More victim-blaming and patent idiocy over at The Root

Rihanna reportedly took a peek at Chris Brown’s PDA and set off the course of events we’ve been reading about for the last few weeks. With all the different reports, I’m all kinds of conflicted and disgusted overall by the Chrianna incident, but one thing I’m sure of: if you love someone, you don’t read their text messages.

This gem came from Jimi Izrael over at The Root.

I'm still trying to figure out whether this is some kind of Onion-style joke. Because the man can't really be this clueless. This has to be the most flippant, overt case of victim-blaming I've seen since this thing began. If you want to write some pseudo-analytical little blurb about why you don't want women reading the messages on your phone, I suppose you can go ahead and do that. But don't use a horrifying attack perpetrated by a man against a woman to preface your stupidity, managing to blame her for said attack in the process.

I can't even spend any more time on this mess. Go on over and read it yourselves, and come back and let me know if it really was meant as a joke. Because I can't imagine that grown men who call themselves progressive don't know better by now.

LolTimes: 10 Most Expensive Vacations

Reader Camel sent this Times story with Barbados topping the list of 10 most expensive places to vacation. She says, "I think they're lying," and I'm inclined to agree, at least if not lying, that they're being disingenuous. Their calculations are based on a basket of vacation goods. This basket costs over £150 in Barbados: £55 more than it does in the number 2 country on their list, Mexico. The exchange rate they use for Barbados is wrong (it is closer to 2.80 to the pound than their 2.58), and as for the list of vacation goods, well, I have some responses:

-Cup of coffee, Bottle/can Coca-Cola:
Many hotels have free/price-inclusive breakfast drinks. Besides, you aren't likely to be knocking back 3 cups of coffee a day in 28 degree weather. Plus, um, Diet Coke is actually cheaper in Bim than it is here. Ssh.

-Bottle of Heineken:
Drink Banks!

-Bottle of mineral water:
The tap water is perfectly drinkable, and locally-bottled brands are much more affordable than say Evian or Volvic.

-Factor 15 suncream and Insect repellent:
Just buy this crap at the chemist's or in the airport. As Bajans would say, bring it from home (or walk wid it)!

-Three-course evening meal including bottle of house wine in a local restaurant:
They say that for this you can pay £135.52. Of course you can. You can pay a lot more than that if you feel like getting rid of your money. But you can also pay a lot less.

This article is such inconsequential, poorly-researched rubbish. It's amazing what people are paid to write. That is all.

Snyder's Watchmen almost redeems him for 300. Almost.

One of my neighbours and friends from primary school was that child your mother made you hang out with because she was friends with his mother, who was worried that he didn't have any friends. I wanted to tell my mum that the boy seemed perfectly happy squirreled away in his room inventing secret languages and building radios from paper clips and bits of gauze. But that was one of those pick your battle things. Besides, he turned out to be alright: he introduced me to chess and to Watchmen comics. Chess never really was my bag, but Watchmen was comic book genius: the perfect deconstruction of your average, pretty-boy superhero and the good/bad dichotomy in which he operated. And Zack Snyder's 2009 film adaptation does a decent, albeit flawed job of replicating that idea.

If I were to write a real review, it would end up being an analysis of all the things the Watchmen novel got right, and how they are or are not mirrored in the screen adaptation. I would still be here typing tomorrow, and you would all wonder if I've gone completely off my gourd thinking that anyone wants to read such a giant pile of blah. Instead, I'm going to talk about the things that struck me about the film, so they'll probably seem like random thoughts, but that's what you people get for not wanting to indulge in the true range of my brilliance.

All the elements that make the Watchmen comics/graphic novel the best of the genre - the disturbed superheroes with no obvious super powers (except Dr. Manhattan); the alternate historical reality; the politically astute and satirical narrative - are more or less present on the screen. But there can be no doubt that they are infinitely better represented in the novel. I am a firm believer that the comic form, particularly one as pioneering as Watchmen, is not meant for film adaptation, especially without careful attention to the nuances of the structure, art and composition of the source. This is why Sin City was, in my mind, such a colossal failure. So taking for granted that there are certain given limitations, there were some things that the film did not do well, but there were also a few elements that I quite admired.

