Month: July 2009

by Conor Friedersdorf

An interesting report on the best way to ensure safety at schools. I'm agnostic on this topic.

by Conor Friedersdorf

Jack Dunphy writes:

The real tragedy of this episode is that the genuine danger faced by blacks in America is not posed by racist police officers but rather by other blacks, particularly blacks armed with guns and lacking any moral constraints on using them. Black men make up only about 4 percent of the nation’s population, but in 2004 they accounted for 35 percent of its homicide victims, a figure I suspect has changed little since then. And the great majority of these black victims, as Mr. Gates surely knows, are killed by other black men.

But such facts just aren’t “box office” for Mr. Gates, who feigns indignation at his arrest but must be inwardly gleeful that his victim ticket has now been punched, courtesy of the Cambridge Police Department.

Several aspects of Mr. Dunphy's argument puzzle me. It is certainly a tragedy that many black people are murdered at the hands of other black people, but why is that "the real tragedy of this episode"? Whether or not it was justified, what does the arrest of a black Harvard professor on disorderly conduct charges have to do with the black murder rate?

Mr. Dunphy is right to assume that Professor Gates knows a great majority of black murder victims are killed by other blacks. So what? Why does Mr. Dunphy expect that a man being arrested in his own home — rightly or wrongly — would use the incident to draw attention to the utterly unrelated issue of black on black violence? What exactly would've been the transition in that press conference? "After being arrested today, I just want to say that black people should stop killing each other." Huh? I suppose if Mr. Dunphy thought himself wrongly arrested he would choose whatever social problem regards as most destructive for whatever racial group he belongs to and inveigh against it instead?

As an empirical matter, I agree that the black on black murder rate is a bigger threat to black Americans than racist police officers (I am not implying that the Cambridge officer is a racist). Again, I fail to see the relevance. A pregnant woman is most likely to be killed at the hands of her lover, and many more are beaten — in fact, a pregnant women is far more likely to suffer domestic abuse than to be wrongfully arrested by misogynistic cops. Should a pregnant woman arrested for disorderly conduct therefore refrain from complaining about the police, and instead inveigh against domestic abuse, since that is "the genuine danger"?

In fact, there is no one "genuine danger" faced by any group of people. Both being murdered and being wronged by racist police officers are dangers that blacks in America face — and for a specific black person, which danger is greater depends a lot on where they live, how old they are, etc. As an LAPD officer, Mr. Dunphy is surely familiar with the documented instances of racist cops in his own department, a distinct minority of officers to be sure, but a minority that's nevertheless famously sent some black men to the emergency room and others wrongfully to prison.

And insofar as there are racist cops who are mistreating people in black communities, the effect is to poison the relationship between whole neighborhoods and the police departments that serve them, something that exacerbates the murder rate by making it less likely that even the majority of good cops get the cooperation they need to solve cases — and making black juries less likely to believe testimony by white officers against actual murderers (see Mark Fuhrman).

Finally, there isn't sufficient evidence one way or another to conclude that Professor Gates "must be inwardly gleeful that his victim ticket has now been punched." The assumption that he feels that way is rather odd.

A festival goer laughs as she walks through the main arena at the WOMAD music festival on July 24, 2009 in Wiltshire, England. World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) is an organization founded in 1980 by Peter Gabriel, Thomas Brooman, and Bob Hooton and is hosting its 27th UK festival.WOMAD currently holds festivals in over 20 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, UK, U.S. and many European countries. By Matt Cardy/Getty.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader of Nico narrates a scene from Iran:

This video is from the city of Kerman (I am unsure when it was taken but it was posted yesterday) and shows demonstrators clapping for and giving flowers to security forces (Nirooye Entezami) who are coming towards them – I guess this is an ingenious way to stop them from getting beaten up. How can you beat someone who hands you a flower?

This is the slogan they chant: "Nirooye Entezami, Hemayat, Hemayat" – meaning: Security Forces, Protect us, Protect us…..

