Life After BA and Random Stuff

Some of you know that I will be pursuing an MA in sociology in the fall.  I guess either I will close down the blog, or rename it or something.  No matter.

Typically I go to Baltimore when school's out, but with the border closed and Covid still a thing, I don't know what summer will be like.  So I decided to sign up for a random course for fun.  It's online anyway, so even if I go back to Baltimore, I can continue with it.

It's Oceanography.

You may wonder why on earth I am doing that.  Well, a picture paints a thousand words, as they say.

With my luck, instead of a mermaid, I might find these folks

 

 

Anyway, course starts May some time.  So we shall see.

 

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A somewhat different note.  On my daily walks I notice that most people swing their arms when they walk, especially if they are going at a good pace.  Most, I believe, swing their arms up and down.  You know, like they do when soldiers march?  But I see some people swing their arms sideways.  I mean, left to right instead of up and down.  Their arms are in front of them, and they go left and right.  Very interesting.  Not sure why or if it's even a thing.  I also notice that certain types of people are more likely to do that.  But in these days of political correctness, I shall not mention what type I am referring to.  If you observe the same, drop me a note.  Maybe I am just imagining things. Or maybe not.

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So what's with this Anti-Asian hate attacks taking place, often against lone old ladies or old guys.  Seriously.  Did you read about that 76-year old woman who was punched in the face in San Francisco?  She ended up beating the attacker unconscious.  The guy had to be carted off by stretcher when the cops came.  Good for her.  But seriously, couldn't these people pick on someone their own size and age if they are so fucking brave?  Anyway, in case you miss the story, here's the link.

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56453806

You can even see the attacker being carted off on a stretcher.  Fucking shithead.

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To my faithful readers -- by that I mean all three of you -- stay safe, stay happy.  And chill!

On the perpetual myth of private enterprise efficiency

Most of us grew up in an era of Neoliberalism.  Part and parcel of this hegemonic ideology is of course that private enterprise is better for society, that it's more efficient, and make people more productive and the economy more robust.

And all that is a load of bovine excrement.

What private enterprise excels in is to make their senior executives rich.  Period.  Everyone else can go fuck themselves.  And that includes so-called shareholders.  Let me elaborate.

Executive compensation.  I will not recite all the stats about the multiples that senior execs of large corporations make versus what an average worker makes.  What's the point?  Are we any more sanguine if the multiple were 200 instead of 500?  Hell no.  If I am selling shoes at minimum wage, and less than full time at that, it really matters not to me if some senior head honcho makes $10 million or $40 million.  I am fucked.  Basically.  With no benefits to boot.

And of course when senior execs get the can, as they sometimes do, they walk away with tens of million in severance.  If you and I get canned, we walk away with... Oh wait, nothing.  Such is life.  So very fucking Charles Dickens.  Which also tells us that nothing much has changed in the last 150 years, by the way.

As for efficiency, sure, Amazon gets you your Made in China shit crap gadget in a day.  Hurrah.  Hey, guess what?  They do that how?  Making sure workers need to work more and more just to buy bread.  Ever wonder why the Roman navy ships were fast?  Fucking slaves rowed them, no?  And if they slacked off, they got whipped to death.  Nothing has changed in two thousand years either.  Just recently an Amazon warehouse outside Toronto was ordered to shut down.  Why?  Because there were hundreds of cases of Covid detected.  And how did that happen, you think?  Because Amazon cares so much about the welfare of their workers?  Right.  And if you believe that, I have some swamp land in Florida that would be perfect for your dream vacation home.

Efficiency, eh?  Hospitals in the US are privatized.  How's that coming?  Once upon a time my wife had to go in for a surgery.  They actually marked the WRONG SIDE of her body for the operation.  Lucky she was awake and told them so.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Are you happy with airlines who somehow manage to lose your bags all the time despite all this tracking technology?  How about Ford's (another) recall of hundreds of thousands of vehicles of wait, what, LEAKY airbags and tires?  All made by private enterprise.  Are you quite happy with all the produce recalls because of this and that bacterial infection?  All private enterprise as well.  How about car rental companies?  We must love them, eh?

