Deconstructing Old Spice

I live in a house with a lot of people, so there's never a shortage of discussion-generating diversity (of ideas, opinions, backgrounds, etc.) This week I was taking a shower and noticed someone's Old Spice body wash, and I really can't help but comment. Here's what I'm thinking:

"3X Clean Net:" I'm not even sure what this means. Was there some sort of "clean net" that was included in this package? Are they trying to say that you're 3 times cleaner, by net weight? This is just confusing. Or, perhaps "net" means "clean" in French. Looking at this a little closer, perhaps that's it, but I'm not sure.

Next: "Doesn't leave you feeling dry or rob you of your dignity." So, it moisturizes your skin and reassures you of your ineffable human goodness? I'm not quite sure exactly how these two go together. However, one might be able to take a few leaps to assume that a loss of dignity might come from a flowery/fruity scent, which this is clearly trying to avoid, nonetheless providing desirable moisturization...

"Like wearing an armor of man-scent" -- Is this a good thing? So this "man-scent" armor protects you from what, exactly? Also, hat tip to Luke for pointing out that this is slightly homo-erotic, suggesting that a man (presumably heterosexual) might not want to be covered in man-scent, or, at least, wouldn't want to be judged by this type of thing in a heteronormative society.

Finally, "Drop-kicks dirt, then slams odor with a folding chair" Even though I've never seen WWF/WWE, I sense that this may be a reference to it. So now even your body wash is a pro-(fake)wrestler in the epic battle between dirt/odor and...old spice?

Ok, I just had a few questions in response to these Old Spice sayings that showed up in my shower.

Also, I can't help but be reminded of Hyperbole and a Half's awesome segment on making showers exciting again, there are many more hilarious cartoons here.

academic subjectivity

I'm currently in graduate school. I hope that this post will be one to start a theme of my struggles to find a perspective from which to write and understand what I learn. I inherently prefer writing with the word "I" and using it to organize narratives, however this, in many disciplines, goes against very explicitly stated traditions. For today, I'd like to quote an article whose author writes on his use of "I".

Before all of this, a note on my purposeful use of the active subject in this essay is warranted. Autoethnographers have noted the highly tactical enterprise of using the first person in academic writing (Peterson & Langellier,1997). Such tactics sometimes serve as confessionals, in efforts to render texts transparent (van Maanen, 1988). However, the “I” that this essay evokes, unlike the fully-formed modern subject, is a textual, constructed and strategic “I,” designed to underscore the partiality, contingence and temporal quality not only of such insight as “I” have to offer, but of knowledge claims in general. My efforts at generating such texts are relatively recent (Ganesh, 2008; Ganesh, in press), but in many ways, as I do so, the voice with which I speak to myself draws from oral practices that stem back to my childhood: for instance, this voice evokes memories of stories that my grandmother told me; stories told in a voice that are at odds with the realist trope in which most of us write. So, in personalizing this text, I hope to both problematise realist tropes, and actualize what Ellis and Bochner (1996) have called the therapeutic function of research and writing.

And here's the APA citation for ya:
Ganesh, S. (2009). OrganiZational communication and organiSational communication: Binaries and the fragments of a field. Communication Journal of New Zealand, 10(2), 6-17. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

How to practice Spanish

I've been learning Spanish for quite some time now. Here's how I practice:

get a notebook and write down all new words you learn and review them multiple times.  (or use a flashcard program on some device)

use Spanish RSS feeds - in your Google Reader or something similar (with this, for example)

use sharedtalk.com and chat with people in Latin America (so fun!)

read spanish (children's) books and take the time to look up words you don't know

be extremely hopeful and grab a novel. i started '100 years of solitude' and tried to trudge through it. i only made it to like the 10th page because of all the odd vocab in it, but it's a way to sort of 'brunt force' your way into learning new words.

that newspaper REFLEJOS in the IL 'burbs is great, it's also online. they cover interesting stories that the mainstream papers don't. their crosswords are fun and super easy.

