chemvictim wrote:Which is which? lol

I dislike Romney, but he doesn't scare me that much. Paul Ryan is terrifying.

And Biden isn't more terrifying????

MarkDaSpark wrote:And Biden isn't more terrifying????

Not to me.

I enjoyed this from Rick Santorum.

“I’ve voted to kill Big Bird in the past,” Romney’s ex-primary rival said. “I have a record there that I have to disclose. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Big Bird. You can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them, I don’t know. That’s probably that. Can we — can we go back on that one?”

chemvictim wrote:I enjoyed this from Rick Santorum.

“I’ve voted to kill Big Bird in the past,” Romney’s ex-primary rival said. “I have a record there that I have to disclose. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Big Bird. You can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them, I don’t know. That’s probably that. Can we — can we go back on that one?”

I have no brief for Santorum - now he's scary IMHO - but voting to cut off PBS funding won't "kill" Big Bird - the Sesame Street franchise makes tens of millions per year and has been highly lucrative for PBS.

The point is they don't need government support any more (if they ever did ....).

rpm wrote:I have no brief for Santorum - now he's scary IMHO - but voting to cut off PBS funding won't "kill" Big Bird - the Sesame Street franchise makes tens of millions per year and has been highly lucrative for PBS.

The point is they don't need government support any more (if they ever did ....).

I won't argue with that. I just thought it was weird and funny, Santorum musing about how he might kill and eat Big Bird.

chemvictim wrote:I won't argue with that. I just thought it was weird and funny, Santorum musing about how he might kill and eat Big Bird.

Tastes like chicken!!!

rpm wrote:I have no brief for Santorum - now he's scary IMHO - but voting to cut off PBS funding won't "kill" Big Bird - the Sesame Street franchise makes tens of millions per year and has been highly lucrative for PBS.

The point is they don't need government support any more (if they ever did ....).

QFT!

Just for fun, silly election predictions. Obama is winning so far.

Should race be considered when evaluating whether a student should be accepted into college or not? The supreme court is hearing this very case as I type so I'm curious what you all think.

*Understanding that I'm asking a bunch of WASPs and a couple heebs.

kylemittskus wrote:Should race be considered when evaluating whether a student should be accepted into college or not? The supreme court is hearing this very case as I type so I'm curious what you all think.

*Understanding that I'm asking a bunch of WASPs and a couple heebs.

No

bhodilee wrote:No

What about military (who is on the side of yes along with colleges)? What about professional careers?

kylemittskus wrote:What about military (who is on the side of yes along with colleges)? What about professional careers?

I lost a job to affirmative action. USGS straight up told me that in my rejection letter, I'm not a fan.

kylemittskus wrote:What about military (who is on the side of yes along with colleges)? What about professional careers?

Not only no, but Hell NO!

rpm wrote:Not only no, but Hell NO!

ibid

I'm in the hell no camp. I have a hard time understanding the schools' and military's position on the yes side.

kylemittskus wrote:I'm in the hell no camp. I have a hard time understanding the schools' and military's position on the yes side.

from the school's standpoint, I suppose it makes them less "elitist" to admit X amount of minorities. No clue about the military. Still crap.

kylemittskus wrote:Should race be considered when evaluating whether a student should be accepted into college or not? The supreme court is hearing this very case as I type so I'm curious what you all think.

*Understanding that I'm asking a bunch of WASPs and a couple heebs.

Everybody knows that WASPs are the experts when it comes to anything race related.

I'm going to get the smack down from the lawyerly types here, but aren't private institutions free to handle admissions however they want?

My understanding is that some colleges want a lot of diversity on campus. They also like to pick students with "interesting" hobbies over students with better grades but boring lives. They don't want their students to be all the same. That's their choice as far as I'm concerned.

I do not think it should be mandatory to consider race, though.

kylemittskus wrote:What about military (who is on the side of yes along with colleges)? What about professional careers?

I don't get it with the military. Don't they get plenty of minorities anyway? Professional careers, hard to say. No, I don't think race *should* be a factor, but when you're interviewing in person, everything is a factor and goes into general impressions.

chemvictim wrote:Everybody knows that WASPs are the experts when it comes to anything race related.

I'm going to get the smack down from the lawyerly types here, but aren't private institutions free to handle admissions however they want?

My understanding is that some colleges want a lot of diversity on campus. They also like to pick students with "interesting" hobbies over students with better grades but boring lives. They don't want their students to be all the same. That's their choice as far as I'm concerned.

I do not think it should be mandatory to consider race, though.

But this isn't about interesting hobbies over grades, or worldliness over intelligence. The sole concern in the current case is race. And yes, schools can and should be able to make any decision they so choose. I'm the anti-government intervention guy. However, we can still, and should, vilify the hell out of them for filling schools with what amount to lesser students.

