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The Politics of the Giffords Shooting: Article Round-Up

Here are a few pieces I’ve found to be interesting reading relating to the aftermath of the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.

The Stranger has an editorial explaining its politically-loaded gunsight-laden cover.

The Rumpus believes that Some Revelation Is At Hand.

David Frum has written up an even-handed piece about what an appropriate response to the shooting would have been:

Palin failed to appreciate the question being posed to her. That question was not: “Are you culpable for the shooting?” The question was: “Having put this unfortunate image on the record, can you respond to the shooting in a way that demonstrates your larger humanity? And possibly also your potential to serve as leader of the entire nation?”

And Videogum (???) has probably one of the overall best reactions to Palin’s ill-advised response video that was released this morning:

First of all, you are aware by now of the whole “surveyor’s symbols” thing? How Sarah Palin’s camp is claiming that the symbols on her map aren’t gunsight targets at all, but rather are symbols used in landscape architecture? Excuse me, but FUCK YOU. It’s one thing to be frustrated that you’re getting unwarranted criticism for a thing that is not your fault–fair enough–but do not start with the condescending bullshit nightmare lies. Those are gun targets. The end. I rest my case. You rested my case for me by, you know, USING GUN TARGETS ON YOUR PICTURE. The fact that they would even dare to mention “surveyor’s symobls” is just straight up VILLAINOUS.

Film Critic Eric D. Snider Demonstrates Viable Alternative Business Model for Online Personalities

A few weeks ago, Eric D. Snider launched a Kickstarter campaign, whereby he would agree to write 50 (almost) weekly “Snide Remarks” columns for an entire year if people pledged $5,000 for him to do it. I’ve read Snider’s “Snide Remarks” on a number of occasions and I think they’re hilarious and frequently  brilliant. I’m also a fan of Kickstarter, which allows people to allocate money via Amazon Payments towards exciting projects that would never otherwise get backing. So, I threw in a few bucks for the cause. Here’s what Snider had to say about it at the outset:

I thought: How much would I need to be paid per “Snide Remarks” column for it to be worthwhile as a writing gig? The answer I came up with was $100. I did some quick math and determined that if I wrote a column every week for a year, minus two weeks off for vacation and to make the math easier, that would be $5,000.

That is my project bid for this gig. For $5,000, I’ll write a year of weekly “Snide Remarks” columns, starting the first Monday in March 2011.

I’m pleased to report that as of right now, Snider has hit his goal of $5,000! I asked Eric via IM how he felt about achieving his fundraising goal. “I’m excited to write the column again regularly and glad that at least 190 people are interested in reading it,” he said. In the past, Eric has also opined that people are generally unwilling to pay for things they read on the internet. I asked him if he still had that opinion, and he responded:

Yeah, and I still believe that. I mean, that’s not an opinion; that’s a demonstrable fact: people in general don’t like to pay for online content. That’s why the Kickstarter thing is so genius. 190 people pledged money for Snide Remarks. But if I had used a subscription model — pay X dollars per year to access it — I bet most of those 190 wouldn’t have done it (Unless the X dollars per year was something comically low, like a dollar.) With Kickstarter, it doesn’t feel like you’re paying for the content I’m producing. Everyone will be able to read it, not just those who contributed money. So it feels more like backing a good cause, which people *will* pay money for.

Indeed. Eric’s success proves that if you work hard enough at building your online persona into something distinct and entertaining, people are willing to pay to continue consuming the content that you put out. They just need the right channel through which to do so.

[I realize others have demonstrated this theory before, but Eric’s a good colleague and with the exception of people like Ebert, few have had a lot of success with this type of thing in the realm of film writing. So, I felt it worth writing about, because I think his success has implications for many of us in the online community.]

[P.S. Be sure to check out Eric’s site and his cool podcast too.]

Why Law School Graduates Are Totally Screwed

Apparently, not only are law schools cash cows, they’re also havens for fudging numbers relating to their success. The NYTimes has the in-depth story:

“If you’re a law school and you add 25 kids to your class, that’s a million dollars, and you don’t even have to hire another teacher,” says Allen Tanenbaum, a lawyer in Atlanta who led the American Bar Association’s commission on the impact of the economic crisis on the profession and legal needs. “That additional income goes straight to the bottom line.”

There were fewer complaints about fudging and subsidizing when legal jobs were plentiful. But student loans have always been the financial equivalent of chronic illnesses because there is no legal way to shake them. So the glut of diplomas, the dearth of jobs and those candy-coated employment statistics have now yielded a crop of furious young lawyers who say they mortgaged their future under false pretenses. You can sample their rage, and their admonitions, on what are known as law school scam blogs, with names like Shilling Me Softly, Subprime JD and Rose Colored Glasses.

Chinese Mothers are Not Superior

Christine Lu responds to Amy Chua’s inflammatory article in the WSJ:

Chinese mothers are not superior. It’s clear that the author Amy Chua has a new book out and linkbait headlines in the WSJ will help her sell them. I understand she uses the term “Chinese Mother” to represent a certain parenting style – one that I am very familiar with from personal experience…

As a responsibility to herself as a “superior Chinese mother”, I think Amy Chua should do a bit of research outside her comfort zone and help readers understand why Asian-American females have one of the highest rates of suicide in the U.S. — I bet many of you didn’t know that. I didn’t until after the fact. It’d make a good follow up book to this one she’s currently profiting from.

Why You Should Save Important Topics For Your Blog, Not Twitter

Anil Dash says what I already tried to say, only much more articulately:

[S]ome ideas are just bigger than 140 characters. In fact, most good ideas are. More importantly, our ideas often need to gain traction and meaning over time. Blog posts often age into something more substantial than they are at their conception, through the weight of time and perspective and response.

And blogs afford that sort of maturation of an idea uniquely well amongst online media, due to their use of the permalink (permanent link), which gives each idea a place to live and thrive. While Facebook and Twitter nominally provide permalinks as well, the truth is that individual ideas in those flow-based media don’t have enough substance for a meaningful conversation to accrete around them.

Dash also points out the biggest problem with Twitter at this point: there are no publicly accessible archives. There’s no easy way to search your Twitter stream or the streams of others. This means you should fully expect anything you say on Twitter, no matter how important or profound, to be completely inaccessible and lost to the ages, unless you do something to preserve it. The fact that most people ignore these limitations makes it all the more tragic that great conversations and great ideas may never be read by people who just weren’t following their tweets at the time.

Why You Shouldn’t Use The Bible When Arguing About Homosexuality

Reverand Candace Chellew-Hodge’s post, about why we shouldn’t us scripture to argue pro- or anti-gay positions, totally blew my mind:

We don’t take the Bible’s word for it that the earth is flat and women only incubate babies and contribute nothing else to the process. Why on earth would we take it as an authority on sexual orientation? The Bible remains a holy book because it maps humanity’s journey with God, and not the other way around. Because it maps our journey with God, it maps our evolving understanding of how the Holy works in this world. Humanity has moved from seeing God as a harsh judge and lawmaker to a seeing God as full of grace, mercy and love…

The reason gays and lesbians should never argue over scripture is because, not only does scripture not condemn homosexuality, arguing over it produces nothing but strife, division and hatred. Anything that does not promote love is not of God. Instead of arguing, let us love one another, even those with whom we disagree. This is God’s message to us. Nothing else matters.

Chinese Mothers Destroy Western Mothers

Amy Chua over at the WSJ (WTF?) says what most Asian parents know and believe, but haven’t been able to say in a nationally distributed newspaper until now (via Farhad):

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

It is difficult for me to emphasize how much insight this article provides into the Chinese parenting model.