I won't bore you with all these examples.  Let's just say so-called efficiency isn't all that's efficient or effective.  What it's good at is to enrich the senior execs.  That's all.

But hey, what about shareholders?  The OWNERS of the corporation?  If you believe that as a shareholder you are a part owner, you should get your head examined.  Say you owned a share of Amazon.  Try going to their headoffice and take a brick from the building.  Tell them you are a owner and see how far that gets you.

The stock market is no more than a fucking casino.  You are placing a bet.  You get lucky, and you may win some.  You get unlucky and you are screwed.  You really think market fundamentals have anything to do with market performance?  You really believe EPS drives stock prices?  Seriously?  Read the news instead of your textbook.  Get real.  It's a setup, and you're a tosser if you think it's actually a free and efficient market.  The efficient market hypothesis?  Haha, right.

Folks, we have been brainwashed by the neoliberalism ideology, and sold down the river by this revolting propaganda about the efficiencies of private enterprise.  No, I am not against private enterprise, but I don't think it's the cure-all it's pretending to be.  Examine the facts and your beliefs.  Don't let ideology (of any persuasion) control your intelligence.  Don't be sold snake oil.

Triumph of the Scientific Method -- Or, Don't Drink Water

I know, I know, for many of us, the last time we took a science course was ages ago back when we were in high school.  And knowing how high school curricula have been watered down over the years, some only ever had the one course in science and it took place while one was playing with (and smelling) glue.  But here's a tribute to the scientific method, which informs everything we do.  Or at least it should.

Remember that idiotic thing called BRICS? Yeah, that one.  As some of you know, that whole concept was devised by some guy sitting in an office (not a researcher by any stretch of imagination) playing with himself.  By now we all know (or should) how dumb that whole thing was.  But that's not the focus of this post.  It serves, however, as a useful illustration of what happens when the scientific method is not consulted.

Things we take for granted are often things that we just repeat enough times to ourselves.  Maybe we read about it a lot, see it in print or the internet.  Give it enough exposure, voila we start believing its veracity.  Yup, that's how those fucking advertisers screw consumers, yeah?  I mean, why do we think we need a car with 500 hps?  Because we were told so!

Ever heard the adage that people have different learning styles, that some are visual and some are verbal?

Read this article then.  https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/  (you can click on the link and it takes you there)

The guy who came up with the idea was a school inspector.  He thought people had different learning styles, and came up with a scale to measure it.  Before long, because it sounds so plausible, people started believing it, and school counselors tell kids they have this style and that style.  Sorta like that other stupid piece of shit calls Myers Briggs thing that is still being sold.  I even know a professor who has made it his THING to do Myers Briggs.  Snake oil.  Anyway...

Well, back to learning styles.  If you have read the article, you'd realize that some people have decided (at long last) to actually TEST the fucker.  Guess what.  In a nutshell:  It ain't true.  The scientific method says:  Take two samples that are the same in every respect.  Give one the treatment, and the other one no treatment.  What is the different in outcome between the two.  Remember that?

The upshot of the scientific tests that are done:  people who are supposed to be visual learners perform no better than those who are not, when given lessons visually.  I am paraphrasing here, but you know what I mean.

Otherwise, don't drink water, because it's the most poisonous thing on earth.  Everyone, but EVERYONE, who drinks water dies.  Period.

The [busted] pipe dream of Globalization

When you go to college, you read your textbooks and listen to your lectures, and learn many things.  And your profs, the EXPERTS, would tell you what is and what is not, and you are tested on your ability to memorize the shit.  Define XYZ and show its application in this or that context.  Sound familiar?  No doubt.

But what if the thing you're learning is actually full of shit?  Does the prof tell you that?  Take the product life cycle, for instance.  It's a given that it is taught in every single Marketing class (except MINE!).  And the consumer decision-making process.  Same shit.

Well, here's another one.  Globalization.  Yep.  Remember?  Every.  Single.  Business.  Student. has been taught that.  I hope you realize by now that it's all bullshit.