The military (and other gov't sector jobs like police and firefighters) are not private entities and what it amounts to, IMO, is government-sanctioned racism.

Doesn't this case involve a public university?

abrahamz wrote:Doesn't this case involve a public university?

I believe that this case does, yes.

kylemittskus wrote:But this isn't about interesting hobbies over grades, or worldliness over intelligence. The sole concern in the current case is race. And yes, schools can and should be able to make any decision they so choose. I'm the anti-government intervention guy. However, we can still, and should, vilify the hell out of them for filling schools with what amount to lesser students.

The military (and other gov't sector jobs like police and firefighters) are not private entities and what it amounts to, IMO, is government-sanctioned racism.

I get that, although I'd be careful about how you define "lesser students." Is it all grades? All test scores? What? If you went to a crappy high school with low standards, you might have high grades and great potential but the knowledge isn't there. Some people are good test takers, others are not. I'm fine with admissions taking the whole picture into account, although I think it's pretty silly to consider race in a vacuum. I like to think that race, by itself, says almost nothing about an individual. I don't know if the playing field needs to be leveled in this particular way any more, but it's easy for me to say that since I'm a white person who grew up with only other white people. Limited perspective, you know?

chemvictim wrote:I don't get it with the military. Don't they get plenty of minorities anyway? Professional careers, hard to say. No, I don't think race *should* be a factor, but when you're interviewing in person, everything is a factor and goes into general impressions.

I suspect that it's with regards to their officer programs (ROTC, West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs), not with the enlisted.



I think the problem isn't with considering race, but rather giving anyone preferential treatment, where race is a highly ranked score.

The main issue is that affirmative action is still discrimination.


You always appreciate something you earn, versus something just handed to you.

As in, how many 1st/2nd place trophies are on the mantle vs. "Participation" trophies?

MarkDaSpark wrote:I suspect that it's with regards to their officer programs (ROTC, West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs), not with the enlisted.



I think the problem isn't with considering race, but rather giving anyone preferential treatment, where race is a highly ranked score.

The main issue is that affirmative action is still discrimination.


You always appreciate something you earn, versus something just handed to you.

As in, how many 1st/2nd place trophies are on the mantle vs. "Participation" trophies?

For perhaps the first time in this thread, Sparky and I completely agree.

You should get into college, or the military academies, or a career position based on your merits, your effort, and your dedication. Race should not be a consideration. I don't think sex should be either. But I'm a male heeb; perhaps I can't separate my life from my logic? I don't think that's the case, though.

kylemittskus wrote:For perhaps the first time in this thread, Sparky and I completely agree.

You should get into college, or the military academies, or a career position based on your merits, your effort, and your dedication. Race should not be a consideration. I don't think sex should be either. But I'm a male heeb; perhaps I can't separate my life from my logic? I don't think that's the case, though.

I believe that there have been other times we've agreed, but most are times I haven't posted saying so.

But this may be the first one we both post in agreement!!

Do I believe that someone should get into a college/job because they are black or Hispanic instead of white, absolutely not.

Do I believe that someone raised in a low income setting with parents who didn't go to college and despite that got a 3.0 gpa and did a couple of interesting clubs/ activities deserves a spot over some upper middle class kid with 2 degreed professionals as parents and earned a 3.3 gpa whilst playing video games every evening? Hell yes.

Please put socio economic factors in, but leave the race factors out. I realize there is often a correlation; it is still necessary distinguish between the two.

kylemittskus wrote:For perhaps the first time in this thread, Sparky and I completely agree.

You should get into college, or the military academies, or a career position based on your merits, your effort, and your dedication. Race should not be a consideration. I don't think sex should be either. But I'm a male heeb; perhaps I can't separate my life from my logic? I don't think that's the case, though.

I agree that race and sex *should* not be a consideration, but they are. Even without affirmative action. There are all kinds of stereotypes and expectations wrapped up in it. I'm not convinced that affirmative action is the solution, but being a woman or minority is not all sunshine and rainbows and bonus points when it comes to job hunting. Of course it depends on who's doing the hiring, but you can walk in with three strikes against if you get the wrong guy.

I'm having a hard time drawing this parallel to college admissions, though. They're less personal. Women clearly don't need a leg up in academic admissions any more, we are over represented. Except maybe in math and science, but I think that's a matter of convincing girls to stop acting stupid in high school to impress the boys. I'm not sure about minorities, I just have no reference point.

chemvictim wrote:I agree that race and sex *should* not be a consideration, but they are. Even without affirmative action. There are all kinds of stereotypes and expectations wrapped up in it. I'm not convinced that affirmative action is the solution, but being a woman or minority is not all sunshine and rainbows and bonus points when it comes to job hunting. Of course it depends on who's doing the hiring, but you can walk in with three strikes against if you get the wrong guy.

