Resume, Cover Letter, DNA

In an unprecedented move, the University of Akron is requiring that new employees should be willing to give their DNA to administrators. One adjunct faculty member has already quit over the issue. Scott Jaschik reports:

Laura Martinez Massie, spokeswoman for Akron, said that the university would not comment on the resignation of [Matt] Williams. She also said that to date, the university has not collected DNA and has no plans to do so, but is "merely reserving the right to do so."

Declan McCullagh digs deeper:

It's true that the University of Akron's DNA-testing policy isn't designed to weed out potential employees with, say, a gene linked to breast or prostate cancer that could make them more expensive to insure — which is what [the 2008 Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act's] drafters were most concerned about. Instead, the school's ultimate purpose is the more conventional one of a criminal background check.

That doesn't matter, says Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsive Genetics in New York City. "GINA specifically prohibits employers from requesting or requiring genetic information," Gruber says. […] Gruber believes that, in theory, there may be a way for the Akron administration to implement its policy in a way that complies with GINA: "If the university had sufficient handling safeguards to demonstrate that they were collecting biological samples and sending the entire sample on to the federal government for testing without taking any steps to analyze the sample they might not be in violation of GINA." But, he adds, if the FBI relies on fingerprints for background checks, why is a DNA sample necessary?

Some Weather We’re Having

Morgan Meis defends the most banal of conversation topics:

The weather is superficiality at its essence. Except that the weather matters. It is the fundamental tool by which nature adds flavor, color, mood to the variety of our daily experience. Nature is mechanistic in its functioning, tied to the laws of physics that give it rules. But it speaks to us in feelings. The light of a day is "like this." The shadows of winter make the world one way: brittle maybe, precise. The angle of the sun makes the world of summer another way entirely: smeared across the afternoon, vibrating.

That's why so many Romantic artists like the weather. They know that the weather does not make the world, but it does make the world "what it's like." So, the Romantics enjoy writing about the weather, and they enjoy painting the weather. They are cloud watchers and rain walkers. They wait for the light to be just so.

After Dede

What's next? Ambers:

Where do the rest of her votes go? CW says that most go to Hoffman, but I'm with Jonathan Martin: I think half go to Democrat Bill Owens or they stay home. GOP registration exceeds Democratic registration by nearly 50,000. This is a Republican district that is likely to remain Republican, — only significantly more conservative than it's been.

Within the GOP whatever nerve anyone had to resist the imprimatur of Erickson, Malkin, RS McCain et al is surely gone now. If a moderate cannot survive even in up-state New York, it's over.

Blood In The Water

Scozzafava’s statement, as she attempted to remain a Republican candidate, while actually supporting abortion rights and marriage equality:

In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I’ve come to accept is that in today’s political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I’ve been outspent on both sides, I’ve been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record. But as I’ve said from the start of this campaign, this election is not about me, it’s about the people of this District. And, as always, today I will do what I believe serves their interests best. It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so.

I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my Party will emerge stronger and our District and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations. On Election Day my name will appear on the ballot, but victory is unlikely. To those who support me – and to those who choose not to – I offer my sincerest thanks.

No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who’s supposed to be the reasonable center.

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they’re doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base – where a moderate Republican in New York state is a “radical leftist” – this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.

A Gay Voice Against Marriage Equality

You have to search high and low but Andrew Breitbart tracked one down (one Charles Winecoff). Read the piece for yourself. It's a strange mix: mainly hathos at victim-mongering liberals (no big disagreement here); and an argument that gays should simply accept the cultural norms around marriage:

The traditional definition of family remains sacrosanct to most Americans, and has since long before the Stonewall Riots brought gay rights out of the closet.  There’s nothing wrong with trusting in the conventional notion of the nuclear family, just as there is nothing wrong with being openly gay.  These two belief systems need to learn to COEXIST, as the bumper stickers say.  And that requires a two-way street.

“But Spain allows gay marriage – and that’s a Catholic country!”  So what.  Spain doesn’t have three hundred million people living in it.

But seeking equality surely is a way for the two belief systems to coexist. Not a whit of heterosexuals' rights and privileges and families is affected, after all, and most of us who support marriage equality do so because we admire the stability that marriage gives straights. More to the point, Winecoff supports full and equal rights for gay couples under the law:

Should lesbians and gays who want to make a home and raise kids be discriminated against from the federal level down?  Of course not.  Should committed gay partners enjoy the same benefits as married heterosexual couples?  Absolutely – and as far as I can tell, in a growing number of states, they do (and if they don’t, trust me, they will).

So why am I defending the Mormons?  To crib from Flip Wilson, the 8MP trailer made me do it (which may indicate how effective the movie will be when it finally opens).

To my mind, this is Breitbartism. It is not a principled conservatism; it is a cultural anti-liberalism so deep it forces people to take positions they otherwise wouldn't. No one should take a position on civil rights because a movie trailer made them retch. Seriously. That's not an argument; it's a posture.

In Praise Of Online Food Shopping

Cheesy-poofs

Mark Bittman daydreams about the future:

[Y]ou could ask and be told the provenance and ingredients of any product you look at in your Web browser. You could specify, for example, “wild, never-frozen seafood” or “organic, local broccoli.” You could also immortalize your preferences (“Never show me anything whose carbon footprint is bigger than that of my car”; “Show me no animals raised in cages”; “Don’t show me vegetables grown more than a thousand miles from my home”), along with any and all of your cooking quirks (“When I buy chicken, ask me if I want rosemary”).

Jonah Lehrer takes a different tack, lauding the Internet for removing the "hot" stimuli of junk food:

[W]e can ignore that pint of Haagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche when we're only looking at a picture of it. The stimulus has been cooled off by the online shopping experience – it's an abstraction, a mere image – which allows us to make more responsible shopping decisions. […S]omeone should do a carefully controlled study looking at how our online supermarket decisions differ from our in person supermarket decisions. I'd bet that we make healthier choices when those tasty snacks are just photographs, shrunken to fit our computer screen.

Halloween In DC

The holiday is celebrated a bit differently in the nation's capitol:

Any thoughts on what this year's top Beltway ensembles will be? "Olympia Snowe" dressed as Hamlet–or covered in waffles? "Roger Ailes" carrying around a shopping bag containing David Axelrod's scalp? "Anita Dunn" carrying a bag containing Ailes's? "Liz Cheney" as rabid werewolf? "John Boehner" with miniature Eric Cantor dolls buzzing 'round his head? I personally am voting for The Public Option. (Suggestions for execution welcome.)

I'd also like to plead for a moratorium on costumes involving Glenn Beck, Rahm Emmanuel, tea bags, and death panels. And, above all, please, Lord, spare us legions of Tom Delays in cha-cha pants.

But more Gosselins! And Levis!