As many articles have already posted, this puts the onus on manufacturers, not consumers, which is the problem. We can have manufacturers make small, efficient cars all we want, but consumers won't buy them. They never have. We have always, ALWAYS bought the biggest, most inefficient car we could. It's the American way, seemingly.
In Europe, where gas prices are somewhere around $4,567 per liter, efficiency is very important to the consumer, so cars sell well. Diesel cars, which usually get well north of 40mpg, are unsellable here because consumers have bad perceptions on diesel and we have high taxes on the fuel aimed at truck drivers. Why not just ditch the diesel tax and encourage diesel cars like the SEVENTY-NINE MPG Volkswagen Lupo Diesel. Or the slightly larger Polo which knocks out nearly 60mpg on the highway.
This regulation does absolutely nothing to deal with these fundamental economic problems, which dooms it to failure. Instead, since we're dealing with fleet average, we'll get the same gas guzzling cars everyone wants now, AND lots of crappy efficient cars no one wants to drive. Even worse, the manufacturing of those useless cars will use up MORE RESOURCES needlessly, which is the exact opposite of what everyone wants to achieve. And since those crap cars will be likely sold at a loss, it will drive up the costs of all the other cars, which will simply put a damper on car sales and thus the economy.
I want to be very clear on this, and this is a truism recognized by all the major oil companies, which is why they don't give a rat's ass about alternative fuels: WE ARE GOING TO USE EVERY DROP OF OIL ON THIS PLANET. It is a fait accompli. Environmental issues are immaterial. Every bit of carbon locked up in oil will be up in the atmosphere sooner or later. We want to, nay, we need to target other aspects that can be changed. We do not need to continue using coal, for example. We do not need to continue burning so much natural gas. There are things we can do, but this isn't one of them.
Now, I'm going to go drive recklessly in my 20mpg sports car.
UPDATE: 20 Minutes later
I've been thinking over this a bit more, and the possibility that the Obama Administration is totally aware of everything I said is there.
It's so refreshing to be able to attribute intelligence and wisdom to our president. I forgot how it felt after the past eight years. But as I said, this bill will do little to stop our purchase of gas-guzzling trucks and sports cars, but what it might do is increase funding for all-electric cars. It's the best way to meet the standards. Sell an ∞mpg vehicle.
This would be fantastic. I could have an all-electric for trips to store, cafe, and about town, and my aforementioned 20mpg sports car for longer trips and suicidal moments of bravura. I think Tesla has proven there is interest in electric cars, and even GM's own EV-1 had its own fanatic following. If this is indeed the intent of the bill, it might just work.
Of course, we could also just end up with lots of crappy, 1.2 liter three-cylinder econoboxes that get 45mpg, thus wasting time, money, resources, and people. It's quite a gamble.
For a more complete deconstruction of prostitution and laws against it, read my post Of Whores, Slaves, and Kings.
Well, Mayor Cicilline, the mayor of our fair capital city in Rhode Island, who I like less and less as the years go on, is backing a law to completely outlaw prostitution.
For those not from Rhode Island, we're the only state in the union where prostitution is legal. As long as it is behind closed doors, you can do whatever you want. Sounds strangely... American, don't you think? When you're two consenting adults in private... YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT! My god! How novel.
Well, Mayor Cicilline, here goes... you're a moron.
Let's pick through some of his comments.
“The industry permitted by our ill-advised laws continues to flourish. We are and will continue to be a haven –– in fact a magnet — for this activity. We offer the legal equivalent of a welcome mat for commercial sex."
First, ill-advised is an analysis he gives no reasoning for. He's wrong. That "ill-advised" law is the only thing keeping our prostitution somewhat in the light. Second, why is it bad that were are a welcome mat for commercial sex. Doesn't the state need all the money it can get? And what is wrong with commercial sex. He makes the statement assuming that people will read between the lines and agree with his implied moral judgment. I don't. In fact, I think he's an idiot for making that judgment.
There is nothing wrong with sex! His judgment requires that underlying belief. In such a strongly religious and specifically Catholic state, it's not entirely surprising this belief is held, but for Pete's sake, Cicilline is gay! You'd think he'd try and disconnect himself from religious creed as much as possible. But no. There he is, spouting the same self-hating religious nonsense spouted by such intellectual luminaries as Jerry Falwell.
"The mayor also asked the Senate to consider taking the law further. He wants a law that penalizes landlords that knowingly rent to brothel operators, grants immunity from prosecution to prostitutes who were forced into the sex trade and funds police training and prostitute rehabilitation programs through the seizure of brothel assets."
Wow. You just love passing those terrible laws, don'cha? First, it will be nigh on impossible to prove that landlords "knowingly" rented to brothels. Unless the owner is actively seen running the brothel, nothing can be proven. It's called a safe harbor. The maker or owner of something cannot be held responsible for what someone else does with it, even if they have reason to suspect or even expect illicit activities. A baseball bat maker knows people will be killed with bats, but just try arresting the bat maker. Gun makers know full well that their guns will kill people, but we don't hold them responsible.
I know! Why don't we just expand it? Landlords who knowingly rent to college students who do drugs can be held for drug charges. Landlords who knowingly rent to loud people can be held for disturbing the peace. Landlords who knowingly rent to underage kids who have drinking parties can be held for facilitating the delinquency of a minor. It's ridiculous.
"The city even created an outreach team with a female Korean translator, sexual assault counselors and legal experts to try and persuade prostitutes to leave the sex trade.
"But in his letter to the Senate, Cicilline says the city found prostitutes were unwilling to cooperate: 'So complete is the power of those who control the women that not a single person has accepted our offer of help.'"
Apparently the possibility that the girls just didn't want to leave wasn't considered. Now, I'm not saying that there are no women who very much are trapped by pimps and controllers and whatnot, but he stupidly assumes the opposite. He assumes that no women want to stay, which is an overreaching statement. There are without doubt some women who want to stay.
"In a letter to the Senate leadership, the Mayor discussed the negative impact indoor prostitution – disguised as so-called “spas” in various locations – has on the quality of life in neighborhoods, as well as the damaging impact on the state’s reputation."
