Search results for feed

Sixty-two percent of Americans think that the country should reduce spending in order to cut the deficit.  What do they think we should cut?  Nothing really.

Well, nothing except foreign aid.

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones reminds us that foreign aid is about one percent of the U.S. budget.

…there were only four [other] areas that even a quarter of the population was willing to cut: mass transit, agriculture, housing, and the environment. At a rough guess, these areas account for about 3% of the federal budget. You could slash their budgets by a third and still barely make a dent in federal spending.

The Economist, via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Eden H. sent in this image, found at FlowingData, that shows the categories federal ag subsidies fall into, compared to federal recommendations for how often we should eat those types of food (originally found at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine):

Just to clarify, the 73.8% figure for meat and dairy on the left doesn’t refer just to direct subsidies; it also includes subsidies for crops that are grown primarily to feed livestock. The “grains” category (13.23%) refers to grains grown for human consumption. If you included all grains in one category it would be much larger, but somewhat misleading in that the vast majority of grains grown in the U.S. aren’t intended for people to eat.

Without subsidized grain, keeping livestock in confined feeding facilities to fatten them up would be much more expensive, if not entirely cost-prohibitive. Thus, farm subsidies are an essential component of U.S. agribusiness.

An article at The Economist summarizes the research of Sarah Pearson, who has spent almost 100,000 hours watching British people watch television. People underestimate how much time they spend watching television and listening to the radio (especially the first one), but they overestimate how much time they spend watching online videos.

Pearson found that they also underestimate how much time they spend watching shows as they are being broadcasted. Despite the many ways that shows can now be recorded and rebroadcast, most of our television watching is just like it was 50 years ago. “Even in British homes with a Sky+ box,” she finds, “…almost 85% of television shows are viewed at the time the broadcasters see fit to air them.”

Why? Because television is a social activity. People sit down to watch things together and then they “see what’s on.” And, even when people watch television alone, they like to watch shows at the same time as other people are watching it, or as soon as possible afterward.

Via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Mr. Wray, AP Psychology teacher, sings the biases:

Sent in by Dmitriy T.M.

Lyrics after the jump:

more...

Thea Lim at Racialicious posted this travel advertisement for Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada:

Text:

How many times can one place be discovered?  We’ve been asking ourselves that question for over a thousand years.

Discovery is a fearless pursuit. Certainly, this was the case when the Vikings, the first Europeans to reach the new world, landed at L’Anse aux Meadows. While it may only be a three-hour flight for you, it was a considerably longer journey a thousand years ago. But it’s a place where mystery still mingles with the light and washes over the strange, captivating landscape. A place where all sorts of discoveries still happen every day. Some, as small as North America. Others, as big as a piece of yourself.

As the recent Vancouver Olympics reminded us relentlessly, Canada was home to many peoples when the Europeans arrived.  The ad sanitizes this history, turning it into “discovery.”   Lim points out that “discovery” has a certain ring to it that “genocide” or “colonization” simply does not.

She quotes Ronald Wright, author of Stolen Continents, who points out how ridiculous it is to use the term “discovery” to describe what happened when Europeans arrived in North America:

…I was told by Dehatkadons, a traditional chief of the Onondaga Iroquois, “You cannot discover an inhabited land.  Otherwise I could cross the Atlantic and ‘discover’ England.”  That such an obvious point has eluded European consciousness for five centuries reveals that the history we have been taught is really myth…  those vanquished by our civilization see that its myth of discovery has transformed historical crimes into glittering icons.

The use of the myth of discovery in advertising like this demonstrates just how deeply many of us have internalized it.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Tom Schaller recently posted over at FiveThirtyEight about a new Hyundai commercial. The commercial suggests that you need to get a safe car because of all the young drivers on the road:

Here’s another:

Schaller argues that, while the commercials may be entertaining enough, he can’t help but wonder how people would react to similar commercials mocking the other age group over-represented in accidents — the elderly, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:

Is Hyundai wrong to say that teens, particularly those who just got their licenses, are more dangerous drivers than other age groups? No. But though people might joke about elderly drivers, I agree with Schaller — I can’t imagine a company putting out ads with a similar mocking tone and not immediately getting a ton of negative feedback ending in pulling the commercials and apologizing.

And this likely has a lot to do with the fact that older Americans are organized and represented by groups like the AARP and are thus able to wield political pressure and protest negative portrayals in a way that teens aren’t. This doesn’t mean that older people don’t get mocked (especially in TV shows and movies), but that a company is likely to be much more afraid of insulting them than insulting 16-year-olds.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Leah S. asked us to talk about Beyoncé’s new video, Why Don’t You Love Me, and I think Ann at Feministing had some interesting things to say, so I’m going to borrow her insights.

Noting both Beyoncé’s video and the recently released video for Babyfather by Sade, Ann observes:

…both Sade and Beyonce are cast as “traditional” homemakers in retro-styled videos. Beyonce’s retro romp seemed (at least to me) a bit tongue-in-cheek, whereas Sade pretty earnestly makes Jell-O and keeps house. But regardless, they’re both wearing vintage-looking sexy slips, making dinner, hanging out at home during the day, etc.

But they’re not simply nods to the ’50s.  Because both women are black, the videos also potentially subvert the idea of the perfect housewife of that era.  Ann continues:

I know there were certainly upper-middle-class women of color in the ’50s and ’60s, but this image of the happy-but-secretly-unhappy housewife is stereotypically white. By virtue of race, Beyonce and Sade are twisting that stereotype.

And that twist is very political.  Consider this: In American politics today, the “perfect” mother is one who does not work and stays home with her children.  Unless she’s poor.  Poor women who want to stay home with their children are called lazy, welfare cheats.  If you’re poor, you can only be a good mother by working.

Because race and class are correlated in U.S. society, and the “welfare queen” is a race-specific trope that usually refers to poor, black women, these videos might very well challenge the white-middle/upper-class-homemaker conflation.

Beyoncé, Why Don’t You Love Me:

Sade, Babyfather:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

This 4-minute 20-second video, by Colorlines, uses true stories to illustrate the impact of a 1996 law that authorizes the (sometimes retroactive) deportation of non-citizens convicted of any crime, including misdemeanors and traffic violations.  In 2008, the video reports, the U.S. government deported almost 360,000 people on these grounds.

Via Racewire.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.