when i was in Costa Rica i got something similar to 'reader's digest' which was an easy-ish periodical to read, with less pressure to read it than a newspaper which gets obsolete in a few days

my favorite spanish teacher showed me this website which has a lot of entertaining quizzes. her homepage also has tons of links, some of which may prove helpful (let me know if you find any)

i repeat: diligently look up words when you see them and don't know them. write them down with their translations and go over the list routinely (daily/weekly/whenever you're bored)

read BBC news headlines or headlines from the papers in a specific country - look up words in the headlines you don't know. if you find a story interesting, read/skim it.

watch a spanish news channel or tv show (online or on tv), or short videos, better yet kid's shows or cartoons...

use a flash card program like mnemosyne to practice the words you've recently looked up

to take a step further, learn the basic structure of verbs, past, present, future and conditional/indicative/

subjunctive so you have a framework into which to place these vocab words as you learn them (this is more advanced and requires more practice than the rest)

read something you're interested in -- i started reading some pablo neruda poetry which is so good in so many ways. he writes very well. i also like reading lyrics to songs i listen to. specifically, jarabe de palo (grooveshark!) is a spanish group that has pretty clear lyrics and worth translating for the poetics.

or SOME COMBINATION THEREOF...do what works and what you enjoy. depending on whatever else is happening in my life these different techniques have come in handy - a flashcard program is much more useful when i'm learning lots of vocab, or want to learn a lot fast. ...whereas mostly what i do now is read news to keep abreast of what's going on specifically in costa rica. la nacion (their newspaper) and a spanish word of the day page pop up every time i open my browser.

make things routine (like a homepage you always see, or doing 5-10 minutes of flash cards every day, or every Saturday)

Updates (7/19/2012):

• This site has a lot of videos
• This has also been very useful in writingtyping in Spanish. Using multiple keyboards and quickly being able to switch with Alt+Shift makes putting accents and other characters (á, ñ) in text super easy.
• Radio Ambulante is a non-profit org dedicated to producing high quality Spanish podcasts similar to NPR -- and has a great "about us" video.
• RTVE is a huge website that hosts Spanish-language videos from news to TV shows and documentaries.  I especially like: Españoles en el mundo about the lives of Spaniards who have relocated to other countries.
• I recently heard of Gladys Palmera's site which has a lot of streaming music and radio.
• Oh, and I recently watched the movie Tambien la Lluvia, it's great!
• Finally, I've been compiling awesome music on Youtube in my Español playlist.

Updates (8/20/2012):

• An awesome video from my friend Toño on the difficulties of learning Spanish 

Updates (10/8/2012):

• All levels of podcasts from Notes in Spanish

Are you learning a second language?  What do you do that's helpful/fun/educational?  Please share!

gum navigation?

Gum can be found everywhere, but a more attentive examination reveals that it reaches maximum density in the vicinity of the most frequented bars: the chewer who is headed there is forced to spit out to free his mouth. As a result, the stranger, not familiar with the city, could find these places following the direction of the more thickly massed gum blobs...

Reposted from here.

quote

“It can’t be any more obvious that we live in a patriarchal society if ”feminist” is a bad word.”

Ellen Page (aka Juno)

privilege: a poem

privilege
a poem for men who don't understand what we mean when we say they have it

D.A. Clarke

reprinted from Banshee, Peregrine Press

Copyright (c) 1981

privilege is simple:
going for a pleasant stroll after dark,
not checking the back of your car as you get in, sleeping soundly,
speaking without interruption, and not remembering
dreams of rape, that follow you all day, that woke you crying, and
privilege
is not seeing your stripped, humiliated body
plastered in celebration across every magazine rack, privilege
is going to the movies and not seeing yourself
terrorized, defamed, battered, butchered
seeing something else

privilege is
riding your bicycle across town without being screamed at or
run off the road, not needing an abortion, taking off your shirt
on a hot day, in a crowd, not wishing you could type better
just in case, not shaving your legs, having a decent job and
expecting to keep it, not feeling the boss's hand up your crotch,
dozing off on late-night busses, privilege
is being the hero in the TV show not the dumb broad,
living where your genitals are totemized not denied,
knowing your doctor won't rape you