Negative impact on quality of life? Oh I would love to read his explanation for that one. And the damage to the states reputation? Is he smoking the pot? Almost no one knows about our obscure law. You ask someone just from freaking Massachusetts, and they just assume it's illegal here as it is everywhere else that's run by twits. And don't you think that our biggest reputation problems stem from our legendary corruption, horrid financial condition, high violent crime rate in our capital city, and coruscating temples of justice and respect like the Wyatt Detention Facility?
“I personally went to court to testify about the city’s refusal to allow the opening of a ‘spa’ across the street from a school, public library and recreation center,” said Mayor Cicilline. “We won and this establishment was not allowed to open.”
Oh for fucks sake. He actully busted out the "protect our children" line that every politician on Earth uses to justify baseless laws. I am disgusted with mayor Cicciline. Why is sex something we should be protecting our children from? Why is sex bad? It's rhetorical. There is no answer. It's not bad and that is the underlying assumption behind all of this. Sex is bad. Sex is somehow how evil. God damn this religious state.
"The Mayor called the bills currently pending before the General Assembly an “excellent first step.” He urged the Senate to consider broadening the scope of the legislation in order to strengthen it in the following ways:
* Greater penalties for the customers which would increase for subsequent offenses by customers * The ability for an individual to avoid criminal prosecution when he or she has been compelled into commercial sex * Require the creation of an interview protocol to be used by police in cross-examinations to help identify victims of human trafficking and better identify and prosecute the profiteers * Penalties for landlords who knowingly rent to brothel operators * Using assets seized in prosecution of this crime, create a diversion program where those arrested for selling sex can avoid penalties by participating in a program of comprehensive services that will allow them to escape the conditions that compelled them into prostitution * Use seized assets to provide training to local police departments and to fund partnerships that can assist victims of sexual trauma, provide translation services and more."
1: Prostitution exists in Iran, where the penalty is death. That means there is no law that can prevent the sale of sex. 2: What about those who aren't compelled? I guess he assumes that person doesn't exist. Or if he does, those people are apparently S-O-L. 3: Ooooooh. A protocol! Watch out! The police have a protocol! They will fail as much in their efforts as everyone, everywhere fails in their efforts now. 4: Discussed above. 5: First off, why are we arresting those for selling sex? I thought #2 sort of precluded that. I guess they're S-O-L. Furthermore, a large-scale institution to facilitate prostitutes' escape from the conditions that sent them into it is impossible. Unless we are willing to provide full costs for an education, housing, food, and guarantee that the many, many illegal immigrants will not be deported, our efforts will end in total failure. And if we do that, why bother making prostitution illegal? We already have the perfect social system, and if Mayor Cicciline is correct, no woman would ever want to become a prostitute and thus none would. Thus, no need for a law no one wants to break. 6: Or, ya know, we can put it in the general treasury like we do with all law enforcement revenue and use it to fund the aforementioned corruption and fiscal stupidity.
I am not going to mince words. Mayor Cicciline and the anti-prostitution crowd are idiots. Raging, flaming, idiots of incomprehensible idiocy.
If you are actually concerned about prostitution, don't outlaw it, make it more legal. Legalize it to the fullest extent. Drag the operation into the sun where it can be regulated, controlled, taxed, and monitored. By outlawing it, you drive it into the shadows, where you cannot do anything with it. Laws against it increase violence, create pimps, and trap prostitutes even further because they cannot go to the police.
And if you think outlawing the purchase of sex but not the sale will help, you're dead wrong. If the prostitute has any hope of continuing work in the sex trade, she'll never go to the police because either her johns will be arrested or her brothel will get shut down, which then might result in retaliation from the brothel owners and other prostitutes, again... increasing problems. That is all this law will do.
The U.S. Post Office is raising the rates on stamps today
From the AP...
Peel 'em and weep: First-class stamps rise 2 cents
Despite rate rise, cost-cutting, Postal Service could run out of money by year's end
* Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press Writer * On Monday May 11, 2009, 5:12 am EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The post office wants two more pennies for your thoughts. The price of a first-class stamp for mailing a letter -- or paying a bill -- climbed to 44 cents Monday, though folks who planned ahead and stocked up on Forever stamps will still be paying the lower rate.
It's the third straight year rates have gone up in May under a new system that allows annual increases as long as they don't exceed the rate of inflation for the year before.
While the increase will bring in added income, the post office continues to struggle financially as more and more lucrative first-class mail is diverted to the Internet, and the recession discourages businesses from sending their usual volume of advertising.
The Postal Service, which does not get a taxpayer subsidy for its operations, lost $2.8 billion last year and is already $2.3 billion in the hole just halfway through this year.
Postmaster General John Potter has asked Congress for permission to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. The agency is offering early retirement to workers, consolidating excess capacity in mail processing and transportation networks, realigning carrier routes, halting construction of new postal facilities, freezing officer and executive salaries at 2008 pay levels and reducing travel budgets.
Even so, the rate increase is unlikely to cover the ongoing losses and the possibility remains that the post office could run out of money before the end of the fiscal year.
The post office could have cited extraordinary circumstances and asked the independent Postal Regulatory Commission for larger increases, but officials worried that would only result in a greater decline in mail volume and worse losses.
Potter has also urged congressional changes in how the post office prepays for retiree health care, to cut its annual costs by $2 billion.
While the new 44-cent rate covers the first ounce of first-class mail, the price for each additional ounce will remain unchanged at 17-cents.
Postal officials estimate the increase will cost the average household $3-a-year.
Other changes taking effect May 11:
-- The postcard stamp increases 1 cent to 28 cents.
-- The first ounce of a large envelope increases 5 cents to 88 cents.
-- The first ounce of a parcel increases 5 cents to $1.22.
-- New international postcard and letter prices are, for one ounce, 75 cents to Canada; 79 cents to Mexico; and 98 cents elsewhere.
Most Postal Service shipping services prices were adjusted in January and will not change in May.
I just find it amazing that they think a larger price increase would result in an appreciable decrease in volume. I trust them, certainly, since I seriously doubt they would say that otherwise, but still. It's FORTY FOUR cents, people! That's not a lot of money.