The role of the soundtrack in this film is crucial: each track is not only well-chosen to portend the scene that is to come, but it acts as a bit of a stamp to signal a new "frame" or "page". I'm pretty sure I wasn't imagining that, and it worked brilliantly. The music was used to help replicate the kind of pacing of the drama that the nine-panel grid would have achieved on the page, and was also a satire in itself, like the ridiculous, hippie Sounds of Silence at the hippie-shooting Comedian's funeral. The slow-motion opening sequences that served to establish the background for the original characters were also well executed. The limited screen time devoted to them mirrored the lack of public attention and outrage for the ways in which the characters were disposed of, especially striking in the case of the hate-crime murder of Silhouette.

I quite enjoyed too the use of light and angles, casting and costuming to try and replicate those heavy pencil strokes that we would have seen in the novel. I don't know that it worked, but the effort was noted. I always thought (not as a child, but later) that the hard lines were meant to lend to the hard edge of the characters as compared with other superheroes. The characters have considerably less edge on screen, except perhaps for Jeffrey Dean Morgan's The Comedian and Carla Gugino's Silk Spectre, which - along with Patrick Wilson as the second Nite Owl and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorshach- were my favourite performances.

I wasn't that crazy, however, about Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II. Aesthetically, I suppose I see why they cast her, although she wasn't who I imagined. Akerman's body has some interesting, strong lines that help convey the sexy but not outrageously voluptuous Silk Spectre form to the screen. But as such an important character to the on-screen story, Akerman's acting should have been at a higher level. On the page, the story itself is less important than the links among its different parts, but on screen, it's a whole different ball game. And we need the characters' performances to help us enjoy and make sense of the plot. We can't go back a page or read it again: they only have one shot to bring it home, and bring 'it' home Akerman did not. Between the awkward sex scenes and the vapid stare, 'it' is still out there somewhere, lost and gathering change for a taxi.

I also really did not care for the prison riot scene, which I didn't recognize as fitting in anywhere with the original Watchmen. In the original, the prisoners are not your one-dimensional bad guys: they are also victims of a degenerative society, borne out by the fact that they are the innocents wiped out in Ozymandias's last stand. In the film, however, what with all the sawing off of arms and silly blockbuster mayhem, that subtlety is lost. The point at which Silk Spectre and Nite Owl join Rorshach's dark side is painted as simply a rescue mission of one of the Superfriends, when it is really meant to be the point at which the two characters come face-to-face with the type of violence begotten by their own violence. And from here, well, it all comes undone, and the film starts to feel exceptionally long and improperly edited because they start to tell the story in a different way. The Comedian's awful confession to his nemesis - which is meant to represent a convergence of the methods of 'good' and 'evil' to prove that the two do not that simply exist, and is meant to anchor his own shooting of demonstrators with his violence against the two women, the killing of prisoners in the riot and the final annihilation in New York into a common thread - instead seems weird and out of character, and all the potential irony is lost. By the end, all of the tragic, moral agonizing has been stuffed into Ozymandias's final blaze of glory, so that you're not so much steadily fed the ironic message as you are whacked over the head with it and kicked out of the theater. Of course, by this time, you're glad to leave because you're sure the sun has started to rise and it's time for breakfast.

There's a lot more that can be said about this film, but overall, after the drawn-out, sensationalized gigantic bore that was 300, Zack Snyder did a whole lot better with Watchmen. Sure it wasn't meant for the screen, and all its political and philosophical anarchy are difficult to 'get' off the page, but Snyder did justice to most of the film. And if he had only stayed the course, instead of being just a good film, it could have been brilliant.

Nerds of the World, UnPi(e)!

To begin with an aside, being a nerd is now a cool thing, and has been for some time. So you people out there who say in your fake self-deprecating way "I'm such a nerd", which really means "I am such an enigma in the way I manage to be cool, hot and insanely smart all at once", you're not fooling anyone. Also, the fact that you watch Battlestar Galactica doesn't make you "such a nerd"; it makes you someone who watches Battlestar Galactica.

That said, today, 3/14 is Pi Day! (And also Einstein's birthday.) I'm not sure what you math nerds out there do in commemoration. Do you learn a few more digits? Play Pi Ball? If you're stuck for activities, websites like the ones above have no end of suggestions. I'm no mathhead, though many of my friends are. I hated it at school, but having had to learn to at least be civil with it as an economist (in fact, I fell in love with Econometrics. Who woulda thunk?), I realize that the issue was probably less about me and more about how it was taught, and how students are often encouraged to either be artsy or sciency. I'm interested to see that there's a Resolution in the US Congress "to recognize March 14th for its mathematical significance as Pi (3.14-ish) in an effort to promote the importance of math and science education to a knowledge-based economy and American competitiveness."

