more*. When I first heard about this I was somewhat opposed to the school board's action because people can and do change. Do we want to put a scarlet letter on someone for the rest of their life for a bad, but legal choice they once made?  Halas' time as "Tiffany Sixx" appears to be in the past. It's not as if she were arriving directly from the studio sets to teach impressionable young teens/pre-teens and/or tell them all about her deeds. At least, that doesn't appear to have been the case. But thinking more about this teachers are indeed supposed to maintain a good moral example for the children they instruct. Performing circus sexual acts on film for money with men and other women is usually not considered to be setting a proper moral example. I used to be a 12 yr old boy. I can definitely say that Halas' effectiveness as a teacher would be near zero if she was teaching boys of that age. So for that alone, even if I don't care about her previous career, she'd probably have to find a different job.  

And while the sordid details of her paid interactions with men or women may have been outre, the fact is that virtually every teacher, heck almost every human being has had sex or will have sex at some point in their life. There's just a record of some of her activities.  If she had announced she was gay, should/could she have been fired for that? That is still considered deviant in some circles and to be setting a bad influence. But working essentially as a prostitute is, unlike gayness, something that still unites many on the feminist left and on the traditionalist right in disgust. So maybe it's not as cut and dry as people might think.

And let's be honest, it's not just about the children. That's something of a cop-out. I do not think that in the average corporate workplace, were it discovered that the budget analyst in general ledger was or had been an adult actress, that she would be able to keep her job, or at least keep her job with the same level of respect and productivity that she had had prior to that information becoming public. Is that fair? Probably not. People should be judged on what they do at work, not on what they've done in their private lives. But that's idealistic. The reality is that often you sell not only your on the job skills to your employer, but also the implied or actual promise that you won't embarrass your employer or bring undue complications to your job. If, for example, a man who was an actuary, supply chain mgr or officer for a Fortune 500 Company decided to supplement his salary by investing in perfectly legal strip clubs or lingerie football leagues, chances are good that his company might bid him adieu. That's just how it goes.

So what do you think?

Was the school district within its rights to terminate Halas?

Was it the right thing to do?

Would you be concerned if Halas were teaching your children?

If you were a male student in her class would you ask her for extra "homework" or some one-on-one tutoring? (*Ok, just one joke)

Fat Women in Stockton Offended at Being Called Fat

Obesity is a serious societal problem that is rising in America. All else equal, being morbidly obese puts you at higher risks for a number of life threatening diseases and conditions including but not limited to Type 2 diabetes, cancer, hypertension, higher infant mortality rates and cardiac disease. I've seen obesity and related illnesses kill people that I cared deeply about. So it's no joke. The unpleasant fact about obesity is that you can't hide it. Well you can hide it for a while with different types of clothing or a really good tailor, but generally speaking if you're really fat, everyone knows it. This is not necessarily the case if you happen to have an extremely bad temper, are a sexually jealous paranoid, are a horrible spendthrift,  are incredibly bossy, are a stone cold bigot, are as lazy as can be, have an allergy to sexual fidelity, are dumber than a box of dirt or have other ugly internal personal flaws that may only become apparent over time to people who know you intimately. You can cover up those things from the general public. But, if you're WAY past a BMI of 35 or so that's immediately evident to everyone who sees you. People will judge. And many people will make unpleasant judgments about your willpower, sex appeal, health and ambition.
There are all sorts of reasons which might explain why you're so heavy but the mechanics are very simple. You're eating too much and not exercising enough. You're storing the excess as fat. End of story.

It's been my experience that no one likes being singled out for doing something wrong. I certainly don't.  It's difficult enough to do this with loved ones because the person doing the calling out may not want to hurt the other person's feelings. This seems to be less the case with parents though.  My parents, had no problem telling me what I was doing wrong and how I needed to fix it. But in the world outside of familial relations no one expects to hear criticism, implied or not, from someone they're doing business with and/or don't know from Adam. So recently, three women in California, who look to be somewhat larger than a healthy norm, were offended when they received a bill that said "fat girls".