I'm having a hard time drawing this parallel to college admissions, though. They're less personal. Women clearly don't need a leg up in academic admissions any more, we are over represented. Except maybe in math and science, but I think that's a matter of convincing girls to stop acting stupid in high school to impress the boys. I'm not sure about minorities, I just have no reference point.

The people who get royally screwed in affirmative action are Asians - do they deserve a leg down because they're smart?

I didn't think so....

Affirmative action is a very tough issue, which I swing back and forth on. Usually, I think that it has gone too far, but I'm not sure what to do about it. Is imposing a rule that aims to defeat discrimination considered discrimination itself? That case certainly can be made. But if there is some discrimination occurring (and while it is much reduced I can’t say that it’s zero), what other options do we have? Should we throw up our hands and declare that any cure would be worse than the disease?

One way to look at this issue, rather than asking what cannot be considered in admission decisions, is asking what can be considered. Can life experience be considered? Family circumstances? Obstacles overcome? Dedication to learning? Or only grades and scores on standardized tests?

Part of that is to ask what the purpose of college admissions (and colleges themselves) is. I can think of several possibilities. If they are to be viewed purely as private entities out for maximum financial gain, wealthy well-connected applicants would probably get preference. They would be most likely to make future donations and add to the prestige of the school – what school doesn’t like trumpeting the story of their graduates being in high positions?

A lot of people recognize that colleges perform, to some degree, a public educational function, especially when it comes to state schools. That suggests different admission goals. Merit is easily claimed as the ultimate measure of admissions, but how can that be measured? Are we looking for students who would get good grades in college, or do well in their after-college lives? How do you measure that? Much as we try to come up with objective measures, such as high school GPAs and test scores, we all know how bad those measures are. Plenty of low-score people excel in college and life, and plenty of high-score people don’t.

Should race be a factor all by itself, which outweighs everything else? I don’t think so. Should race be totally irrelevant? I don’t think so. But the colleges and legislatures and courts are trying to find a rule that can be applied in every case, and I don’t think any such rule makes sense. There comes a point where the only answer is “well, that’s what was decided – you didn’t get in, and someone else did”. Not everyone who can make a case for admission is going to get admission, and that’s life. If there is evidence of systematic discrimination, whether conscious or not, then we can look at whether someone’s thumb is being put on the scale. But accepting the inherent subjectiveness of the process seems to be the only way to avoid every rejected student getting in line at the courthouse. How to get from here to there is the sticking point.

My apologies for the overuse of question marks in this post.

rpm wrote:The people who get royally screwed in affirmative action are Asians - do they deserve a leg down because they're smart?

I didn't think so....

Of course not. I was questioning the role of affirmative action in college admissions. In other words, I'm on YOUR SIDE, although I don't see things quite so much in black and white. I do think that colleges might have an interest in the composition of the student body other than what they think the kids "deserve," and that's up to them.

cmaldoon wrote:Do I believe that someone should get into a college/job because they are black or Hispanic instead of white, absolutely not.

Do I believe that someone raised in a low income setting with parents who didn't go to college and despite that got a 3.0 gpa and did a couple of interesting clubs/ activities deserves a spot over some upper middle class kid with 2 degreed professionals as parents and earned a 3.3 gpa whilst playing video games every evening? Hell yes.

Please put socio economic factors in, but leave the race factors out. I realize there is often a correlation; it is still necessary distinguish between the two.

I tend to agree with you, but I'm also curious about what we mean when we talk about students "deserving" this or that. How do we decide who deserves what? Do we admit the kid who put in tons of effort because he's a hard worker, or do we admit the kid who didn't have to try very hard because he's smarter? Are we rewarding effort or measuring potential?

I went to the interwebs and read a few articles about this case. Seriously, all the whining about who is most oppressed gave me a massive headache.

kylemittskus wrote:For perhaps the first time in this thread, Sparky and I completely agree.

You should get into college, or the military academies, or a career position based on your merits, your effort, and your dedication. Race should not be a consideration. I don't think sex should be either. But I'm a male heeb; perhaps I can't separate my life from my logic? I don't think that's the case, though.

As another while male heeb, I agree in principle. However, study after study shows that simply changing the name on an application for jobs or schools can drastically change the likelihood of getting a position. This is true even when names are "neutral" wrt race vs "black" or "white" names. Not sure I have any prescriptions here, but it's important to recognize both the ideal (no consideration of race/sex) and the reality (subconsciously these things matter, so what do we do about it?).

Back to my glass of Barbera.

klezman wrote:As another while male heeb, I agree in principle. However, study after study shows that simply changing the name on an application for jobs or schools can drastically change the likelihood of getting a position. This is true even when names are "neutral" wrt race vs "black" or "white" names. Not sure I have any prescriptions here, but it's important to recognize both the ideal (no consideration of race/sex) and the reality (subconsciously these things matter, so what do we do about it?).