privilege is being
smiled at all day by nice helpful women, it is
the way you pass judgment on their appearance with magisterial authority,
the way you face a judge of your own sex in court and
are over-represented in Congress and are not strip searched for a traffic ticket
or used as a dart board by your friendly mechanic, privilege
is seeing your bearded face reflected through the history texts
not only of your high school days but all your life, not being
relegated to a paragraph
every other chapter, the way you occupy
entire volumes of poetry and more than your share of the couch unchallenged,
it is your mouthing smug, atrocious insults at women
who blink and change the subject -- politely -- privilege
is how seldom the rapist's name appears in the papers
and the way you smirk over your PLAYBOY

it's simple really, privilege
means someone else's pain, your wealth
is my terror, your uniform
is a woman raped to death here, or in Cambodia or wherever
wherever your obscene privilege
writes your name in my blood, it's that simple,
you've always had it, that's why it doesn't
seem to make you sick to your stomach,
you have it, we pay for it, now
do you understand

PS more like BS

Was just toying around with this as a t-shirt idea...but not sure it'll come to fruition:

Polystyrene (PS) more like BS!

Letter to Subway Franchise World HQ

Subway Franchise World Headquarters

325 Bic Drive

Milford, CT 06461-3059

May 24, 2011

To whom it may concern:

I recently purchased a sandwich in Champaign, Illinois and was happy to see a note on your Subway® napkins telling me to compost them after use. Had I been going home after my meal, I would have. However, I was in transit, as I assume many fast food customers are when they purchase such food.

I’m writing this letter with the hope to encourage franchises to provide compost bins in their stores as well as compost food waste generated on-site. I imagine franchises generate far more waste than consumers generate using napkins, and taking the steps necessary to process this on-site would mean a huge reduction in waste. Furthermore, providing napkins when people ask for them rather than handing 5 out each time would also cut down on waste, as would sourcing part of the napkins from post-consumer recycled paper.

It’s encouraging to me as an individual that Subway® acknowledges my part in addressing waste problems, but I’d also like to see this mirrored by the corporation/franchise itself. Composting food waste and allowing consumers to do so in-store would do this.

Thank you for your consideration and the steps that the franchise has already taken. I hope you and the franchise continue along this path.

Sincerely,

Ariann Sahagun

Letter to the Editor

Land Grant Institution should use Renewable Energy

I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Psychology in 2008 and recently came back to the University for a Master’s program. When I was an undergrad, I worked with other students to urge the University to become more sustainable. We urged: build a wind turbine, create a strong Office of Sustainability, and include sustainability topics in classes. Unfortunately, since I’ve come back I’m not sure that the University has gained much ground on these fronts. U of I - as a land grant institution - should be striving to become a leader, to demonstrate to our state and local communities what sustainability means: using renewable energy, enacting policy changes, engaging students for educational advancement, among many other potential activities.

I am disappointed that our university has continually dragged its collective feet on building a wind turbine on campus. I started working on this project in 2005 and have spent countless hours with many other students. Students in the form of the Student Sustainability Committee as well as the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation have committed millions of dollars to the project and the University has shown little follow-through.

It is time now to move past coal-powered electricity plants and toward renewable energy. We know about climate change enough to commit to this. Given this knowledge and such inaction, what will we say to our children and grandchildren? Will we say we did all we could?

Ari Sahagun
Graduate student in Communication

Lecture: Race and Whiteness within Vegan Philosophy

I attended two of Breeze Harper's talks as part of the Campus EcoFeminism Summit, an event I am glad to know will be continuing annually. I learned a lot from attending her keynote speech and her less formal vegan meet n' greet event earlier in the day. What it means to be a good environmentalist today is to buy more things: a hybrid car, organic veggies, expensive gadgets. Along these lines, I'll admit: never before had I explicitly considered where race and class belong in the discussion of veganism.

