Argyle Socks

Condilicious

2007-03-17T06:17:25Z

Invalid video URL." class="ljvideo">

i remember taking a class where one of the black republicans said that she was frustrated because her school was looking for female role-models for the kids during black history month. she suggested condi, and NO ONE on the committee would support her choice. she was very frustrated, because she thought the black women on this committee had very narrow concepts of what was encompassed by a black identity. "dr. rice is one of the most powerful people in the modern world, and an excellent role model for young children."
well- i think that the conversation about "how black is black enough" has been beaten to death; particularly since obama threw his hat into the ring for the presidency. so, that's not what i'm interested in exploring here.

what i do want to highlight, however, is that no one would ever parody cynthia mckinney with a nelly furtado song. why? because mckinney is unambiguously black. rice, on the other hand gets mocked with a fergie song. what does that prove? i think the answer is clear; condoleeza rice has no soul.

Take Away Point: Before she sang with Black-Eyed Peas, Fergie was on Kids Incorporated.

I LOVE Black Church Folks

2007-03-03T06:30:50Z

Take Away Point: His pastor and someone who could play a Hammond may have been a better choice than these two.

Laaawd Hamercy!

2007-03-03T06:13:10Z

Chiiiiile... I don't even know what to say.

Well, except that I must have watched this about 35 times!

Big up to Travis for saying, "Girl, I know you must be busy- you haven't done anything with your blog!"

Well- hallelujah anyhow.

my_argyle_socks @ 2006-12-19T16:24:00

2006-12-19T21:27:25Z

So You Wanna Fight A Pimp?

2006-12-15T04:07:37Z

I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfucking P-I-M-P.

Take Away Point:
If you are rushing a white person and they don't run from you- stop and rethink things.
You might be about to get KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT!!

High IQ Link to Being Vegetarian

2006-12-15T01:13:18Z

Vegetarianism has been linked to better heart health

Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.

I used to be a vegetarian. Then I stopped that shit! I'll still accept that it means I'm smart though.
Can anyone speak conclusively as to whether vegetarians taste better? I know they tend to smell better. And, I think that I read somewhere that vegetarian semen is less bitter. But, I've never tasted semen, so I have no idea whether that even makes sense! And, I don't remember where I learned it, so it may have been a bumber sticker, t-shirt, or the inside of a bathroom stall. ???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6180753.stm

Take away point:
Eating meat makes you dumb. (statistically proven fact!)

This is why I procrastinate!

2006-12-14T23:33:25Z

Invalid video URL.
Thanks suzanne! Now I'll never create policy alternatives to effectively remedy racial profiling. The criminal justice system will have to remain entrenched in its history as the enforcement mechanism of racism/capitalism used to terrify and contain Black folks. I have at least 20 different pictures that I want to try out!!
http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=0d6d68c95e878c90d8f793cG06121414

I can't figure out how to post it here, so you're gonna have to click the link. Then you can go elf yourself!

Take away point:
I'm buying my Halloween Christmas-costume from Office Max!!

The N-Word

2006-12-14T17:39:58Z

Michael Richards has highlighted how blurred the lines are distinguishing racist jokes and jokes about racism. Different people will hear different things; some a reinforcement of racist beliefs, others an exposure of the absurdity that undergirds racism. Chappelle, Silverman, Baron Cohen, and others are modern variants of Pryor and Lenny Bruce, that stretch back along a continuum of comics that use humor to offer scathing social commentary.

Is it right? Is it wrong? I know that their material directs our attention and focus onto issues that are painful and confusing. Because these issues are so hard to think about, and because we don't have nearly as many venues as we need to adequately support our thinking and rethinking around how to engage and address systemic oppression, the reactions evoked by someone engaging the absurdity of oppression's logic and conclusions will produce a rage of responses: terror, rage, shame, relief, amusement, and confusion to name a few. Some will interpret the experience as conferring the authority to rehearse their racism in more overt forms. Others will interpret the experience as one that clarifies and exposes just how irrational and brutal the racism is that we have imbued into our daily lives.

Although there are a wide range of responses and reactions, it is these two polarized experiences that form the nucleus of contention and debate around acceptability and appropriateness of joke about oppression. I don't know where I stand, because it's been my personal form of humor for as long as I can remember making humor my own. In our senior year of high school, the yearbook listed predictions of where we would be 20 years out based on opinion polls of the students. I would most likely be "still telling white people jokes."

It makes me laugh, because even then i couldn't think of a single "white person joke", but I could think of countless instances where I had used humor to engage and expose racism and other forms of mistreatment that my friends and I had suffered.

At the end of the day, i think that jokes about racsim are powerful tools to engage something that can be overwhelming and painful. It can also be treacherous, because people like Michael Richards can confuse it as public license to brutalize. Insofar as jokes about racism further instill racism, and racial violence (in all of its forms), I stand opposed to it, and can understand Paul Mooney and company removing the N-word from their material.

I, however, use the word. I don't use it as a punchline, but I use it when I'm talking about the impact of racism, to communicate the fullness of racism's savagery and horrors. Basically, I'm just trying to say I thought the clip was funny.

Take away point:
"Nigger" = truthiness about the savageries and horrors of racism.

Sounds like the rhetoric of social policy

2006-12-14T16:31:47Z

Maybe, maybe not- but the colors are pretty.