I think the American post office is a wonder of the modern world. It redefined how mail was delivered lifetimes ago, and remains, as far as I know, the most efficient postal service on the planet (not counting package services).
I want the postal service to be profitable, because I think it can be. They provide an excellent service with excellent reliability. Please, don't screw around. Raise the price more. Raise it to a full fifty cents! Forget this limp-dicked price increase of TWO cents. What's two cents going to do? Nothing, that's what.
If you're terribly frightened of losing customers, start offering second and third-class stamps again. They were once offered commonly before first-class became laughably default. All you have to do is find a away to offer more and you can increase prices greatly. The status quo is obviously broken. With the advent of e-mail, sending rote information is no longer neccessary of the postal service.
Raise first class stamps to fifty cents or more
Reintroduce Second and Third Class stamps, don't restrict those classes to magazines and whatnot.
Allow people to buy stamps for different speeds. A stamp for overnight, 2-day, etc.
Sell postage, not stamps. All stamps are forever stamps.
Streamline shipping with easy tool sets for people to ready and print postage at home.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has noticed the comical hypocrisy involving the Republican party and the Franken/Coleman senate race in Minnesota?
If the democrats simply try to seat Franken in the senate, it will be seen as a power grab. This comes after multiple recounts showing Franken to have gotten 312 more votes than the incumbent Coleman. Seems pretty rock solid. No reports of possible fraud or anything.
Yet the democrats shouldn't stand in the way of the democratic process playing out!
Of course, during both the Gore and Kerry defeats -when there was rampant problems with possible fraud, questions of integrity, errors with the computers, etc.- and the Democrats threatened a prolonged battle, the Republicans ranted and raved about not standing in the way of the democratic process and giving the people what they want.
Why does Rhode Island stand alone in gay marriage? The Projo has an article discussing the supposedly manifold reasons.
I think there is only one reason: abject stupidity. We've got a governor who borders on being a Special Ed student and overly zealous local bishop. Idiots, the both of them.
It's going to happen whether they like it or not. It's going to happen because it's not a question of integrity; it's a question of freedom.
House Speaker William J. Murphy "has a standard answer to the gay marriage question. 'A marriage, in my eyes, is between a man and a woman.'"
Well, guess what, a marriage in MY eyes is between loving partners. My eyes and your eyes are exactly the same, which means I win because I take the passive, non-judgmental stance. I take the live-and-let-live stance. I take the stay-the-fuck-out-of-other-people's-lives stance. I take the American stance.
It's about freedom, pure and simple. I take solace knowing that future generations will look back on this time with a bemused sense of superiority. Those who stood for freedom and equality will be remembered, and those who stood against it will be forgotten. History has shown this to be the way.
And in case you don't hate these men, here's a quote from someone like them...
"Satan uses homosexuals as pawns. They're in, as you know, key positions in the media, they're in the White House, they're in everything, they're in Hollywood now. Then, unfortunately, after he uses them, he infects them with AIDS and then they die." Anthony Falzarano, PFOX, Janet Parshall's America, 2/27/96
The very same dogma underlies this loony as it does our illustrious governor and his supporters. If you asked, they likely wouldn't say something so outright and antagonistic, but the fundamental belief that that statement is true IS accepted by them, whether they admit it or not.
The Providence Journal, my local newspaper, has an article in it about a push for new laws against human trafficking, particularly the sex trade. There are so many things wrong with it, it's hard to know where to start.
First off, there is a huge difference between prostitution and human trafficking. The former is the simple sale of sex for money. The latter usually involves lies, kidnapping, and some form of slavery. Nasty business. But, again, there is a big difference, and this article blurs that difference, which is one of the fundamental problems with this legislation and any of its ilk. Sex slavery and prostitution are entirely different things. That they both involve sex is like saying that farming is the same thing as a southern plantation.
One of the subjects of the article, Tiny Frundt, has suffered through one hell of a life. She was sold for sex by her foster-mother's boyfriend. Ran away, met a guy who promptly did the same thing, but this time when she refused he and some friends just raped her. Again. I feel for her. In fact, the very concept of rape is so repulsive to me that I'm unable to watch movies depicting it, or read books describing it. But her problem had nothing to do with prostitution. Her problem was other people.
It's wrong to say that rape, violence, and general scumbaggery irrevocably goes hand-in-hand with prostitution. It doesn't even make sense. Prostitution has existed since the beginning of time, and we have well documented evidence of the high-society of which many brothels were a part. Yes, some brothels invariably were scummy, but that's like saying that some restaurants are scummy, so they're fundamentally disgusting and should be outlawed.
And to this day, there are legitimate, violence-free sex clubs, big ones, in France, and Nevada, which has regulated brothels of high-repute. I'm not denying that there are tons of shitty places, but why we have them when they needn't be there in such high numbers is a question this article doesn't even pose.
What about the full legalization of prostitution? The only argument I hear in response to this is that prostitution is by its nature degrading to women, and cannot be separated from slavery. I have never heard an adequate explanation as to why this is the case.
First off, why is it fundamentally degrading? Why would a woman willingly selling her body for sex be degrading, whereas a woman selling her body to give a massage, or clean a house, or cut hair, is not degrading? I think there is an assumption hidden between the lines, and that assumption is not at all feminist. In fact, it is an assumption that feminists have been trying to get rid of for about one hundred and fifty years. These women are assuming that female sexuality is something fundamentally precious, as opposed to a mere aspect of life in line with eating, sleeping, and pooping.
Why do I say female sexuality is fundamentally precious? Because you never hear these anti-prostitution advocates argue against male prostitution. There's lots of it. You never hear them say it's degrading for men to sleep with women for money, or men to sleep with men. Politicians don't talk about. Men certainly don't. Because as with old religious ideas, and old American beliefs, male sexuality is not precious. It should not be guarded. It should be blown to the wind. Fuck everyone that you can. The more you do it, the better a man you are. Women are sluts.
Anti-prostitution advocates are assuming a double standard.