At the very end they chant: "Nirooye Entezami, Tashakor, Tashakor" – meaning: Security Forces, Thank you, Thank you….

by Chris Bodenner

Okay, this is the last thing I'll air on Gatesgate: Jacob Sullum reads the police report and spots a damning detail in the cop's actions:

Notably, Crowley invited Gates to follow him, thereby setting him up for a disorderly conduct charge. "I told Gates that I was leaving his residence and that if he had any other questions regarding the matter I would speak with him outside the residence," Crowley writes. He claims "my reason for wanting to leave the residence was that Gates was yelling very loud and the acoustics of the kitchen and foyer were making it difficult for me to transmit pertinent information to ECC or other responding units." But instead of simply leaving, Crowley lured Gates outside, the better to create a public spectacle and "alarm" passers-by. The subtext of Crowley's report is that he was angered and embarrassed by Gates' "outburst" and therefore sought to create a pretext for arresting him.

The charge against Gates was dropped. But what are the odds that it would have been if Gates had not been a nationally famous scholar with many friends in high places, including the president of the United States? Instead of showing what happens to "a black man in America," the case illustrates what can happen to anyone who makes the mistake of annoying a cop.

by Chris Bodenner

Pitch-perfect. (And hopefully the end.)

by Conor Friedersdorf

In an investigative piece worth reading in its entirety, David S. Bernstein of The Phoenix reports on movement conservatism's moneymaking machine. I've written before about ethically dubious right-wing organizations like Human Events that sell out rank-and-file conservatives.

Other examples are offered in Mr. Bernstein's piece, which I encourage you to read in full. An example to whet your appetite. It concerns talk radio show host Michael Reagan:

He has teamed up with David Bossie — a Republican operative so sleazy that, when Bossie was a top Clinton-scandal investigator for House Republicans, Gingrich had to fire him for having "embarrassed" the effort.

Reagan lends his name and face as "co-founder" of, among other things, Bossie's Presidential Coalition. That PAC raised and spent about $6.5 million in 2007–'08 — 80 percent of which came in contributions of less than 100 dollars, according to federally filed documents.

Of that $6.5 million, three-quarters was spent on fundraising and follow-up with contributors. (Much of it was reported in campaign-finance documents as "survey" work, but was actually telemarketing, conducted by Presidential Coalition's fundraising vendor, under a separate name.) More than $400,000 of the rest went to salaries of Bossie's Citizens United nonprofit — mostly to Bossie and his cohort Michael Boos.

After rent, insurance, and legal and accounting fees, that left less than $150,000 — about two percent of the contributions — to put to actual use. (Compare that with the American Association for Justice PAC, which raised a similar $6.2 million in the 2008 election cycle, and gave $2.7 million of it to candidates.) Most of that $150,000 went (either directly or through other PACs controlled by Bossie and Boos) to a couple dozen candidates, mostly conservatives running for state-legislative office in Virginia, where Bossie and Boos live.

This is not unusual. In fact, of the dozens of organizations for which the Phoenix reviewed recent filings, a great many appear to have very little function other than convincing members of this conservative constituency to send them money (very little of which actually goes to furthering any ideological agenda).

Would the rank and file conservatives who give their hard earned money to these organizations do so if they actually understood how and where it was being spent? I am skeptical! Folks like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Bill O'Reilly, Erick Erickson, and others are routinely claiming that unlike Inside the Beltway elites, they're looking out for the interests of regular Americans, especially those who self-identify as conservatives.

Will any of them bring this valuable information to the attention of their audience, and inveigh against the folks who are misspending their money and squandering resources that would better advance movement goals if spent in other ways?

by Chris Bodenner

The more I read about the details of the case – as well as the overreaction of all parties involved, including Obama – the more I agree with this reader:

I’m very uncomfortable with the unspoken position that The Daily Dish has taken on the Gates issue, which is that professor Gates is the victim. Personally, as someone with a conservative disposition I believe that Harvard professors should be able to maintain composure and behave professionally even if their feelings are hurt.

Ironically, if you believe the official reports, Gates appeared to be the one who jumped to a racial conclusion – that the officer was racist – rather than the cop jumping to a racial conclusion – that Gates must be a burglar because he's black. The professor was belligerent from the very beginning and never seemed to give the cop the benefit of the doubt. (But still: arresting him?)