The resolution itself is somewhat hilarious in places. I think it's the 'whereas'. Here are some snippets:

Whereas the Greek letter (Pi) is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter;

Whereas the ratio Pi is an irrational number, which will continue infinitely without repeating, and has been calculated to over one trillion digits;

Whereas Pi is a recurring constant that has been studied throughout history and is central in mathematics as well as science and engineering;

Whereas mathematics and science are a critical part of our children's education, and children who perform better in math and science have higher graduation and college attendance rates;

Whereas aptitude in mathematics, science, and engineering is essential for a knowledge-based society;

Whereas Pi can be approximated as 3.14, and thus March 14, 2009, is an appropriate day for 'National Pi Day': Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) supports the designation of a 'Pi Day' and its celebration around the world;

(2) recognizes the continuing importance of National Science Foundation's math and science education programs; and

(3) encourages schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.

And I loved this interview with Larry Shaw, technical curator emeritus and former physicist at the San Franisco Exploratorium which claims to have invented the celebration 21 years ago. Incidentally, there's also a Pi Approximation Day on July 22 (22/7).

He's wearing a skirt! After him!

What the...?

Homophobia and intolerance are reaching new, saddening, embarrassing and absurd heights in the Caribbean.

In recent weeks, Guyanese police have been arresting male cross-dressers.

Last month, a Guyana magistrate fined seven men GY$7,500 (US36dollars) for wearing "women's clothes", an offence under local law.

It also happens that the "wearing of female attire by men" is also forbidden.

I am so tired of Caribbean politicians hiding behind 'preservation of morality' as an excuse for not bringing their countries out of the Dark Ages with respect to human rights.

Guyana's health minister, Leslie Ramsammy, told BBC Caribbean the issue of laws that impact on homosexuality was a sensitive matter for politicians in the region.

He said he didn't think the Caribbean public was ready for major changes in this area.

What a cowardly, bullshit excuse that translates simply to "We need to preserve the status quo in order to get re-elected." I love my Caribbean, but I would not for a minute object to donor organizations and governments placing aid freezes on countries who do not adhere to the human rights conventions to which they are signatory. Perhaps then, these spineless politicians will realize that their duty is to serve all citizens, not just the ones who behave in the way they like.

Hating mothers: the new American pastime

Along with shoulder pads and shiny jumpsuits, mother-hating is having a banner year. Madeline Holler's Babble article 50 Moms We Love To Hate is a strange kind of witch-burning festival that isn't tongue-in-cheek enough to make it seem harmless. That is to say, if Holler was trying to satirize our obsession with having opinions on the way women mother, the satire isn't effective enough that people wouldn't take it seriously. (At no. 50, she names one of the moms we love to hate as "Moms who hate on other moms", but it's at the end of the article, so it comes off as kind of a 'Haha fooled you!' after the damage has been done. We don't think that the writer necessarily actively hates all these women, but she doesn't exactly distance herself from the hostility either, so presumably she's doing her share of mom-hating as well.)

Just like Maxim's Unsexiest Women and Least Appealing TV Women and Women Too Ugly to Live (oh wait, was that not one?) lists, this one encourages us to hate women on the basis of their (only) purposes as women: eye candy or incubator of humanity. Somewhere, someone is right now compiling a list of 30 Women Whose Meatloaf Sucks Most.

Holler's list is an antithetical mishmash of women who, according to our idealist notions of motherhood, are either getting it very wrong, or getting it too perfect for anyone to possibly compete. In a time when the way we perform as mothers is up for judgment by all - when absent mothers are blamed for emotionally unavailable men, single mothers are blamed for criminals and overbearing mothers are blamed for the gays - it does seem like a list of offenders would be the next logical development. I think the pillories are coming soon.

Unsurprisingly, the revoltingly-nicknamed 'Octomom' Nadya Suleman tops the list, with Angelina Jolie in second and the prolific bearer of offspring Michelle Duggar at number three. Notice the trend? You must have kids, but not too many. Otherwise, you're just being smug and greedy. Women should only be reasonably fertile.