Insult was on the menu at a California restaurant where three women say they were identified as “fat girls” on their bill. Christine Duran, Christina Huerta and Isabel Robles say their enjoyable meal at Chilly D's Sports Lounge in Stockton, Calif., ended painfully Thursday when a waiter plopped down the offensive receipt on their table. "I got the bill, and I was like ‘Why does the receipt say 'fat girls'?’" Duran told News 10.

Her friends refused to believe her.

“I was laughing at her, and she was like ‘I'm serious.’ I'm like ‘No, it does not say fat girls. Let me see it,’” Huerta said.

The women confronted their waiter, who denied any involvement. He said the slur was likely entered by Jeff, the server who had taken their order. The women demanded to see a manager, who then offered the ladies 25 % off their bill – a move that provoked further outrage.

"He had like a smirk on his face, like if it was funny, but he was trying not to laugh,” Huerta said. “He was like ‘Well, I can do 50 percent,’ and we were just like ‘Are you serious?’”

The bar manager at Cameo Club Casino, which owns Chilly D’s, later said he was “appalled” by the incident.

Link

At the time of this writing it appears that Jeff has been suspended. If you are in the business of serving the public then one of the top rules to live by is not to upset the customer. So to that extent Jeff, if indeed he did enter the words "fat girls" on the receipt, was wrong. I'm not sure it's an offense for which he should be fired but it's not my business. It's not Jeff's job to point out to these women that they are fat. I'm betting they know that every time they look in a mirror or go shopping for clothing. Mirrors don't lie. Does Jeff do that to every fat person that comes in to order some food or just the ones that he feels are not really a risk to kick his a$$? Cause fat or not some large people can throw down and aren't the type of people you want to needlessly enrage.

It is however the women's doctor's job to point out to them that they are apparently WAY past a healthy weight range and are increasing their risks for the types of conditions I mentioned before. And if we accept the premises underlying the PPACA (Obamacare) or from Mayor Lord's Bloomberg's jihad against sugar, fatty food and pop, then we're all in this together. Fat people, just like smokers, are willfully engaging in behavior which costs all of us money. So just like smokers, morbidly obese people need to have a little shame and opprobrium thrown their way. Perhaps we should have taxes on second helpings or fast food outlets with starchy menu items. Maybe having it pointed out to them that they are indeed, fat, will help these women start on a process to change their behavior patterns and embrace a healthier lifestyle? Maybe. Or maybe it's just a rude act of social bullying that will do nothing to change any one's behavior patterns. Maybe one of these women will eventually become so fat that she will be unable to fly and end up dying from renal disease. 

Unfortunately obesity is very tied up with ideas around beauty, desirability and discrimination. But that doesn't change the fact that rude servers or waiters aside, human beings are not designed to be so heavy. It's ultimately a medical issue and one that we as Americans in particular, need to deal with head on. I don't like rude people and would not have done what Jeff allegedly did. But I also think obesity is a real problem. And we do no favors to anyone by trying to be "fat-positive" or ignoring the fact that Americans are getting fatter and fatter every year.

Questions

1) Should the server be fired? Did he have any business calling the women out for their weight?

2) Is it a slur to call someone fat or is that merely descriptive?

3) Did the women deserve anything other than a discounted bill and an apology?

Women in Combat?

You might have missed it but recently two female Army reservists decided to sue to have combat operations opened to women. 

Command Sergeant Major Jane Baldwin and Colonel Ellen Haring, both Army reservists, said policies barring them from assignments "solely on the basis of sex" violated their right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.  "This limitation on plaintiffs' careers restricts their current and future earnings, their potential for promotion and advancement, and their future retirement benefits," the women said in the suit filed in U.S. District Court.

I thought this was interesting because it appears at first glance that the women are more interested in their personal career options and monetary gain than they are in a supposed class based grievance. Of course to be fair, their personal interests and the larger class based unfairness would be congruent in this case if you buy their argument, which I don't. However, I am fascinated by hypocrisy as you probably can tell by now and this entire issue is full of hypocrisy on all sides.