2006-12-14T15:47:25Z

My Personality


Neuroticism	17
Extraversion	48
Openness To Experience	77
Agreeableness	74
Conscientiousness	83

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report
Find your soulmate / pysch twin

Ugg Boots, MySpace Surveys and MySpace Surveys by Pulseware Survey Software

Curly Hair and the Evolution of Species

2006-12-13T01:09:18Z

So I was standing in line at Starbucks behind some woman with really beautiful long curly hair. And, I started trying to remember whether curly hair was a dominant or recessive gene. It’s dominant. Then I started thinking about dark skin, dark eyes, unattached earlobes (are webbed fingers/toes recessive or just rare?) and the whole litany of traits that we mapped in jr. high school biology. No big deal, until I started to consider the role of physiological adaptation in the process of human evolution. Absent the environmental context that shapes human development into new directions, these changes are simply genetic mutations; rather than adaptive mutations that arise in communities of humans through processes of selective breeding. So, if you take these mutated genetic constructions and pair them with the chromosomes from humans who continued to thrive in the environment that gave rise to humans in the first place (i.e. the environment most supportive of human form, as evidenced by the fact that humans do not need to adapt in order to thrive) the original genetic expression would be preferred. This is nothing more than genetic dominance.

My point. As I stood in line waiting to order my black and white raspberry mocha, I wondered if genetic dominance is a trace of human evolution; mapping the development of our species. Dominant traits therefore would be phenotypes that point us toward reconstructing how the original humans looked. Right? Archaeological evidence already taught us that human civilization began in Africa. More recent technological advancements have enabled the path of human migration to be traced through genetic markers on the Y-chromosome (each male’s Y-chromosome is an identical replica of his father’s Y-chromosome, so mutations mark a man’s descendants forever), and we have discovered that there were 2 migrations out of Africa. The first went from Africa and followed the coastline along the bottom of Asia, and ended in Australia; landlocked in Oceania. The second migration, which was prompted by the most recent ice-age about 50,000 years ago, went from Africa to Asia, Europe, North America, and then South America. All this we know.

So, I’m curious, as I sit here sipping liquid caffeine in a sugar base, are dominant and recessive genes relics of our evolutionary story which point us toward the original form of our species; functioning completely independent of environmental contexts? The original form when paired with a mutation is hard-wired into our genetic mapping to be preferred.

I don’t know. Just a thought.

Take away point:
Procrastination is a beast to control, because I'm here to write a paper on the role of economic, social, and political factors in the public policy formation process...

What do you mean by "sport"?

2006-12-12T18:31:20Z

So... cupstacking. It looks kinda cool. It's mildly amusing to watch for about 97 seconds. And, much like golf, I'm sure it's a lot more fun to play with cups than to sit around and watch other people play. Okay- got that much, but what is this lady talking about? Improved hand-eye coordination, ambidexterity, and tracking that translate into other competitive sports like baseball and basketball? Uhm- sounds like something you put on a grant proposal to get funding so that you can buy equipment like matching t-shirts for practice and competitions, and you can't forget a Janet Jackson microphone. It's mission vital when it comes to being an elementary school PE coach and you have to say "okay... Start!" to kids who are at least 9 feet away.

There are implications for improved self-esteem, as you circumvent delayed gratification and kids can be world champs at the age of 9! I want to learn how to do it, just so that the next time I accomplish some major feat, I can say that I attribute my success to the skills that I learned as a speed cup stacker! And then I would have everyone in the room put on an orange t-shirt to match what I was wearing.

Take away point:
"Pretty much anybody can do it... if they have a great teacher."

How I KNOW I'm smart!

2006-12-11T14:07:33Z

I have 2 comprehensive final today. One is in economics, full of Greek letter symbols, and graphs representing these equations that I will have to produce and utilize. The other is in a public finance where I will have to write at least one essay tracking the history of budget reforms for the federal government, spanning 6 iterations of budgeting structures- being able to explain the characteristics, limitations, and utility of each. Who REALLY understands the difference between Tradition Performance Budgeting, Program Planning Budgeting, and Performance Based Budgeting? Really?

Well, among other things I learned all of that yesterday. How do I know I'm smart? Because, last night, rather than studying, or at least sleeping- I stayed up until 3am creating this site (that I can't even tell that i have any use for!) So, now I'm exhausted and I still don't know everything for my finals, but at least I have a blog.

Why am I doing this?

2006-12-11T05:29:19Z

I have no idea. 2 days ago I sat with a friend explaining how I have no use for a blog; especially if it's just a journal-style update of my life posted on the net. What a waste of time! It's kinda like my grandma, who has a computer but no real use for it. At least as far as she's concerned. It feel like something I should be able to recognize as useful, but don't care enough to figure out.

Well... 2 days have passed and here's my Live Journal blog!!

So, from time to time something funny happens to me. I used to write up an e-mail and send it out to folks. But now, for posterity sake, I'll record my life's updates here. Since everyone knows that the funniest people in life are the folks excited about taxation! I'm fairly convinced that anyone who has access to the internet is a good candidate for reading about my personal musings; particularly people in internet cafes where you pay by the minute.

This may be a blog of a single post 4 months from now when LJ decided to purge my account for inactivity, or I may figure out that blogging has some utility in my life. We'll see.