Prostitution is not degrading. It's a job. Like many people, some women may not like their job, but it earns money. I mentioned the farming example above and it applies perfectly. Many farm hands hate their jobs. It's hard, back-breaking labor for low pay. It ages you quickly and is not a job many people would want. But it's not slavery. Few people would even say it's degrading. It's just a job. I worked at a grocery store when I was younger. It was degrading. I had to suck up to crazy old people who wanted me to put everything in a separate bag. But it wasn't degrading. It was just a job. That assumption that sex is somehow precious is the key point of the prostitution-is-degrading argument.
Second, why is prostitution fundamentally slavery? In Rhode Island, prostitution is legal behind closed doors. All you have to do to see the vast number of independent prostitutes, offering everything from domination to erotic asphyxiation, is look at the local newspaper, The Providence Phoenix. It has an adult sexti... Freudian typo, SECtion, in the middle of the paper. There are many brothels listed, but an equal if not greater collection of single ads. These women are not slaves. They're doing it for the money, by themselves.
Women have the right to have sex with whoever, whenever, and for whatever reason they choose. If they want to do it for money, that's their choice. Sex is something that automatically attracts scummy people, as such, there should be less regulation, but more support and an immediate legislation attempting to extinguish those very same ideas that that anti-prostitution advocates assume. Women who have sex for money are people working a job who should receive equal rights under the law. They deserve Police help, not condemnation, and they deserve social recognition and acceptance.
That, right there, is the real problem. Illegalization automatically makes a black market where scumbags can thrive. Abused prostitutes cannot run for help, or go to the police. They are trapped in an underground world of society's making. The prostitution is not the problem, it's the abuse, because prostitution is not itself abuse. It is society's job to best eliminate the abuse and give women the freedom to work in prostitution with the protection of law. Even Rhode Island, where's it's legal, there is stigma. Not surprisingly, the brothels here have many young women working in them who were, for lack of a better word, tricked into the job and now have no choice. While I could make an argument that our ridiculous immigration laws make this worse, the fact that, even here, prostitution is grey-market is the main problem. Expose the world to light and just watch the scum melt away.
I won't say otherwise. Prostitution as it is today, sucks. This rather heartbreaking short video documents the lives of some prostitutes in Britain. But while watching it, remember, it's not the prostitution that's the problem, it's the drugs, addiction, and bad life decisions.
Penn & Teller did a good episode on prostitution which I have embedded. It's a bit outdated, they mention how only one state allows same-sex marriage, but otherwise timely.
BS_Prosttu8ion
I have included a link to a debate about prostitution where the majority of people presents were against prostitution after the end of the debate. I'd argue it's because the pro-prostitution crowd was terrible at debate.
Let's go through some of the arguements against prostitution.
Wendy Shalit: "I would submit to you
that paying for sex is at least as wrong as building an ugly highrise... Why, because we’re using— we’re talking about using a human being as a means to your ends. Today people want to believe that paying for sex is just like paying for a hamburger. But a sexual transaction is different, because it teaches on the deepest, most personal aspects of ourselves. The proof that sex is different, in my opinion, is our response to the terrible crime of rape. If paying for sex were as morally neutral as paying for a hamburger, well then, rape is akin to just forcing someone to eat a hamburger. Right?"
She says wrong, and rightfully so. But think about that. Imagine someone holding you down, forcing a hamburger down your throat. Maybe using a broom handle to get it all the way down there. She presents it as an absurd idea, but doesn't go all the way. Yeah, frankly. Imagining someone forcing a hamburger down my throat sounds pretty bad. So, it's not all that absurd.
"For example today we place a lot of value on hotness in women, have you noticed this?"
LIke many politcal commentators, she is now-biased. Women are based on hotness now? Where the hell was she in history class. There was a time when women had NOTHING but youth and looks. No rights, no freedoms, no money, and no job opportunities. She also misses the boat on male-oriented problems. If she thinks dolls give unreasonable expectations of girls, she hasn't looked at action figures recently. They're HUGE. Jacked beyond description. Just look at the Batman to the left. He's enormous! No wonder Batman wants to fight crime. He just wants to fight, period. Might as well just change his name to 'Roid Rage.
"To those who are against trafficking, but they insist that some women have nothing else to sell but their bodies, I say that they suffer from a real lack of imagination."
No, the WOMEN lack imagination. I don't. I can think of plenty of things that the girls could do other than prostitution, but that's not my job.
"About the power of the human spirit and about the strength of women in particular and if you keep up with the Harvard Business Review, you may have noticed, that they’re now talking about micro-loans to poor women and only lending them, only having these loans to poor women. Right?"
This is absurd. This discussion has nothing to do with the power of the human spirit. This is about economics, not judgement. If the woman wants that loan, she can try for it, if she doesn't, she can continue being a prostitute. Moreover, nothing against the human spirit, but if you're a street-walker, you aren't thinking about micro-loans.
"So…we have to believe in the women first, it takes a risk to give them that loan.
If instead we demand their bodies instead of appealing to their intelligence, it’s this philosophy of this is all she can do, and the not too subtle misogyny behind it, that feeds the demand and expectations that cause the problem."
We DO believe in women. It's hard not to. They make up 60% of college students, they own businesses and stock portfolios. I'm not talking about women/people, I'm talking ONE woman. In the same way that men and women alike, for whatever reason, can only ever hope for a career in burger flipping, some women honestly have their body as their most valuable asset. They don't NEED to do it. They could work another job just as easily, that whole human spirit thing and all, but they can probably earn a lot more as a prostitute, and that's their choice and theirs alone.
And why do I get the feeling that Wendy is a man-hater. Demand their bodies? Does she frequent seedy bars? No one is demanding their bodies. There's a big difference between demand and economic demand. And importantly, no one is saying that this is all women can do. The argument she's trying to get to is that this is all a woman can do, and that's possible. In the same way we could say that a janitor is all some stupid guy can do, there is no misogyny in saying that the most valuable thing a woman could do is prostitution.
Melissa Farley: "These pimp-messaged slogans are good for business but there’s
not much truth to them."
Again, an assumption that it's a pimp writing the message. As the Penn & Teller episode shows, many women are independent entities.
"What’s wrong with prostitution, and what’s wrong with buying sex, are the same things that are wrong with other forms of violence against women, incest, rape, and battery."