I think the differences between races are usually small and often caused by environmental factors.  "Race" itself is often something which is ill-defined and somewhat arbitrary and can change in meaning from time to time or society to society. What is "white" or "black" in Latin America or the Caribbean or the Middle East may not be so in the United States. The racial biological differences simply don't exist to the level some think. But the biological differences between men and women are real. They are also shaped by environmental factors of course as none of us grow up in a vacuum but there are some very obvious irreducible differences between men and women. In a wartime/combat situation this comes down to the fact that men are stronger and more aggressive while women are simply worth more to their society reproductively. There have not been, as far as I know, any successful societies that routinely sent women marching off to war while the men stayed home.  No one ever says "save the men and children first" or angrily points out an enemy's perfidy by claiming "they killed innocent men".  No parent ever asks a prospective daughter-in-law how she will provide for and protect their son.  Men are, by and large, the replaceable gender when it comes to such things. That's not a complaint. It's just a fact.

Now in the modern feminist world we are not supposed to notice such things and if we do notice them we are supposed to believe that they are only and always the product of invidious discrimination. Well maybe. Maybe we really can go against thousands of years of evolution and turn the gender with seven times less testosterone into soldiers and warriors that are just as fierce as their male counterparts. After all, war has changed as the women litigants point out. A roadside bomb doesn't care what gender you are. And considering some of the people we're fighting against or for that matter allying with these days a captured male soldier might be in just as much danger of rape as a female one.

The problem though is that at the very same time that some women are chafing at the bit to be formally assigned and not just attached to combat units, we are also told that violence against women is the worst thing that can happen and therefore we need the Violence Against Women Act, tons of spending on domestic violence and anti-rape programs, etc. In fact the military itself has a big problem with rape. So I have trouble understanding, how if violence against women is such a horrible event, why we would want to place more women into an arena of organized brutal violence. 

The other issue is of course one of standards. Women soldiers do not have to meet the same physical standards as men soldiers. Some of them could no doubt but most could not. Do we believe that the standards are specifically designed to give a soldier and his unit the best chance to survive in combat operations ? Or do we think the standards are created for other reasons. If I were in combat I would want to know that the person beside me could carry their own load and if need be pull, carry or lift me out of harm's way. If I had good reason to doubt that would the unit be as cohesive? 

These pics of Air Force reservists are somewhat NSFW.(nursing mother and partially visible chest) These are not combat troops. But the pics exemplify my worries about women in combat. These images are simply not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of US combat personnel in particular or soldiers/warriors in general. In fact they are virtually the antithesis of what I think soldiers are about. There were no new mothers landing on the beaches of Normandy or making the last stand at Thermopylae. There have been about 1.3 million US military personnel killed in all US wars since the Revolutionary War. From what I can tell somewhere between 1000-2000 of those people were women. Now you will often hear women talk about all the male presidents or CEO's or other people at the top of the heap while intimating that women need to have an equal number of those positions for the next millennium or so. But it's quite rare that you would see women clamoring to make up an equal number of those killed, wounded or maimed in war so perhaps I should applaud the women litigants. Equality and all that.

I believe in legal and actual equality between men and women. I supported the Lily Ledbetter Act and oppose discrimination in hiring or promotion.  I think that every man and woman has some characteristics within that are stereotypically associated with the opposite gender. And I think that by and large women and men are more alike than different. But equality does not mean that men and women are identical. Because we aren't. To quote Meg from Madeleine L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle In Time, "Like and equal are not the same thing at all". Women do not currently play in the NFL because they are not capable of doing so. There's no shame in that. The vast majority of men are not capable of playing in the NFL (or dare I say of being a combat soldier). But in the NFL, as dangerous as it is, usually your life and the lives of those around you are not at risk. If women don't play in the NFL, which is after all a sport, why would we want women in the exponentially more demanding and dangerous combat arena. It doesn't make sense to me. The military is there to kill people and blow stuff up. It is not there to provide day care, career advancement, nursing stations or anything else along those lines. There are ways for women soldiers to serve their country proudly and with distinction without being in direct combat.

The obvious parallel of course is between the opening up of formal combat roles to black men and the desegregation of the US military. I don't think that's a good analogy. Even before Truman's order to desegregate black men had fought and died in every war America ever had. The battle to lift formal combat restrictions was based on the black male desire to prove themselves as men, get rid of segregation and discrimination in the larger society, including but not limited to voting rights. The lawsuit about women in combat seems to be as I wrote a more personal selfish desire for career advancement and perhaps a larger activist desire to blur or eliminate differences in gender roles.

Well to each his/her own but I actually like distinct gender roles and don't feel that they are automatically oppressive. But as you've probably figured out by now I am not a feminist. Not even close. I do believe in equality and if the women could meet the exact same standards as the men I would tell them to rock on with their bad selves and cheerfully send them off to combat. Yeah right. But I am no military expert and have no military experience. These are just my ramblings.

What's your take?

1) Should women have the right to serve in combat?
2) Should combat groups be gender segregated?
3) Should physical standards between male and female soldiers be made the same?

Gene Simmons Attacks Rihanna

When announcing their tour together KISS frontman/bassist Gene Simmons and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee found it necessary to gratuitously attack Rihanna for alleged lack of musical ability.

"We're sick and tired of girls getting up there with dancers and karaoke tapes in back of them," Simmons told the crowd at the press conference, reports Billboard.com. "No fake bull***t. Leave that to the Rihanna, Shmianna and anyone who ends their name with an 'A.' "

The ironic thing of course is that although KISS was a fantastically commercially successful band in their heyday they were not considered then or now to be excellent or frankly even good musicians. They were known for exalting the stage show above any other consideration. Simmons (born Chaim Witz) in particular was known to be a greedy SOB who cared much more about the dollar signs and over the top stage performances than anything having to do with music. In short they were EXACTLY what they are accusing Rihanna of being.

And that goes DOUBLE for Motley Crue who really were the 80's equivalent of The Osmonds, The Partridge Family, Peter Frampton, etc. :something musically lame but that was loved by many teen (mostly white) girls and sold bazillions of records because of that. Few people speak seriously of Motley Crue's skilled musicianship. Motley Crue had about as much musical talent as your average saltine cracker. People talk about the various groupies they had, what they looked like in their tight pants, eye liner and long hair, and their copious consumption of drugs and alcohol. They were EXACTLY the sort of band that was mocked and (temporarily) killed off by the 90's grunge movement. They were known as hair bands and replaced by groups like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, etc.

I am not a Rihanna fan. I don't like or dislike her music. It's just not my thing. She's very easy on the eyes but I just haven't heard much of her music. To each their own.

But there is an underlying racism and jealousy that you see in a lot of white rock bands. On the one hand they claim to be of greater musical integrity as compared to pop/dance. But on the other they are insanely jealous of the fact that dance-pop/R&B is what is in right now. It must be somewhat frustrating to have spent all your time ripping off people who ripped off people who ripped off black musicians only to find out in your old age that tastes changed.

Jazz, blues or classical musicians could make the same accusations of musical fraudulence about rock in general and KISS/Motley Crue in particular that Simmons and Lee are making about Rihanna. Music is not a competition. The fact you like one type of music doesn't prevent me from liking a different type of music. I may think your tastes pedestrian or silly but I don't necessarily need to share that with the world or insult you or your music.*

The underlying idea here, and this goes back a while, is that any music which is danceable is by definition less challenging and of little utility. Race plays a HUGE role in this. Post Beatles, most white popular music or rock has not been danceable. There's also a dose of sexism there to boot. Many of the greatest musicians are men but great singers are found equally in both genders. And most of today's greatest singers are women. I don't know if Rihanna is a great singer or not. But I know she's better than Simmons. Listening to him sing is like listening to a drunk hippopotamus break wind. I mean you could do it but why would you?

A band that is primarily known for the number of porn stars or Baywatch stars they slept with and the multiple sex tapes they made with these stars doesn't get to impugn the talents of a singer.

A multimillionaire senior citizen who dresses up in makeup, leather, high heels and spits fake blood and fire has no room to say anything about someone else's musical integrity.

And anyone with the mellifluous moniker of "Chaim Witz" certainly has no business making fun of anyone else's name.

Give it to me straight doc!

Well Shady on the last trip to Budapest you must not have protected yourself. You have Chaim Witz syndrome. It's incurable...

*Unless it's country or certain forms of rap music which have been scientifically proven to primarily be listened to by people who are missing chromosomes and/or the normal number of teeth...

QUESTIONS

1) Why do people feel it necessary to tear down other people in the same business?

2) Have you ever listened to any Motley Crue or KISS songs?

3) Does Simmons have a point? Is modern pop too fake?