All the stereotypes of why women are supposed to hate other women are also represented here. Apparently, we hate Heidi Klum because three weeks after giving birth she was back on the catwalk: "She explained her lack of flab as "good genes." We hate that she just won't tell us it was surgery", and Kelly Ripa disgusts us because she's a hot, privileged mother who 'pretends' to mundane tasks like laundry. Will no one stop this insanity? Will no one speak up for those of us who enjoy seeing happy, confident women going about their business not ashamed of being hot? Not all of us despise attractive women and take pleasure in people looking like crap. So please keep your pitiful schadenfreude to yourselves.

Offset the effects of your strained marriage with power-walking and celery

As those of us working within feminist economics have been saying for some time now, the economic work of reproducing and sustaining the population from within the domestic economy is not an inelastic, constantly renewable input. That is to say, women, who are in general tasked more than men with unpaid care work* in the home, cannot, unsupported, continue performing this work indefinitely and not have it adversely affect their health and well-being. And such negative effects mean that women's unpaid work will not necessarily be there no matter what, as policymakers often take for granted.

Add to this a strained marital relationship, and the prognosis looks even worse. That is, at least, according to a study presented to the American Psychosomatic Society, which finds that

Women are more likely than men to suffer damage to their health from being in a strained marriage.

US psychologists found wives in tense marriages were prone to risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. In comparison, husbands seemed relatively immune from such problems.

The factors the study sought to assess were those related to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of related risk factors for heart disease, diabetes and other health issues.

But the researchers are of course not suggesting that those in poorly functioning marriages seek to lower these risk factors by working on their marriages or dumping their husbands. Because that would be absurd! Their suggested fix? It will look familiar: diet and exercise.

Professor Tim Smith, who co-led the research, said there was good evidence that a healthy diet and regular exercise could reduce a woman's risk of metabolic syndrome.

However, he said: "It's a little premature to say they would lower their risk of heart disease if they improved the tone and quality of their marriages - or dumped their husbands.

So, following their interpretation of the findings, if your bad marriage is killing you, trying to fix it or getting the hell out is not necessarily as indicated as say, going for a run and eating a salad. Treat the symptoms and not the cause, people. You heard it here first.

* "I'm not reading all that crap". Of course you're not. Just scroll down to the graphic on Page 6 and you'll notice the 'depletion of human capabilities' from the domestic economy, i.e. the household.

Listen to soca? Congrats, you're a moron

CalTech graduate student Virgil Griffith has come up with the very poorly conceptualized Music That Makes You Dumb, which, using SAT scores as a proxy, correlates music tastes with intelligence. His methodology is to compare test results with people's favourite bands as declared via social networking sites, and the result is, as would be expected, absurd. Griffith calls them 'hilarity incarnate': apparently, suggesting that listeners of non-American/non-White forms of music (who are themselves often non-American and/or non-White) are intellectually inferior is pure, knee-slapping fun. I would normally not comment on this kind of pseudo-intellectual, self-congratulatory nonsense, but I wanted to show my readers this: cast your glance towards the 'painfully stupid' end of the scale. Recognize that four-letter word? Yep. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but if you listen to soca music, you are stupid, stupid, stupid.

Now I'm going to ignore most of the problems with this analysis - which are many - as I'm sure you guys, soca-loving though you may be, can figure them out straightaway. They have to do with definitions, the problems of using self-declared data, sample sizes, assumptions, lion and tigers and bears. Oh my.

But even accepting the widely-contested notion that SAT scores are a decent indicator of intelligence, the fact is that most of the Caribbean students I know who took the SATs (and these were many, since I used to teach secondary school) enjoy soca, and they all basically dispensed with the SATs as if they were a word search puzzle. With very little preparation, they took the test, scored high (anecdotally, almost everyone I knew scored above 1250), and got on with life. One might argue that were greater percentages of Caribbean students to take the SATs - if it were to be considered an academic rite of passage there as it is in the US - the results would be different, since those who do seek the test out are already the academically-minded ones who plan to obtain advanced degrees. Perhaps so, but the numbers who do take it still represent enough of a sample to make Griffith's findings bullshitary.

And notice where reggae falls? And jazz? The boy done lost his mind. If you want to take an unscientifically-rendered piece of research, declare it as such, and then have a laugh about it in the proper context, great. But don't present it as science. That just makes you dumb.