Prostitution is not violence. It can be if they pay for it, but it's not. No way. No how. Violence is violence, prostitution is prostitution. They are entirely distinct concepts.
"A woman in Lusaka, who knew that five blow jobs would get her a sack of mealy meal to feed her kids. That’s not a choice."
First, yes it is. She could try some other way to get money for food, but, right, she's in fucking Zambia. No one there has a choice about anything. It's a toilet. It's a terrible example. She's likely happy she has something, anything of value. But it's still a choice. I could be hungry and have a valuable heirloom and choose to sell it for money, never to get it back. But it was still a choice.
"Or the young woman sold by her parents in a brothel in Nevada."
The only significant example she brings up and says nothing else about it.
"The Emperors Club, where [Elliot] Spitzer bought her, was run by pimps who charged a lot because they said it was high-class call girls. But it was the same as any other pimps, they took their 50 percent off the top. Like a majority of johns, Spitzer most likely enticed, coerced or persuaded her with money to put her life on the line by not using a condom. That’s not a freely made choice."
Yes it is! She could simply not accept the money. Coerced with money? You mean, made an offer? And he didn't buy her, he bought her services. Earlier in the debate, Ms. Farley said "Some words hide the truth." She's doing that right now.
"A woman at a legal brothel in Nevada said, it’s like you sign a contract to be raped."
Again, one of the most significant things she says and she then goes on to say nothing more about it. Who is this woman? What's her story? If she was raped, why didn't she go to the police? If she didn't like it, why continue?
"Women in prostitution are seen as body parts or fake girlfriends and their feelings don’t matter, and they’re not seen as human which is perhaps why they’re murdered at a higher rate than any other group of women ever studied."
Really? I've seen interviews with men who have a nasty habit of falling in love with the prostitutes they use. Oh yeah. They don't see them as human. Too bad she's making the exact same mistake and not seeing the men has human, either. OH, and the murder statistic, maybe is has to do with the fact that most of them work in undergound black markets where everyone gets murdered in large numbers.
"What’s wrong with sex is what johns themselves tell us about it. For example, if you look at it, it’s paid rape. She has to do what you want."
Gah! No it's not! No they don't! It's a transaction on agreed terms, that's prostitution.
"When women are turned into objects that men masturbate into, it causes immense
psychological harm to the person acting as a receptacle. Please don’t be fooled by people who tell buying sex is just another job. It’s wrong to set aside a special class of women, those who are the most vulnerable among us, for men’s sexual use. What’s wrong with paying for sex is it’s the business of sexual exploitation."
First off, men aren't masturbating into a woman, they're having sex with her. They want HER. They want the other person. And we're not fooling anyone, we're making an argument that just happens to make a lot of sense. Moreoever, we're not setting aside anyone. It's not like society is like "Ok, all you women over here, yooouuuuu will be the whores." And yes, it is the business of sexual exploitation. Just as McDonalds is the exploitation of hunger, and La-z-Boy is the exploitation of lazy people. As long as it's the woman doing the exploiting of her own body, there is no problem. That should not, and cannot, be eliminated.
Catherine MacKinnon: "In prostitution, women have sex with men they would never otherwise have sex with. The money thus acts as a form of force, not as a measure of consent. It acts as physical force does in rape."
What the hell is it with them and this argument? The money is a form of MONEY, or more accurately a motivator. It's not some tractor beam that pulls the woman in against her will. That's like saying that a hot woman who dates a fat slob because he's a millionaire is being forced into it. It couldn't be farther from the truth. Was Anna Nicole Smith forced into her relationship with J. Howard Marshall?
"We're not here, actually, to discuss the proposition “it’s wrong to be paid for sex.” We are here to discuss the proposition, “it is wrong to pay for sex.” I’ve just been talking about what’s wrong with it for her. What’s wrong with it for him is, he’s using her, he’s exploiting her, he’s exploiting his inequality to her, which is usually a desperate economic inequality. In order to have access to her person in a form of bodily invasion, while he gets off on the illusion that he has chosen this freely, when he is taking more than can ever be paid for."
Everything is wrong with this statement. Why is using her wrong for him? Does that make we wrong for paying a maid to clean my house? That applies to her successive points of inequality. And it has nothing to do with bodily invasion. Again, they use these nasty, hard words like invasion. No, invasion is rape. Whereby someone is made to have sex against their will. Not against their liking or enjoying, their will. And the whole "taking more than can ever be paid for" statement again drives home the ridiculous belief that female sexuality is somehow precious and needs to be protected. He has taken NOTHING. Virginity is not a thing! It's a social construct created by a male-dominated society obsessed with such things. You are the same person after as before sex. Nothing has been diminished or taken.
"And you de-criminalize the sold. You couple this with real education, real employment opportunities, real jobs, real money. Women are entitled to real equality and real choices."
They have that. Well, to a degree. Sexism is still pretty bad, but they DO have everything she listed. Some people are underpriviledged and we could say that we need to spend more money on education for poor people, social programs for people, and jobs for people. The focus on women against society greatly diminishes Ms. MacKinnon's position.
And you know what? Even with all of that, we WILL STILL HAVE PROSTITUTION. You know why? Because the service is valuable to people. If anything, all of these services combined with legal prostitution would be great for the prostitutes because there would likely be fewer of them competing for the same number of clients, thus driving up prices.
"And you know, prostitution is what women do when all else fails, and all else fails often. And there are a lot of things that men do, in general, when all else fails, and prostitution is not that thing. And that means this is an institution of sex inequality."
Man-hating, again! First, it is not always the last resort, sometimes it's the first or second, or fifth. And she obviously does not live in a gay-friendly town. Providence is FULL of male prostitutes, some of which undoubtedly started as a last resort. So that means this is NOT an institution of sex inequality. It's an institution of horny men willing to pay for sex, with more straight men in the population than gay. Duh.