The reader also expresses something that is not often discussed with solemnity in society:

Beyond this immediate issue, many posts have me thinking about how many black people are frequently upset because they believe they are unfairly targeted by police officers. When this happens it is surely an indignity and I can empathize. I have run in to some nasty cops in my life and I know the helpless rage. The media give a stage to people with such complaints, which is good. But what about the daily indignities of white people?

I know you won’t print the following and I know you’ll only make more people angry if you do, but as a white man I frequently feel that I am treated with disrespect and hostility by black people. And then there have been times in my professional life when I thought black employees were behaving unprofessionally, but I was scared to say anything because I thought I’d be accused of racism. When the president of the United States defends someone who appears to have behaved like a teenager it makes me fume inside because I keep my composure when I’m treated rudely and I don’t open my mouth and insult people without certainty. These daily indignities are not vented on grand media stages, but are quietly complained about in private.

In my mind there is no equivalency here, but the reader does raise a good point: there is, and never will be, a white equivalent to the N-word, but "racist" – when unsubstantiated – comes close.

(I'm being somewhat of a hypocrite by continuing to air arguments about the Gates incident, since I felt the story was overblown and counterproductive from the beginning. But thoughtful counterarguments from such readers are good for The Dish.)

by Chris Bodenner

The tension is killing me it:

Revenge from lernert Engelberts on Vimeo.

by Conor Friedersdorf

As promised, I'll now readdress "the neg," a technique whereby men strategically criticize women they're attempting to pickup. Prior posts I've written on the subject are here and here. I'll try to intersperse my thoughts with some fascinating reader e-mails. This will be my last post on this subject, so I'm going to include lots of great stuff you've contributed — do click through below the fold. (Note to proponents of the neg: Your chin looks funny. Would you like to read what's below the fold too?)

One Dish reader writes:

While the use of "negs" certainly sounds unseemly, I cannot think of any substantive difference between men who try to attract women by complimenting them and men who try to attract women by doing the opposite. While "being yourself" is a laudable objective, many men will stray from that ideal when courting a woman (and, for that matter, many women will do the same).  If we accept that digression from the ideal is a frequent occurrence, why do we hold the latter group of men in such low regard and not the former?   Clearly, either group becomes a caricature if taken to the extreme: the latter are represented by awkward guys who "alpha up" through the Mystery Method and the former are self-absorbed preeners who regurgitate saccharine pick-up lines.   But used in moderation is either approach really any worse than the

other?

The difference is that while compliments or put downs can be either truthful or disingenuous, only put downs lower the self-esteem of the target. In most contexts, it seems obvious that it is wrong to gratuitously put people down for selfish ends. Why is dating different? That some men cannot understand this really boggles my mind, and makes me suspect that they aren't even thinking of women as being people (interestingly, some of these men seem to think of women as less than human, and others as superhuman). Every man can imagine how he would feel if a woman approached him at a bar, assessed his dress or some physical feature, and breezily made some cutting public remark: "You dress like a guy who has a small dick." Yet numerous correspondents seem utterly unable to imagine that women might also feel badly if criticized this way.

Scott writes:

The whole premise of "Negging" the "target" is to put a woman off guard, because in theory, attractive women are so used to men fawning over them that someone who actually challenges them will be seen as interesting. That's basically a shallow end of the explanation of dating psychology.  However, a guy having confidence, being excited and interested in his own life, not immediately showing himself being intimidated, and being playful and teasing someone he meets… nothing in particular about that sounds all that negative or off-putting. 

The problem with "The Game" is it's used to teach a particular set of behaviors, instead of teach guys to actually see themselves as worth dating.

A college senior named Alex writes:

I think that what a lot of the criticism of dating as a "game" and the deception involved assumes is the rather archaic notion that women hang around waiting for their white knight and assume that every one-night-stand is a prelude to a house with 2.5 kids in the suburbs and a future of domestic bliss. Indeed, some of the most debauched stories of pickups I've heard come from my female friends. If you are simply going out on the prowl for no-strings-attached sex, how else can you treat it but as a game? This is not to say, of course, that women enjoy being manipulated, but just that often they will be out looking for the same thing and anticipating that wonderful give-and-take that is the essence of flirtation and all those things that people have been doing upon being attracted to each other for millenia. Maybe there's a crass form of it that offers no enjoyment to one of the two parties, but I know I find it thrilling, for example, when a woman has enough wit and confidence to deflate my ego in a rather spectacular way.    