Breeze Harper was the summit's keynote speaker with speech called: “Race and Whiteness within Vegan Philosophy: Critical Race Feminist Reflections from the Sistah Vegan Project.” Breeze's main point was that mainstream veganism has been presented by and for a narrow segment of race and class (white middle-class); many authors don't acknowledge that they are white and middle to upper class. She suggested that many (white) people in the United States have a racial literacy from the '50s where racism = segregation and overt violence like lynching. The view of our society as “post-racial” (“we're not racist, we have a black president”) covertly encourages race- and class-neutral attitudes, and does more harm than good.

Breeze talked a lot about privilege: it's like being born on second base when you think you started at bat. She argued that there isn't a good understanding of how whiteness and racism work in veganism, and many popular books are laden with unacknowledged privileges: don't be a cheapskate, buy all organic foods! (Well, what if there isn't a Whole Foods in your backyard, or you don't have a car to drive to one, or the money to afford their high prices?) Without knowing where we're at in terms of race, class and gender and the historical contexts of which we're a part, we can't see how these things shape our relationship to nature.

The path to addressing these issues will hold anti-racism as a central tenant and include reflection about our own privileges. To learn more about her work, visit the Sistah Vegan Blog. She also mentioned further reading: Lee & Lutz: Situating "race" and racisms in time, space, and theory and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's Racism Without Racists.

Hell yes, science!

A scientific article:

The Interpersonal Power of Feminism: Is Feminism Good for Romantic Relationships?

Laurie A. Rudman & Julie E. Phelan (Click for full text)

Published online: 6 October 2007

Abstract Past research suggests that women and men alike perceive feminism and romance to be in conflict (Rudman and Fairchild, Psychol Women Q, 31:125–136, 2007). A survey of US undergraduates (N=242) and an online survey of older US adults (N=289) examined the accuracy of this perception. Using self-reported feminism and perceived partners’ feminism as predictors of relationship health, results revealed that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier relationships for women. Additionally, men with feminist partners reported greater relationship stability and sexual satisfaction in the online survey. Finally, there was no support for negative feminist stereotypes (i.e., that feminists are single, lesbians, or unattractive). In concert, the findings reveal that beliefs regarding the incompatibility of feminism and romance are inaccurate.

Keywords Feminism . Close relationships . Feminist stereotypes . Intergroup relations . Gender attitudes

Citation: Rudman LA & Phelan JE (2007). The interpersonal power of feminism: is feminism good for romantic relationships? SEX ROLES: Volume 57, Numbers 11-12, 787-799.

Lecture: Empathy Paradox – Increasing disconnection in the age of increasing connection

by Sara Konrath – Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Univ of Michigan

Konrath began her talk with a quote about new media, as “vulgar,” “poison,” and a “national evil.” However, the quote was actually from 1749

with regard to the new media form of the novel. This perspective grounded the audience in the fact that, well, usually, we’re hesitant about new media and we may even go as far as to disdain it. Or, the older generations have long rejected or disapproved of younger generations’ use of particular forms of media (from books, to flapper culture, to facebook). These are not new things.

Her question is: is there an increase in disconnectness with today's new media(s)? As a psychologist, she examined several personality trait variables since 1979 in college student populations: narcissism, empathy, and attachment styles. (Nerdy psych note: Attachment styles are usually, or were originally, discussed in terms of child-caretaker relations, but have been since adapted to adult attachment.)

So, in a nutshell, her findings did suggest the worst cases, trends showing an increase in narcissism, decrease in empathy, and an increase in a dismissive(avoidant?) relationship styles since 1979. However: these are small numbers, not huge changes, and she noted that it doesn’t mean [we’re] unable to have healthy relationships, just less able, on average.

Next there was some discussion on potential causes, because psychologists always remind us: correlation is not causation. An important point is that these trends didn’t start with the internet, but perhaps could be exacerbated by its use/omnipresence. Her suggestions for future research are as follows:

-examine more closely the prosocial effects of new media (not just the bad stuff)

-methods for determining causal relations

-motives for media use

-assessment of media use and its effects (not just general use, but what are people doing?)