Melissa Farley: "I would like to quote, to respond to what Sydney said, and quote
from her book, which is, she said, “A call girl is simply a woman who hates poverty more than she hates sin.” I would use the word prostitution and not sin, so I would say a call girl is simply a woman who hates poverty more than she hates prostitution. I think that’s the whole point we’re making here, that shouldn't be
the choice. If we’re seeking an end to inequality between men and women, if we’re seeking an end to violence against men and women, women should not have to make the choice between poverty and education, paying the next month’s rent, and prostitution."
Yes, and a shitty job at a burger joint with an asshole boss is worked by someone who hates poverty more than the job. Oh wait, right, that argument applies to ALL jobs. Why is prostitution fundamentally terrible? Why is it so much more terrible than working any crap job just to afford rent? And when she says "that shouldn't be the choice," she used that magical word "should." Sorry, girl, but "is" is the only word that matters. By focusing on women you miss that economic inequality is among both sexes, all across the world. Should it be otherwise? I don't know, I just know that it isn't, and it would likely be better if the inequality wasn't there. She's basically saying we shouldn't have poor people. But too bad, it's there. The world sucks and it has always sucked for many people. Outlawing prostitution will not change it, it will only make it worse.
Ok, I've said enough. I've made my point fully. The full transcript is available at the link and I encourage a read. It would only take a few hours to full digest. But in closing, my complete point is that there is nothing wrong with paying for sex. It is an economic transaction. To say it is wrong applies a judgment that goes dangerously close to morals, which as we all know are completely subjective and worthless in substantive arguments.
Moreoever, history has shown us that no regulation, even the threat of death, has ever stopped prostitution. It cannot be stopped. It will not be stopped. And to say it's wrong is to say that human nature is wrong. Such a judgement call make assumptions about the prostitutes, the clients, and all of their motivations, hopes, dreams, desires, and lives.
True equality for women will only come when they are allowed to do whatever they damn well please without judgment, stigma, or penalty. And that is not what these advocates are doing. They are doing damage to women and their rights and, whether they know it or not, supporting the very same male-dominated society they claim to hate. I have only one bit of advice for you, shut up.
I close with a video about sex in Japan, showing how Western ideals color these women's perceptions of sex and relationships. Strange, the prostitutes there seem to be doing just fine.
I just found this great site with a long list of quotes from various, ultra-right wingnuts.
My personal favorites include...
"Gays who practice oral sex verge on consuming raw human blood" -- Paul Cameron http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron2.html
"Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody's pseudo-right to worship an idol." --Rev. Joseph Morecraft,Chalcedon Presbyterian Church, Marietta, Georgia, quoted in "the Public Eye," June 1994
And Pat Robertson, always good for a laugh,
"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." Pat Robertson, fundraising letter, 1992
Honestly, these people are out of their gourds. While it would be absurd to say that the entirety of the right-wing in this country is as comical as these people, they still cater to these loons. Coulter, Robertson, and a number of others have all appeared, frequently in some cases, on Fox News. People listen to them. That's depressing. Most of these people are in the same boat as Neo-Nazis, the only difference is that people don't listen to Neo-Nazis.
I no sooner mentioned the possibility of decentralized power in my previous post then I open last month's Wired Magazine to find that very idea in their Fix The Grid series of articles.
I've been thinking about it for some time, now, and I think it's not only a good idea, it's our only idea. Repairing the infrastructure is something we won't do until it's literally on fire. We're not a very proactive species (just look at petroleum), but small-scale problems, like large price increases in electricity, could be enough to motivate us to small changes in our way of life.
I think that a nationwide distribution of small-scale solar, wind, and tidal generation could be done for a cost measured in billions, as opposed to the trillions probably required for a revamp of the grid and all its plants. It could also be deployed faster. A grid revamp would, again, be measured in tens of years, whereas the small-scale project could be measured in mere years.
Obviously, wind, solar, and tidal won't solve all our power woes. We will still need to invest heavily into new plants, I vote nuclear, but this plan would likely take enough strain off of the primary plants and grid to make repairs to them something we could do over decades with no worries.
As such, distributed production is our only viable option.
(UPDATE: 15 Minutes Later) NPR has a fantastic interactive map showing how and from where our power comes.
The capacity of power plants is signified by the size of the dot on screen that represents the plant. Well, we hear wind and solar advocates frequently discussing new plants and installations capable of generating MEGAWATTS (oooooooh). This map reminds me how many of our plants are measured in gigawatts, with a "g". Almost all of them are either nuclear or coal, with the Grand Coulee Dam being one notable exception, which I think is our largest plant... just checked Wiki, it is.
It's obvious that centralized solar and wind is hopeless as a primary form of power. We have two choices on this map, coal and nuclear. So which is worse, a small chance of a core meltdown, or a guarantee of shit being pumped into the air?
There's a big debate going on about how to best handle the power problems facing the country. Some people say coal, others say nuclear (including me), while others still say to focus on solar and wind.
Still, the gorilla in the room is the power grid. It's old. It's falling apart. It' literally can't handle what we need it to handle. So why not simply take the grid out of the equation?
If we change from a centralized power generation model to one where lots of small plants generate the power, we no longer need a super-powerful grid. The weak grid and continuous-generation plants can simply back up the intermittent power from solar and wind. Every town has a wind turbine in it, and larger cities can mandate solar panels on the roofs, and smaller turbines on tall buildings. It's ersatz to a true solution, but we could deploy it immediately and relatively cheaply.
A few posts ago, I talked about how the internet is opening amazing new possibilities in media distribution. Old walls are disintegrating and a new era of almost-democracy in entertainment is being, painfully, born.
That birth is painful because the old companies who made all their money controlling the previous business model don't want things to change. And why should they? They were emperors in their time. No movies or music was made without their say-so, and the valuable transmission channels for that media made them filthy rich.
I was perusing YouTube for my Angry Suburban Music, specifically Nu Metal (helping white people feel badass since 1994), and I came across the video for Korn's Y'all Want a Single, and it just about says what artists, even hit artists like Korn, were feeling. I'd embed, but it's disabled. I guess Korn doesn't fully understand, either.
I can't blame them, even Sir Paul McCartney is pretty clueless.
UPDATE like, three minutes later: The blocked embed wasn't Korn, it was Sony/BMG. Regardless, I found an upload that isn't blocked.
Enjoy! And remember my fellow privileged white people, stay angry!