On a similar note, isn't the idea that the "neg" is some sort of device that exploits natural female vulnerability kind of sexist in itself? That most women are so insecure and dependent on the opinions of strangers that a passing mild insult from a stranger in a bar is enough to drive them into said strangers bed? Most of the women that I know (and yes, the plural of anecdote is not data, but still) would respond to a crude verbal swipe at them in the same way they would respond to a crude physical one, and to a artfully crafted and witty remark to them the same way they would respond to a similarly graceful move.

Two quick responses. Comparing "the neg" to a crude physical swipe, and saying that many women are capable of deflecting either as readily, isn't a defense of the tactic at all! Moreover, if I concede that some women find these kinds of put-downs thrilling — I'll do so for the sake of argument — the problem remains that a guy out approaching strangers in a bar cannot reliably distinguish between that kind of woman, if indeed she exists, and the kind of woman who'll be quite wounded by a deprecating remark made about her by a stranger.

Kit writes:

…as part of my technical degree, I had to take some business and social courses to make sure that I was someone leaving with the university's seal on my diploma as a well-rounded individual.  The class I'm referring to was Sales & Salesmanship.

The professor opened the class on day one saying that being a salesman isn't an inherently evil or immoral thing.  What you're there to do is to match people with answers, find the solutions to what they're looking for and put them together.  You can't sell something to someone who is completely not interested, and the same holds true for pick-up artistry.  Just as a car salesman is selling cars, a pick-up artist is selling himself as a partner for a sexual encounter.  If someone is truly not interested, it won't happen; the "game" is seeing whether or not it can be made to happen… 

If pick-up artists want to use morally shallow techniques for getting sex, so be it.  They're not forcing themselves upon people, and quite frankly if people want to have casual sex, I think we've moved past the point as a culture where we feel like we have to moralize about it. Yeah, they might be assholes in person, and psychological manipulators, but they're salesmen selling to people who eventually buy.

But those who use "the neg" concede that the pickup techniques they use succeed in part because they are unabashed about getting shot down many times in a night before they find someone for whom the technique works. Thus "the neg" is used on many women who are insulted but unsold, and who haven't any intention of having casual sex — which isn't to say I agree that a woman who wants casual sex is therefore outside the realm where people should behave morally toward her. I don't!

Scott says he acts as a kind of superhero against "the neg":

I've found that these guys don't know what to do when you crash their game by interrupting them and telling the girl what's going on – explicitly, and then walk away. Ignoring doesn't work, since I've walked away, and their game is exposed so the "male neg" is shattered. Since most of these guys are, well, the kinds of guys who read books to pick up girls, they won't do anything about you cockblocking them. At worst, they'll just approach another girl, maybe making sure that you see them this second time.

I suppose it goes against guy-code to cockblock a guy, but I find the neg particularly offensive because of how disrespectful it is of women. I see it as a psychological abuse. Anyway it's kind of fun to blow up these guys' games, and then go join my girlfriend of two and a half years.

Steve writes:

Despite all of the anger about the internet, it's a great tool for the disenfranchised. After going through a rather bad break-up, I found a website called "The Angry Nice Guy". While the author advocated more of a national divide in dating (i.e. American girls are bitches, go find yourself a nice european/asian girl) it led me to find a great deal of online literature about how to stop being a "Nice Guy". Roughly speaking, Nice Guys are those that are pushovers, that essentially become doormats to the point that girlfriends get bored or disinterested in how interested, and perhaps commited, their boyfriends are.

Among the many interesting reads was the "neg hit". Long before I heard about it as a Pick Up Artist technique, I had it explained to me as a way to start looking at your partner as equal. To many young men fall head over heels in love and view their girlfriend as infallible. While we shouldn't knock women off an imaginary pedestal out of spite, the neg hit can be used as a way to start seeing that girl you admire as more of a human being instead of a goddess.

