Tablesaw!

How did I get so far in my puzzling life without learning that numbers can't be repeated in a single cage in a Killer Sudoku?

I was talking with trinker about political correctness and being "honest" about racism. It was inspired by her post in which she made this response to someone suggesting that they'd rather people expressed bigotry more openly.

Strongly disagree. (So strongly that I don't have enough words to express my vitriol toward the concept, and rely on words of calm and reason.)

Allowing expression in the name of "not being PC" defangs the entire structure of being able to confront the problem of -ism from its roots.

It puts the disprivileged in the position of swallowing the -ism "unless it's bad enough".

And "bad enough" tends to be a standard that becomes harder and harder to meet as one grasps for proof that it *is* -ism and not just some random ass being a random ass, such that the only thing one can complain about is if someone is dead and the body is marked in large clear letters with "I KILLED THIS PERSON BECAUSE THEY WERE $category".

I do not think this is what you intend.

I was thinking about a response, but then Trinker cornered me on IM, and I dumped out a lot of what I was thinking. With her permission:

Tablesaw:

I was just thinking that one of the main functions of "political correctness" as invoked by social conservatives, is to nullify the evidence of social change.

Trinker:

expand pls.

Tablesaw:

It's very similar to the color-blind narrative of affirmitive action. When we start to see non-white, non-male people hired into positions of power, the narrative becomes that they were hired because of "affirmitive action."

Since people take cues from social situations, this narrative tells people to discount this evidence because it has been coerced.

None of those people are getting these positions because they deserve them, or (heaven forbid) because they were more qualified than other applicants. There is always a white man who deserved it more, who's been deprived of his due because people are scared.

The same with "political correctness" and language.

Trinker:

ah. I am going to start a new counter-narrative, of the incompetent white guy who got in by nepotism...and suggest that people consider seeding those, to see if it helps the "PoC affirmative action" card.

Tablesaw:

You don't need to change anything about what your or thinking. Because even though everyone around you is changing the way the act, they only do it because of political correctness. They're scared of the PC police. They're obviously not saying what they really feel.

Or they're pandering to those people so that they can get something.

Either way, it's dishonest.

Trinker:

..but a person in that headspace is little inclined to believe that racist thoughts are no longer in vogue...

Tablesaw:

Well, I was mostly looking at the effect it had on other listeners.

But it's also a crucial step toward POC are the real racists, just like affirmative action is the real cause of inequality in the workplace.

Trinker:

so...kind of left stuck at what's possible.

Tablesaw:

In what sense?

Trinker:

is the only answer to encourage blatancy? is preferring "PC" constructions harmful?

Tablesaw:

There will never be true honesty in communications like this. I usually see "obvious racism" as a wish for the main ideology of racism to revert from color-blind racism back to Jim Crow racism. I don't think that's possible without a similar structural reversal. I think the nostalgia for that is either because of the increased privilege it held for white people, or because it is seen as a time, for POCs and allies, when threats were easier to identify and combat. But, of course, that's hindsight.

Trinker:

I think that encouraging blatant speech bolsters more racialized terrorism, and that discouraging it is shaving the iceberg...

Tablesaw:

I don't think that "blatancy" is much of a help either. Because most racism/microaggression comes out when people are not thinking, just following percevied sociological cues. These folks never actual think, in their heads, "I HATE BLACK PEOPLE." If there's a secret racism that is being masked, it's at a far deeper level, so encouraging honesty alone is not enough. One would have to encourage people to be more aware of how racist social structure bias their thought and opinions. And doing that doesn't really need any particular blatancy.

Trinker:

YES. thank you, that's the bit I was scrabbling for.

Tablesaw:

As for PC constructions, I think that, at best, they serve as an easily achievable benchmark. PC labels say, "I am grouping you based on racial and other societal structures because that is how our society still works, but I am going to use a somewhat negotiated neutral term to describe that label." I do think that this is a step forward, in general.

It's extremely important for, for example, politicians or reporters who have to talk to and about generalized groups.

Trinker:

Ahh...pushback against PC is also the same as colorblindness valorization. Of course.