Here be an article about Wolverine. I mean the new movie Wolverine. It's one of soon-to-be-many X-Men backstory movies coming out and a mini-crisis has erupted over its leakage to the intertubes.
This is my first post on the subject, but it's been long-discussed with anyone willing to listen to me. The current media environment of piracy is not bad. It's new and filled with possibility. But, of course, Fox and all major movie studios have reacted to the Wolverine leak by increasing security and getting more paranoid.
Considering increased security, rampant lawsuits, oppressive laws, widespread and extensive campaign contributions, and about a dozen different forms of control technology has done nothing to stop or even slow the spread of file-sharing, one must really wonder when old media is going to get a clue.
They continue to rage against the darkness even though they are surrounded by unlit candles. Their old business models are dying, and since they insist on tilting against this elephantine windmill, they must ACTUALLY think that they can stop things from changing.
For example, let's say they are 100% successful. We never have a leak like Wolverine, again. Also, let's assume that file-sharing does in fact have a significant detrimental effect on movie revenue. All they will do is stop the effect on opening day. Because after opening day, a camcorder copy will appear online. A week later, a DVD rip from a screener. By the second weekend, hundreds of copies from different sources will be lighting up the interpipes.
Moreover, we are at a point in the development of the movie business where the bulk of a movie's profits are made not in the theater, but from EVERYTHING ELSE. For example, Spiderman 3 took in $336 million, but cost so much Sony wouldn't even say. Estimates ranged from $250 to $350 million. www.the-numbers.com puts the price at $258m, but Radar Magazine and Rotten Tomatoes put total cost at over $500m. Worldwide gross for Spidey 3 WAS $890m. But from that, you have to deduct the cost of marketing for each territory.
Now I can understand the studios are scared, since that opening weekend is critical to them. As The Economics of the Movie Theater over at the Movie Blog discussed, for big releases, the studio can take upwards of 100% of ticket sales for that first week. But over half of Spidey 3's take was after the first weekend, with around 30% happening between weeks 3 and 16, where the studio's take of ticket sales decreases to a point below 50/50. Which all means that, even though the studio makes buckets on opening week, we can only guess that around 70% of the total gross eventually goes to the studio, meaning that for costs possibly in excess of $500m, they earned $623m globally.
Basically, Spidey 3 broke even in the box office. Perhaps turning a profit in the single percentages. But Spidey earned buckets with merchandise, and $120m in DVD sales in its first four months on sale. Importantly, the "collectors set" of Spidey 3, and the Spiderman Trilogy collectors set both hit the top 10. If "the movie" was all that mattered, people wouldn't have bothered buying these.
What I'm saying is that studios have been kinda/sorta using theater showings as an advertisement for later sales for years, even this NY Times article from 1987, over 20 years ago, talks about how studios never make profit from the theatrical release.
The world is changing, and honestly, for a media company the future couldn't be brighter. If they stopped looking at this situation as an enemy, they'd see that it's fantastic marketing that's a whole lot less expensive than releasing a movie theatrically. Especially with a movie like Wolverine, they could release it theatrically, where it will be best experienced; release it free with toys, games, and other merchandise; engage the consumer with live discussions about the movie's production and with new, downloadable content; use the free movie to advertise package deals that people can buy that include dinner, the movie, and light, easily-produced Wolverine-related media like shorts, cartoons, or character backstories.
This new world breaks the chains of the old business model, and the fact that the studios aren't drooling over the possibility does nothing more than evince their short-sighted incompetence. When they die and allow better, smarter companies to move in, the world will be better off.
One concept I consider in justification is the number of potential realities associated with a statement. For example, let's say I think my dog has just talked to me. What is the possibility that explains my experience as true? The only option is that my dog actually just talked to me. But the number of alternate theories is manifold: schizophrenia, drugs, trickery and special effects, a ventriloquist in the next room, mis-hearing, etc.
The problem with this is that almost ANY proposition has a greater number of alternate theories than what appears true. Even something simple, like “this apple is red.” The only theory that explains it as true is that the apple is actually red. But it could be white in red light, or green in purple light, or I forgot I'm wearing red-colored sunglasses. The numbers on the alternate side are smaller, because the statement is so simple, but they still outnumber the truth theory. I think Occam's Razor was invented solely to deal with this interesting dilemma.
In light of this concept, I find the manifold religious theories to be immensely problematic, especially for those who are true believers. Because many of them believe that the right religious belief, usually theirs, is critical to the correct life and a successful afterlife. But the stunning number of religions must make this scary. If you are wrong, you're fucking screwed. I wonder how people are able to rationalize this problem.
I've talked before about my belief that art is much more important than many "practical" or "scientific" people are likely to say. While the truth of the world, whatever that may be, certainly won't be found in art, people perceive the world in artistic, interpretive ways. Art is reality vis a vis the human. As such, I think art as far as humanity is concerned is at least of equal importance to more abstract, harder sciences like physics and chemistry.
As such, what we call art is pretty important. How do we define art and what makes legitimate art or ersatz art. Indeed, is it even possible to have ersatz art?
I've always felt that art as art is the opposite of poetry. Poetry is eliciting images with words, while art is eliciting words with images. While they could both be considered "art," I don't say a beautiful poem is artistic, I say it's beautifully poetic. Both poetry and art are forms of expression in a totally human way. Truly, art can only be human, since whatever we find communcative does so on an emotional level, and our emotions are an evolutionary construct unique to us. We have no idea what an alien species would consider art because we don't understand their condition.
The art OF something is any non-quantitative analysis of an endeavor. The art of talking/flying/fencing/war. Anything that is quantitative necessarily becomes science or at least science-like.
I don't think there really is such a thing as bad or good art, only what underlies the art can be good or bad. Two books are fundamentally different, it's just that one book can be a hollow, inane story while another can be a complex masterpiece. The underlying message is what matters and how complex and well-communicated it is.
I guess to what degree skill allows the expression of those underlying ideas could be considered to be good or bad art. But that doesn't really make it better "art," it just makes it a better painting, and a good painting can have a great deal of, or next to no, artistic merit.