For decades, most of us have been sold this snake oil called Globalization.  According to Ted Levitt, who made the term popular circa 1983 with his "The Globalization of Markets" article in HBR, nation-states are on the wane, and the world is one big market serviced by manufacturing products where cost is lowest, and made efficient by supply chains that know no national boundaries.

"The products and methods of the industrialized world play a single tune for all the world, and all the world eagerly dances to it."  So wrote Levitt.  And since then, indeed companies have followed that creed and drank the Kool Aid.

As you all know, if you tell yourself the same shit enough times, you'd start believing it, too.  Sure enough, it's almost taken as a truth that this Globalization shit is for real, and is REALLY the best thing since sliced bread.  Many a business guru book has been published since then, all singing from the same song sheet.  Kenichi Ohmae's The Borderless World, for instance, set the business community on fire in 1990.  And if you are a business major, you have no doubt been told that Globalization is it.

Only it isn't, is it?

Sure, we can all buy cheap shit from China courtesy of Walmart and Amazon, and in the process add to the pile of land fill crap because that shit doesn't last.  You know what I mean?  Remember how a Made in US t-shirt could last you through college and beyond?  Now you can buy some poorly made garbage from that evil empire and it lasts two months, tops.  Not only are we adding to the landfill problem, we are also enabling the use of slave labour and encouraging human rights violations.  Enough said.

But this is really brought into focus with the fucking Covid.  Remember how there was this lack of N95 surgical masks?  There still is, apparently.  The damn thing was developed by 3M, yes?  Out in good old Minnesota.  Hey, but we make them in places that are cheaper, no?  And when the shit hit the fan, guess what?  There's none to be found here.  And then we have counterfeits to boot.

In Canada, the government (and here don't blame Trudeau and the Liberals, because this agenda was set during the Harper Conservative years) decided in their infinite wisdom that we don't need a vaccine making capability anymore.  We can rely on other countries to supply us as long as we pay.  Globalization, you see.  And look at what happens now.  We can't make any vaccines, and the new facility won't be ready till at least 2022.  Great.  So we are at the mercy of countries that actually make the thing.  And of course they look after their own first.  Who can blame them?  So we signed contracts to buy tens of millions of doses, only to be told now that shipments are delayed and we won't get them that quickly.  Yeah, we bought enough to vaccinate everyone in Canada, but without the actual shipments, that's gonna take a while.  According to (optimistic) estimates, even though yours truly is over 65, I won't get vaccinated till maybe June or July.  If you're in your 20s, fuck, maybe 2036?

This lamentation is not only about Canada.  You can thank Levitt and gang for a lot of the ills of society.  The income gap, for example.  Remember the GINI index?  Let's not even go there.

Nation states are the most important players in the world.  Period.  Rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase Mark Twain.  Just consider the uselessness of the UN, for example.  Countries violate treaties they subscribed to, and then simply say fuck off to the UN.  Sure, I signed the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but if I violate it, what are you going to do about it?  Invade me?  I'd like to see you try!  Oh, you want to try my officials in the International Court of Justice, sorry, but I don't recognize your jurisdiction.  Seriously, as Mao once said, power is derived from the barrel of the gun.  Indeed.  Might, unfortunately, is right in the real world.

Yeah, nation states don't matter until they matter.  Borderless worlds indeed.  Remember that big debacle about a new NAFTA last year?  Most of you ain't old enough to actually remember the whole point of NAFTA back when Reagan/Bush and Mulroney signed it.  The idea was we would eventually be like the EU (sorta, though not completely).  Like hell.  That ideal, my friends, was as much PR as was driven by shitheads like Levitt and company.  Globalization was the way of the future, after all.  The whole world was going to dance to it.  Only when they don't.

 

A bit of News, plus "Fighting Received Wisdom"

Well, my friends.  I have finally made a decision about next year, and officially accepted the offer to pursue the MA in Sociology starting this coming Fall.  I don't have much more detail than this for now.  Maybe once the powers-that-be processed my acceptance, I will hear more from them regarding logistics and so on.