I thought that a number of people might want to hear about this story from the Mexican presidential race: Josefina Vásquez Mota is the current favorite to be the nominee of the National Action Party (PAN) for the 2012 election. The current PAN president, Felipe Calderon, is hugely unpopular, and the current favorite for the race on the whole Enrique Peña Nieto, the recently confirmed nominee of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Peña Nieto, facing criticism and ridicule after several recent public fumbles, was asked in a separate interview to name the price of a kilo of tortillas, a standard food base in homes across Mexico, rich or poor. The PRI candidate replied, "I am not the lady of the house," or literally in Spanish, "No soy la señora de la casa."

The phrase was interpreted to mean "housewife" among social-media users and commentators who criticized Peña Nieto for what some called an example of Mexican machismo.

On Tuesday, [one of the country's most prominent female journalists, Carmen Aristegui asked Vazquez Mota, a 50-year-old married mother of three daughters, "Are you a señora de la casa?"

"I am a woman, and as a woman I am a housewife, I am a government official, I've been twice a government secretary, I've been leader of a parliamentary group, I am an economist," Vazquez Mota said.

"And indeed, all of that along with being a housewife, a housewife who knows what happens every day at the dining table and in the kitchen," she went on. "And although we may not be there for many hours, as is my case—and I'm sure your case and many others of us—every night we return to that space of the kitchen, return to check the refrigerator and see if everything is ready or what needs to be bought the next day."

Vazquez Mota also suggested that she stops at markets between public events if anything is needed in her household. Directly addressing Peña Nieto's statements, she characterized them as "pejorative."

"Regarding a price of something, we are not obligated to know everything, but what does seem precarious for me is this disdain, this pejorative attitude toward being a housewife," she said. "We have millions, Carmen, millions, that go out to take care of their children all alone."

—Daniel Hernandez, "Woman candidate in Mexico says she comes home to check the fridge"

Food poisoning over the weekend. That was fun. As with the last time I got food poisoning, I can blame no one but myself, since I wasn't eating out. Luckily, I didn't end up at the hospital this time, but the weakness from dehydration and not eating kept me knocked out for two days.

My stomach's still a little skittish, but I bounced back strong. I'd been feeling a little out of shape before the poisoning, and after spending a weekend too week to open a bottle of orange juice (yeah, really), I've been leaping to get back on the exercise routine.

It's been a great time to be out and about in Los Angeles too. Except for the rain yesterday, but also because of the rain yesterday. It's all cool and crisp again, and it feels like an LA winter should after the cold snap earlier in the month.

I was in the Valley today, doing some preliminary holiday shopping on a day off. The wind has been incredible; it would be a Santa Ana, if it weren't so chilly.

We do have a few trees around that lose leaves in the winter, and those leaves were finally being knocked off the trees, flying up and around across the streets.

At one point, I even saw an honest-to-god tumbleweed roll in front of my car (though it was only about the size of a soccer ball).

It's still going strong, up here in the north valley. I'm pushing back an invisible wall just getting to and from my car.

Got a few geocaches on the way out too. Also, I got my bonus last night. A pretty good day, all told.

Last night I came home with a headache, and I ended up falling asleep early, sleeping with the lights on. That's always disorienting (I couldn't figure out what day it was when I woke up), though I caught up with the sleep I needed, and I'm feeling much better.

Thanksgiving was a quiet day with family and Gelson's food. It's been gorgeous in LA, recently and Thursday was no exception. I got to see my neice again, who is now walking and occasionally saying syllables.

On Wednesday, I saw The Muppets at the El Capitan, which was cool because the El Capitan is the location of the Muppet Show in the movie itself. As we walked in, the audience received wristbands with jingle bells on them, to accompany the stage show of Kermit and Miss Piggy singing winter holiday songs. As the previews began to play, the audience developed a spontaneous tradition of jingling before the preview played, during the screen containing the MPAA rating.

Working the days before Thanksgiving, I was a wreck, though. As my department gets ready to be transferred to the new company, everyone's been trying to run out their sick days before they lose them when we get cashed out. As a result, we've been horrifically understaffed, with more than half the department gone at any given day. Especially when combined with the holiday. I've been carrying a lot of stress home with me. My holidays are postponed until the end of the month, when I'll get a four-day weekend from November 29-December 2.