I dunno, Steve, I know a lot of nice guys who aren't pushovers at all. The two qualities seem distinct to me.

A. writes:

Since the concept of "negging" has taken a more personal connotation, I think it would be fitting to provide an example of why assholes like me enjoy using it.  The benefits of the "neg" is seen in the subliminal parts of the communication.  So allow me to use an example to help illustrate my point. 

The concept of a neg is to breakdown behaviors that might communicate something you wish it not to intend.  Acting like a gentleman might make a guy look like he's pushover (emphasis mine).  So when I'm with a girl whom I've treated like a princess with my gentlemanliness, I usually give a quip along the lines of, "This doesn't necessarily mean I like you" (it's an old line, I know, but for the purposes of the discussion I'm using it).  The neg is that I'm not being a gentleman just for her to feel like a princess or that I'm thinking of cashing in on it at the end of the date.  I'm being a gentleman because I am a gentleman which allows me the freedom to act the way I am without making it seem I'm trying manipulate the date to get something from her, i.e. me being noticeably nice for sex. 

So you're using a manipulative psychological technique in order to demonstrate to your date that your gentlemaniness isn't grounded in manipulation?

He continues:

Here's another example.  You're out with a girl, and she starts explaining how she broke up with her last boyfriend.  To get her past that, I usually tell her she fucked it up but do it with a smile.  If she doesn't get that I'm joking and looks confused, I'll tell her.  But I tell her this because the last thing I want to do at that moment is to become a relationship therapist and enable her to rag on some poor guy I don't even know, at a time when I want to enjoy the moment with her by sharing fond stories of each other.  Usually I'll guide her into one by asking about something that might make her sound adventurous.  The personal elements will come out on their own so why not have fun with it?  And because I point blank told her she fucked it up the last time, I'm trying to communicate that for what it's worth I don't really care how she did in her past relationships.  It sends the signal that I don't care about her character flaws because I made it superficially known with the way I "negged" her AND I don't care about them.

The "negging" concept though has become a lost art with people who want to show off their egos as machismo individuals, but all they're doing is neglecting the tactful behavior a man should show.  Girls love guys who seem to feel good to be in their own skin, and usually assholes who neg for the sake of negging play that role quite well, but after a while those who donned that mask through techniques will be challenged to take the mask off or the relationship will slip and fall away.  If there's one thing to note from "negging" it's that the guys who do it right are subtly communicating more than just the words the say, they're opening of a line of communication between two individuals who think that they get each other and wish to play the game of verbal banter to get to the least subtle point of when the sexual tension in the air is too obvious to ignore. 

So no "negging" by itself can easily be seen as a form of misogyny which it is when used by people who don't know how they play a part in conversational skills.  It's the way the picture has been cut that has made this one concept misogynistic and low brow.  But what has been neglected is the subliminal stuff being communicated which is let's put our character flaws aside for a moment and banter a bit.  It's like joking with your friends, just a bit more playful and sexual in the verbal banter so dates become more interesting than going through the same old personal interviews during dates.  

I know I still sound like an asshole, but life is just better when you stop pussyfooting around issues.

Hmmm. A subliminal, subtle, psychologically, manipulative conversational tactic as the more straightforward approach? "Pussyfooting around" seems direct by comparison! In the situation described, why not just say, "I'd rather not talk about your last breakup — what are you looking for in your next boyfriend?" Or, alternatively, "Yeah, breakups are tough. Do you like roller coasters?"

Chris writes:

All I can say is: I'm a puppydog.  I have nary an edge to me when quality women are involved.  Women make me happy, very few other things do, and I get excited when I find a good one.

But when as soon as I feel comfortable and I drop the formality and the big doofus of a puppy dog comes out, I lose the girl.  Completely.  Doesn't even pick up my phone calls.  And everyone I've known that didn't get a wanted girl is guilty of that crime on top of any others.

This is what makes me think you're so quick to dropkick the "neg" that you're not seeing the forest.  The neg, if done without any actual offense ("Your lipstick looks odd" is a not-friendly observation, not an offensive remark), is explicit evidence of formality in the relationship.  Formality helps establish credibility and breathing room, which are as necessary to a relationship as communication and being forthright.  I also believe that by setting a baseline, your attempts at appreciating someone are more evident amongst the myriad suitors heaping roses after dollars upon a woman's altar.