Back to my glass of Barbera.

My wife wanted to give my Kid an Irish name, Ronin. I asked her if you'd hire a kid named Ronin or Joe. We went with Joe.

klezman wrote:
Back to my glass of Barbera.

Or, in some circles, "Babs"....

klezman wrote:As another while male heeb, I agree in principle. However, study after study shows that simply changing the name on an application for jobs or schools can drastically change the likelihood of getting a position. This is true even when names are "neutral" wrt race vs "black" or "white" names. Not sure I have any prescriptions here, but it's important to recognize both the ideal (no consideration of race/sex) and the reality (subconsciously these things matter, so what do we do about it?).

What's a while male heeb? (I am in a puckish mood this morning....)

I understand that there would be a difference between "black" names and either "race neutral" or "white" names, but I'm not sure the difference between "white" and "race neutral" makes sense unless you're stipulating that ostensibly "race neutral" names are ones that Anglo-Saxon Protestants (calling them "white" is redundant, though it does give a nicer acronym than "ASP"....) would never use, or would only use in recognizably British or Northern European forms. (E.g. Mary or Marie, but not Maria, or Anne, but not Anna, John, but not Juan or Giovanni)

Naming conventions are largely cultural. I don't know what the current practice is, but when I was growing up, Jewish kids usually had recognizably Biblical names (in English variant) and it was unusual for them to have middle names. WASPs were less likely to use Biblical names, except in the South, where one often found Old Testament given (aka first, or as the Brits would have said "Christian") names. Protestant and Catholic naming conventions differ, too. Protestants don't (customarily) take an additional middle name at confirmation as Catholics (traditionally) do. Protestant and Catholic distinctions probably matter considerably less now than they did before WWII, or even as late as the early 1960s.

It used to be an almost exclusively WASP (or ASP) convention both in the North and the South is to use family surnames as middle or even given names. This was true for both men and women. I knew Episcopalian boys with the first name "Solomon" followed by two very English middle and surnames, and similar girls named "Sidney" or "Henry". Names like these were also often considered class indicators. There were plenty of upper and upper-middle class Roberts, Williams and Georges, but a given name that was obviously a family name (which was recognizable to the historically informed) usually signified at least some reasonable pretension to upper class connections.

Today, the surname as given or middle name convention has gone 'mainstream' middle class, as has the resurgence of certain very traditional names such as "Faith" and "Hope".

So one can no longer draw racial, class, religious or ethnic conclusions about a girl named "Taylor Hope Smith" Not like the obvious import of a "John Carter Randolph IV" who was a few years ahead of me in college.

Most curious stuff.

rpm wrote:What's a while male heeb? (I am in a puckish mood this morning....)

...ones that Anglo-Saxon Protestants (calling them "white" is redundant, though it does give a nicer acronym than "ASP"....)

You really think that WASP is nicer than ASP? They are both pests and I wouldn't want to be bitten by either. At least ASP has the added bonus of bringing the death of Cleopatra.

joelsisk wrote:You really think that WASP is nicer than ASP? They are both pests and I wouldn't want to be bitten by either. At least ASP has the added bonus of bringing the death of Cleopatra.

It's all relative, I suppose. Serpents have such a bad reputation in the Judeo-Christian literature....

As for the death of Cleopatra, who knows if it was a good thing or not? Caesar certainly found her charming enough, as did Mark Antony. The girl had quite a knack for coming out on top by (re)lying on her bottom. She was, after all, the second most famous Greek beauty in classical antiquity, and the only one who is provably historical. Perhaps Octavian would have gotten on with her as well....

rpm wrote:It's all relative, I suppose. Serpents have such a bad reputation in the Judeo-Christian literature....

As for the death of Cleopatra, who knows if it was a good thing or not? Caesar certainly found her charming enough, as did Mark Antony. The girl had quite a knack for coming out on top by (re)lying on her bottom. She was, after all, the second most famous Greek beauty in classical antiquity, and the only one who is provably historical. Perhaps Octavian would have gotten on with her as well....

well, probably would have gotten on better with her if he didn't have her son killed. One of my professors claimed she wasn't all that easy on the eyes.

bhodilee wrote:well, probably would have gotten on better with her if he didn't have her son killed. One of my professors claimed she wasn't all that easy on the eyes.

Caesarion was executed after Cleopatra killed herself.

rpm wrote: She was, after all, the second most famous Greek beauty in classical antiquity, and the only one who is provably historical. Perhaps Octavian would have gotten on with her as well....

Cleopatra wasn't Greek, and judging by the bust I see a photo of on the webernets her reputation for great beauty may be overstated.