An interesting point was brought up in the ensuing Q&A session, in that facebook really blurs the circles of intimacy that we’re used to. Rather than keeping your family, best friends, acquaintances separate, on facebook (and on this blog) we just broadcast indiscriminately to everyone. Someone also asked if ther had been any assessment of behavioral measures (not just traits) and she suggested Robert Putnam (specifically, his book: Bowling Alone).

I'd be interested to discuss the implications of these findings. For example, do these trends in the traits of college students over time have impacts on, say, their attitudes toward the "environment?"

Lecture: Social Science Aspects of Sustainability and Climate Change

As a grad student in Communication I also attend a lot of lectures on various topics including sustainability, climate change, gender, class and race awareness, and whatever else peaks my interest. I’m thinking that it would be a good idea to do a short write up after each one to help me digest the various topics and keep writing. So here begins a series of responses to lectures I attend.

Today’s lecture was given by Scott Butner who works at the Pacific NW National Lab, specifically in the Technosocial Predictive Analytics Initiative (TPAI). It was presented as part of the ISTC’s Seminar Series on Sustainability.

The motivating idea of the talk was that we (engineers?) should consider both group and individual behavior in modeling of climate change and energy use. Butner touched on the definition of sustainability noting that the Bruntland Commission’s usage has no inclusion of metrics, and that generally, engineers tend to think of the problem of sustainability as fundamentally rooted in material and energy constraints. I personally don’t this has people (society, individual behavior) integrated enough into the definition, nor do I think sustainability can be boiled down into one fundamental problem. It seems much more complex than that.

The group at TPAI through a grant from the EPA has used systems dynamic modeling (with STELLA) to combine technological systems (agriculture, climate change, smart grid) with social and individual behavior models. Apparently they’ve also use computer gaming to inform opinions. However, near the end of the talk he mentioned that these models are “pretty disposable” and are mainly used to spur critical thinking, not produce results.

Here are some of my thoughts:

• I’m not very familiar with modeling in the social sciences. I’d like to learn more about/if there are endemic (i.e. rooted in social science) models of, say, behavioral change. Usually when I think of social scientists using the word “model” it’s mostly theory, not a sort of “black box” type of thinking including inputs and outputs which I assume most engineers/technically-minded people think of. I might be wrong here, but I think the social vs. “hard” sciences have different uses of the word ‘model.’
• The speaker used a quote from the USDOE regarding the smart grid, noting it “will require cultural change.” How can the publishers so over-generalize and simplify cultural change, suggesting it might come from top-down government recommendations? Is this in line with folk knowledge (or scientific knowledge) about how cultural change actually occurs?
• Another point that was mentioned a few times is that even with increases in energy efficiency, energy use is still on the rise. Or, there are “normative expectations” for energy use. He cited this article to back up the claim.
• The team at TPAI used the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) data for mapping variables like affluence and behavior – one of the most interesting slides in the presentation was the correlation tables between behavior and energy usage across several variables. Like: affluence is correlated with the number of windows in a house. (More affluent = more windows)
• Also, and this may be slightly cynical, but I was struck by the sort of generalized nature of "social science" and discussions of "behavior." This is pretty much in line with many of the informal discussions I've had with engineering friends or groups. It made me wonder: who does critical social science? Do engineers who eventually recognize the importance of social science tend to have a less critical and more generalized understanding? Hopefully that's not horribly offensive, but there are open comments...

only when the last tree is dead,

when the last river is poisoned,

and when the last fish is trapped,

then we will understand that we can't eat money

Charity

A couple of points on charity:

"To me, charity is often just about giving because you're supposed to, or because it's what you've always done, or it's about giving until it hurts. I'm about providing the means for providing something that will grow and intensify its original investment, and not just require greater giving next year, not trying to feed the habit." - Majora Carter, from a TED talk

Also, see RSAnimate's version of Zizek's First as Tragedy, Then as Farce