Advice: being yourself from the beginning might result in fewer relationships begun — but it'll also result in fewer relationships lost.

Mark writes:

I really can't understand the outrage about any of this.

It has always been true that the most successful people at pickups are narcissistic sociopaths.  But they aren't so good at forming positive long term relationships for obvious reasons.

Men and women have always discussed ways to find the best potential mates, and it will always be so.

As someone who tries to be nice to everyone, what disturbs me is why this kind of thing works so often.  I think it comes down to the old Groucho Marx line – "I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member."  When it comes to forming relationships, people tend to think that they can always do better so they get bored with anyone who shows too much interest or kindness.

Albert writes:

Amongst my friends who are married, the happiest ones say that they married their wife because, in their words, "she called me on my shit." And I think that is where the Neg is so important… For those like me who are desperately trying to find someone that can see through the BS, the Neg helps me to understand the mentality of the woman I'm meeting. If it works as prescribed, I fall back on my beta side and end up having a great conversation with a woman I wouldn't want to date. If it backfires, it is usually the result of insecurity (hers or mine). If it ends up where she's interrupting my own pattern, I'm head-over-heels, and those rare conversations have led to the best relationships I've ever had. The reason they're the good relationships? Because like the happy husbands, "she called me on my shit."

As much as it bothers you (from a purely male evolutionary perspective, competition in sex, and 'losing' that competition, takes an emotional toll), I would challenge you that nearly any woman who would fall for it is not exactly the type of woman with whom you'd like to have to make a major life decision. So, do as I do — embrace the Neg and enjoy being someone who knows the difference between having an unnamed woman to wake up to on a groggy Saturday morning and having a woman with whom you can share honest intimacy. The Neg isn't a bug in the dating game, it's a feature.

The fact that a woman "isn't the type" you'd like to date seriously doesn't justify psychologically manipulating and insulting her!

Matt writes:

What a crazy subject, man. What is or is not okay in dating is the subject of more hypocrisy than anything else in life, even politics… I once had a female friend go on a rant to me about a mutual friend of ours that had confessed he had a crush on her, her calling it a betrayal of their friendship and complaining that men can't think about women without wanting to have sex with them and how it disgusted her. Now the fact that she was ranting to another male and obviously excluding me from the guilty party (men) was not the real hypocrisy of the moment. The real hypocrisy was the fact that I was driving her to meet up with another mutual friend who she had a crush on and was hoping to hook up with that night. You never mind someone making a pass at you when you want him or her to.

Time and again I've watched as people that I know are guilty of indiscretions with the opposite sex have held forth with great indignation against someone else who has just done the very same thing. I try to tell people, "judge not lest ye be judged", because no one is innocent in dating.

I don't like what pickup artists do, but in my experience they're only getting away with it because the women involved, on some level, want it to happen. I don't know how much to blame the scumbag guy for that. As far as taking the advice of a pickup artist, I always try to advise people that if what you want is a romantic relationship, you shouldn't listen to someone who uses contempt of the opposite sex as his or her shield for pursuing the narrow goal of instant gratification. There is more going on than tactics when a man uses "the Neg" or a woman applies "the Rules"; there is a mindset about the opposite sex that doesn't readily admit respecting and admiring its members – qualities that are rather important to good relationships.

J. writes:

I don't date. My wife and I moved in together at 18. Twenty years later, that's the one decision we've never doubted.

So take with a grain of salt … but I'll try defending 'the neg.' There's nothing nonconsensual about 'the neg'. One person acts like an asshole, and if the other person responds positively toward assholes, maybe they'll get together. I'm not sure why that's such a bad thing. If we flip the genders, does this seems less odious to you? Is it a chivalrous impulse? If a woman wants to pick up a man, and finds that insulting him fans the flames of his interest, would you find that as offensive? I bet not.

I don't know. I've seen women do some pretty despicable things, but never that particular thing.

And Sonja, one of my favorite e-mails of the bunch: