How to be sensitive when racial profiling

This really happened:

The Bank of Canada altered an image of an "Asian-looking" female scientist on the new polymer $100 bill because its policy is to not depict people of a "particular ethnic origin," a spokesman says.

The image of the female scientist looking into a microscope, alongside a bottle of insulin and a strand of DNA, was meant to celebrate Canada's medical innovations.

"Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology and/or the sciences," says a 2009 report commissioned by the bank from The Strategic Counsel, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The Western World lives under a PC theocracy, so one must be careful when he brushes up against demonstrable realities. Whether it's an advertisement or a banknote, you can't risk being even casually accurate in your portrayals of select parts of the human rainbow, even when that accuracy means a depiction of something positive (like having the smarts to be a scientist).

To depict people accurately means to commit the sin of "profiling." Ironically, this theocratic aversion to accuracy actually requires that everyone engage in a deeper degree of profiling. Because to avoid the profiling accusation, you must compile an extensive breakdown of the activities various groups engage in to ensure you don't make the mistake of showing them engaging in the activities they normally engage in. You have to then use this profile to show them doing things they don't do to avert the scandal of showing them doing things they do do.

For example, don't make the mistake of showing an Asian with a calculator (not that he would need one). Much safer to show him country line dancing. 

And you shouldn't depict an Indian winning a spelling bee. Instead, show him returning a meal because it's too spicy.

There is an exception to these PC commandments: you may profile a white person by showing him doing things he stereotypically does poorly; specifically rapping and dancing. 

Obey these directives and you’ll be able to safely sail the ocean of unreality that is our society.

White men can't tweet: https://twitter.com/greatMikePayne

 

 

How do you put a price on priceless art? Very easily; you ask someone to buy it.

Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime. In 1990 his Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for $82.5 million. How could there be such a disconnect?

The answer is simple: If no one values what you do, it has no value. You are producing your art (or any product) to be consumed by humans, which is why their rejection of what you have produced devalues it. You may scoff, but stop and think: if humans aren't the target audience...who is? Bugs? Trees? If you think Parisians are a tough crowd, try making a cactus laugh.

In Van Gogh's time, no one had any interest in his work. Forget potential buyers outbidding each other: the guy had to mooch off his brother to make ends meet. After he died, circumstances changed, and suddenly a large portion of humanity fell deeply in love with his work; giving it the value it now enjoys. Van Gogh's contemporaries put the price at zero. Today's humans put the price in the millions. And if some drastic change in taste should occur and there is a backlash against Vincent's paintings, their price could fall right back to zero.

We weep for the great artists who died in obscurity (it is primarily artists we transform from failures to martyrs). We discuss their works now and wonder: How could people fail to recognize the brilliance? But of course there are artists working right this second who will die in obscurity and become famous posthumously. Right now, they can't give their work away (you probably don't even know it exists). Someday that work will be priceless. And someday your children or grandchildren won't be able to believe people like you didn't discover its brilliance.

Poor guy. Literally.

Five new cocktail names that'll give you a buzz just by ordering them

Visit any bar nowadays, dive or posh, and you'll see a drink menu with cocktail names you're grandparents would recognize. As I walk the streets of Manhattan (the city, not the cocktail), I commonly pass bars with sidewalk chalkboards advertising specials for their latest outrageously named libation experiments; Panty Droppers, Dead Nazi, Hanky-Panky, Orgasm.

Well, good news alcoholic readers: I've decided to open my own bar (it will either be called Cures for the Problems of Existence or Once You Go Blackout) featuring my own list of drinks with over-the-top names:

Sex On the Stairs:

6 oz Jägermeister
1 oz tequila.

Adjust according to taste and how sober you must be to navigate said stairs.

The 47-Year-Old Bachelor Who Frequently Visits Miami:

1 oz Crème de Noyaux
1 oz Crème de Cacao
1 oz heavy cream

You'll notice this recipe has exactly the same ingredients as a Pink Squirrel. This is not a coincidence.

The Progressive:

2 oz lime juice
2 oz grapefruit juice
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 oz gin
2 oz Peppermint Schnapps

These ingredients don't blend at all, do they? Silly bigot: don't you know that everything should be mixed with everything!!!

Fake Sophistication:

1 oz faddish wine white
1 oz faddish red wine
1 oz pretentious, hard to find single malt with name even Scottish people can't pronounce
3 oz beer microbrewed beer from a town of no more than 600 residents

For the discriminating faux discriminator who can't decide which kind of alcohol to feign a deep interest in. Half price if the customer orders while lamenting the popularity of the Hunger Games series. 

Final Alimony Payment:

Pink champagne served in a glass shaped like broken handcuffs.

In order to be served a Last Alimony Payment, a patron must provide written proof he's made his last payment, and must be accompanied by no fewer than three prostitutes. Available with or without penicillin.



Belly up to my Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/greatMikePayne

Thought Experiment Involving Mobile, Alabama (no, really)

Everyone says money doesn't buy happiness, especially rich people concerned with sounding well rounded.

But if you were to give people the following choice: switch places with an unhappy rich person living in a mansion in Beverly Hills, or switch places with a happy person living in a trailer in Mobile, Alabama, which option do you think most people would choose? Despite all their claims to the contrary, I think the vast majority would choose Beverly Hills and unhappiness. They cannot comprehend being poor and happy in a Mobile mobile home. They prefer the appearance of "having it all" to the prospect of being content with nothing.

People will return from a vacation in a poor country and rhapsodize about "how happy everyone seemed. Maybe having a simple life makes you more grateful and happy. Maybe we don't really need all this..."

But they never move to that country or adjust their lives to mirror the simpler lives of those "happy, grateful poor people." [Sounds like an REM song. Actually, it sounds better.]


Maybe the facsimile of happiness is as close as most are likely to get to happiness.

Five reasons we accept the hearsay about Buddha more than the hearsay about Jesus

Fairly often we're reminded by professors, pundits, comedians, and your better read ice cream men that Jesus never wrote anything down. We're reminded that his sayings and biography come to us via people who wrote about them many years after he was gone. Each time I hear this, the person saying it acts like he's the first to say it, and that because he's brought it to light, all the churches are going to be empty next Sunday. You gotta envy a guy who walks around believing every word out of his mouth goes to a global PA System.

The Buddha also wrote nothing down (he didn't even tweet, talk about sacrifice). Not once in my life have I heard this brought up. When the Buddha is mentioned, no one hustles to his feet to make the big announcement: "How do we really know what the Buddha was all about when we don't even have his exact words?!"

Some reasons this isn't brought up:

1) The pundit class exalts all things Eastern.

2) The pundit class that exalts all things Eastern possesses no knowledge of anything Eastern.

3) You cannot make a living ribbing Buddhism.

4) Unlike Christianity, Buddhism is focused on a message rather than an icon.

5) Followers of the Buddha are less annoying than followers of Christ, so poking them in the eyes isn't as enjoyable.

Economic Value: Books vs. Music

Compared to other forms of entertainment, the pleasurable effects of music are less likely to wear off. People turn to a favorite album far more often than a favorite short story or favorite film. All entertainment experiences diminishing returns, but on balance, the returns from music are more consistent and stable than its competitors.

A telling example of this: You read a book in a bookstore so you don't have to buy it. You listen to an album in a record store (when they existed) to see if you want to buy it.

An average album doesn't "end" for you. The greatest book does.

How to Call a Different Kind of Market Top

A contradiction that agitates me: Nearly every school of thought on this celestial orb named Earth believes the following: Money doesn't buy happiness. Yet what happens when a rich person complains? "Oh, what does he have to complain about? He's rich."

So money can't buy happiness, but the rich have no right to be unhappy because they're rich? If the rich can't be unhappy, then money must buy happiness (a snake eating its own tail enters stage left). What's cute is people make these statements back to back without noting the conflict.

Around the start of the 21st Century, hip-hop introduced the world to the concept of player/playa-hating. From urbandictionary.com: "when someone is a player, and your [sic] jealous of them, you are a Player hater."

Stars like Puffy managed to deflect criticism simply by accusing the critic of being jealous of his money and success. It couldn't be that Puffy's songs were blander than moisture-free water. The only possible motive for criticizing him was jealousy and "hate;" even if the critic was Keith Richards, who had enough money and success to overdose on drugs and fame. Soon everyone carried a deck full of "you're a playa hater" trump cards.

Today nobody says "hata." Quite the opposite. Major celebs like the Kardashians and Charlie Sheen get hammered non-stop. Sometimes it's hard to tell if Twitter is a marketing tool or a firing squad.

Post-credit crisis we seem to be living through an inversion of playa hating. Everyone is welcome to throw tomatoes at those on top, and those on top aren't supposed to complain or fight back because they're on top. "C'mon, he's a big, rich guy and I've been out of work for six months..."

Today it appears the successful can't respond to criticism without attracting criticism. The less successful have free reign, and the elites have to sit there and take it, because, after all, they're rich and powerful, so what do they have to complain about?

Perhaps it is only in good economic times that concepts like playa hater can flourish. In periods of broad economic strain, the 99% feel they have less chance of becoming playas themselves and lash out accordingly. When they feel the ladder is open to them, they wonder if the critics really are just jealous. You've heard about the hemline index; the theory that hemlines rise as stocks rise. Maybe we need a hata index. When Taylor Swift starts accusing everyone of jealousy and regular people join in the chorus, maybe the market is nearing a top and it is time to sell.