But the skill with which the former is exercised must always be taken into account, so in that sense, ersatz art can exist. But it's not specifically ersatz in its creation, since its creation might have had no artistic motivation at all. The art may exist in interpretation alone.
For example, I read two abstract poems. Neither is grammatically or syntactically coherent. It's chaos in words. But one is poetry, the other is nonsense. The first was written by a master of the language, who has proven in the past to write beauttifully coherent poetry. The second was garbled nonsense written by someone who doesn't even speak the language. Art and poetry are both expression, and if the artist or poet doesn't have the requisite tools for expression, than it can't be art.
But say I don't know the second poem was written by someone who doesn't know the language. I may read it and find it to be a powerfully moving poem. Even though the end result is the same, I don't think it's art. Art is expression, not interpretation. I can have a moving experience looking at a grand vista, but that's not art. It's not human. If we put the onus on the interpreter, anything can become art and render the label useless.
But back to assertion that art is the usage of imagery to elicit words. I say words as opposed to emotions because our world, truly our very selves, are constructed of words. While happiness and fear are both abstract emotions, we operate on our interpretations of them and application of words as labels to fully define each emotion. For example, fear and elation, physiologically, are very similar. Similar levels of neurotransmitters and hormones, but our interpretations of each emotion are radically different.
It is true there are underlying "truths" behind those words, but we don't operate on those. We operate linguically, with ourselves and with others. I don't deny that a human could operate roughly as a human without language, but the few examples we have of children being raised without langugage to structure their minds and worlds show them to be the proverbial wild children. Language allows us to construct a complex network if beliefs, apply labels, and then integrate new things into that system based on rules assocaited with the labels.
While we have vague emotions that may be difficult to apply words to, I think art's ability to communicate, and how good the art is, must be measured by how well words can be applied to it.
In the Wikipedia entry on art, it says that "a cup, which ostensibly can be used as a container, may be considered art if intended solely as an ornament." I actually think that this restricts art in such an un-needed way. Art is nothing more than communication, and in that sense, any human creation has an artistic element to it because no matter how rigid or objective the creator may try to be, they are still trying to communicate something with the creation.
That cup is artistic because all cups communicate something. For example, the cup on the left. It's highly ornamental. It is artistic. But why is it artistic? What words does it elicit? The closer we can get to a generally accepted set of words, the more effective the art has been at expressing what it's trying to express. I see "luxurious," "leisure," "wealthy," "decadent," "royal," and a multitude of other words. That's how I frame my interpretation of the cup. I use words. And whether I like the cup or not is super-subjective. If I want to feel rich, I may like it. If I hate rich people and listen to lots of Rage Against the Machine, I'd hate the cup, but it can't be denied what the cup communicates. It is, in that sense, perfect art. But it also highlights how incredibly subjective even that is. For example, why does the cup communicate those things? It does so because of a shared history. We all understand decadent European and classical history, which this cup elicits. For someone not aware of that, the cup may still communicate its being expensive, and detailed, and wealthy, but perhaps not the undertones of decadence and royalty, or of classical culture. As our culture becomes more global, the shared artistic language will probably allow greater universality of these artistic concepts.
Now let's look at the cup to the right. No grand details, or metal accents. It literally is just a cup. But think about the designer and what words the cup elicitis. Simplicity. Humbleness. Directness. An almost clinical level of cleanliness. This is the cup of a man who wears a perfectly pressed suit to work every day. That is the cup the designer wanted to make, or else they would have designed it differently. Even something seemingly simple communicates ideas when the human condition is applied to it. As such, there is art in every cup. If a cup is used as an ornament, like in the Wikipedia entry, then whatever artistic quality is in it insofar as it communicates words is added to its quality of being a cup. So its nature as a cup is now used to communicate something artistic in the endeavor. For example, I make a decadent cup like the first example and it communicates ideas like wealth and royalty. I then take those cups and glue them to a female mannequin, now, not only do the cups express wealth, they express being a cup. Now my art can be seen as expressing a woman's need to appear rich and able to entertain. This new usage of its nature as a cup to express art doesn't negate that it has artistic qualities separate from being a cup.
Moreover, my earlier example of a non-speaker using a language to write abstract poetry doesn't apply here. A designed cup must be understood be its designer. It's impossible to have an abstract cup. Because if the artist creates something abstract, like Barbara Hepworth, and I find I am able to use it as a vessel for storing fluid, it doesn't matter because the artist never called it a cup. Just because I can "interpret" it as a cup, as in use it to store fluid, that doesn't mean it's a cup. It can still elicit words. For example, a curvacious abstract piece can appear feminine and human, and elicit words like "sexy," or "relaxed." It's still art. It's just not a cup. And those interpretations requires a more basic understanding of the human condition. It requires an understanding of human form, as opposed to the trappings of more advanced human life, like dishes.
Still, the important factor in all of these is what words the art communicates. If the art can't be broken down into words, its effectiveness as art is limited. That's one of the problems with abstract art, and why we have comical cases of five-year-olds selling paintings for thousands. I'm not saying that there is no artistic merit to the works, it's just that when we obfuscate expression under chaos, it must be tightly controlled to be communicative. Moreover, only very broad concepts can be communicated. You can't hide details in chaos; they get lost.
Art is an expression of the human condition. The human condition is defined by words and labels; It's how we organize our world. Thus, art must be defined by words and labels. And so my defition of art as using visuals to elicit words.
April fools is an interesting day. I had been thinking about it because of the now infamous Conficker virus and how so many people were convinced it was all a hoax because of April Fools. In fact, I JUST talked to someone who thought it was a joke that no one has owned up to, yet... It's April 13th! She thought this because Conficker was kind of a no-show. Nothing really happened. Although, things are happening, just nothing apocalyptic.
I just find this all interesting because April Fools day is the only day when the entire population actually exercises some sense of incredulity or skepticism. On any other day, whatever people read in the paper, it's true. On April Fools, NOTHING is true. In that sense, on that day, people are the most philosophical they're going to be in the entire year.
The Obama administration has released its new CAFE gas mileage requirements for auto makers, and they're pretty intense. 39 mpg for cars, and 30 mpg for trucks.