On Saturday, I went over to Dave's for his birthday celebration, playing The Secret of Mana to celebrate his 30th birthday. It was a lot of fun. I'd been itching to play videogames for a while, but somehow not managing to sit down to do it when at home. Spending a few hours wandering around on an SNES game was just the ticket.

Earlier that morning, I took part in the LA Homewalk for the United Way. Thankfully, it wasn't raining (it would rain on Sunday), and so everyone stayed dry. The most surprising thing was that according to my GPS, the length of the walk was more than the 3 miles/5 kilometers announced. When I was finished, my GPS said 3.98 miles, well over 6 kilometers. That explains why it took so much longer than expected. In all, I raised over $400 for the United Way.

On Thursday, I saw The Language Archive at the East West Players. It was a really good show, and it hit a bunch of emotional buttons for me, between a painful breakup and the loss of language between generations. There was a question-and-answer session after the show, and the director mentioned that among the ten people at one early production meeting, seven had experiences not speaking the language of their grandparents, including Japanese, Korean, Yiddish, and Lakota. The show continues through this weekend, and I recommend it, if you can make it.

Xbox 360 owners!

Now until Wednesday, the Pinball FX2 is giving away a free pinball table to play with their game. Pinball FX2 is also a free download, but you usually have to pay to downnload individual tables to play within it. But for now, you can get one pinball table completely free.

"Paranormal" is a really nice table. I played it today and found it fairly straightforward, for all of its bells and whistles. It's very reminiscent of the classics Twilight Zone and Theatre of Magic.

I'd love to see other friends on the high scores tables, so if you have a chance, get this now.

I've been in my head too much, recently.

No, that's not it.

I haven't been letting enough of me out of my head, recently.

I'm going to try to force myself to do more journaling.

Also commenting. I tend to think that I shouldn't respond unless I have something substantive to say.

I need to remember that "thank you" and "I hope you feel better" are also substantive things to say.

So. Post before bed.



You know, I made this icon so that I would have something I could use when I talk about the show Life. I didn't expect it would be so necessary for my actual life.

Schedules are changing at work, and though that's usually something to worry about, things are working out well for me. My schedule is moving back 90 minutes, so instead of going into work at eight thirty in the morning and leaving at five o'clock, I'm going in at ten and leaving at six thirty.

The announcement was not without drama, of course. Our supervisors made the mistake of telling some people on Friday, but then waiting until Monday to inform the rest of us who were out that day. Of course, the rest of us still came to work on Saturday and Sunday, so the Friday people dropped the bomb first. In fact, one of them had gleaned some information about my schedule from our supervisor, and told me about it on Saturday. Not cool.

But considering that I've been having trouble getting into bed before one o'clock most nights, recently, this should be a really positive development for me.

On Sunday, at the season opener of Dungeonmaster, I saw aimegame before the show, among others. When I asked what she'd been doing, she said, "Racing go-karts!" and invited me to join her and some friends on the track on Monday. I'd been feeling a little under-socialized, so last night I headed out to Torrance to race.

It was my first time in a go-kart, but I acquitted myself well. aimegame had yelled that the only thing I had to do was "GO FAST," and I took it to heart, barreling into turns and sliding all over the damn place. It turns out that my previous experience with drifting in Mario Kart was incorrect: in fact, sliding around curves makes you go slower, rather than giving you a burst of glowing speed. On the other hand, skidding around a corner takes less time than crashing into the corner, and my drifiting kept me from a race-stopping collision with the barriers several times. Though I was in the basement among eight racers in my first match, the second, when it was just the three of us, I managed to eke out second place over aimegame.

What I didn't expect was the toll it would take on my arms. I know I don't have the greatest upper body strength, but after the races, my arms were trembling, and it hurt to lift things, which was a bit much, even for me. It certainly didn't feel like I was overstressing myself while I was racing, but there was a decent amount of adrenaline. Whether the steering actually did require more work than I'd realize, or the rush of speed had simply caused me to grip the wheel too tightly for too long, my arms were wrecked. Between that and some bumping around in the cart that left my back and sides a bit sore, I've been feeling the kart all day.

I'm probably going to join them again, but I might need to work more on my push-ups before then.