My sense is that the Fall will be online once again.  I just don't see this Covid shit stopping in its tracks.  Perhaps we will all get vaccinated by then (I think I am tentatively getting mine some time June-July, but who knows).  But even then, who's to say it will do the trick?  UOttawa has announced that summer school will be 100% online.  I think they will play it safe and do the same for the Fall.  We shall see.

Not for it, of course.  This online shit is getting on my nerves.  I think learning suffers, and there's no replacing in-person classes (assuming the prof is not a total ass or an absolute bore).  Such is life, eh?  Again, look at the bright side, I suppose.

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I was watching a video about this particular group of people who speak "Piraha."  It's only spoken by 400 people or so.  It will probably die away in a few decades.  Sadly.  But what's interesting is that these folks can whistle the language to each other.  They can hum the language.  They can also speak it in the normal way.  Pretty cool, eh?  Also, they have no numbers.  No past or future tense.  And a lot of these interesting stuff.

Here's the link to the video if you are interested.

 

It's really cool.  But you know, the reason I share this is not that it's interesting.  The researcher who "discovered" this language also challenged one of the linguistic universals.  

 You may have heard of Noam Chomsky.  Well, he's a god in linguistics, and many have staked their whole careers on everything he says.  Anyway, one of his universals (i.e. every language has this) is that languages have recursions.  By recursion, think: "I feel that he feels that I feel that he feels that I feel that he feels that I feel that he is a shit."  Got it? 

OK.  Well, according to the research in the video, this Piraha language has NO recursion.  Thus, recursion is NOT a universal!

OMG, alarm bells ring everywhere.  Someone is challenging Chomsky!  How impertinent!  And they all ganged up on this researcher (Dan), badmouthed him, and even managed to get the authorities to ban him from visiting the tribe again! What a bunch of god damn motherfuckers!

You know, though, that these things happen.  It's just human nature.  Many moons ago, when doing my doctoral dissertation, I had data to show that the conventional way marketers measure ethnic identity was bogus.  As in unreliable and thus invalid.  Wrote papers about it and all that.  Guess what?  It has NEVER EVER been picked up and pursued or even mentioned by anyone!  Why?  The guy I said was wrong was a big name dude from a big name school who published regularly in big name journals.  You got the picture?  I was in fact lucky no one trashed my work!  Maybe they took one look at me and said, let's not piss him off.  Who knows.

The moral of the story?  If you dare to rock the boat, be prepared to deal with the shit that will come your way.  People are just assholes, plain and simple.

The Pragmatic Sort

Before I get into the main topic of my post today, I want to let you know that this afternoon I sent in my registration for graduation this spring.  Hurray!  Assuming I pass everything, I'll be receiving my fourth degree in May/June :)

Now, for the main feature.

This post is about Indigenous rights in Canada.  So if you are not interested, don't read on.  And if you do, be forewarned that I might very well offend your sensibilities.  But you know that I do have a habit of offending people with things I say.  And I don't fucking care.  Anyway, here goes.

I don't know enough about the US situation to comment, so my post is restricted to what's happening in Canada.  One of the things I've learned is that the First Nations here were never conquered.  No 7th Cav charging the Reserves, that sort of thing.  What happened was that the Brits and the French actually signed treaties with sovereign First Nations people, on a nation to nation basis.  And then went back on their words.  Furthermore, much of the land was not even covered by said treaties.  And in the last couple hundred years, Indigenous peoples have suffered greatly, and so on.  So, that's the background.

Personally I think that's really nasty, and some kind of reparation should be made, and the First Nations should be recognized their due status, and so on and so forth.  But what irritates me to no end is all these bleeding hearts in Canada for whom the only thing is life is to bitch and moan about how Canada (and the British Crown before Canada was a thing) had been asshole evil.  Yes, I get that.  I agree.  Can we move on now?

Here's my pragmatic side coming in.  What is to be done?  I see no point just saying how bad things were.  Let's do something about it, eh?  Now, if you're not Canadian, you can be excused for whatever, because you have nothing at stake, right?  But if you're Canadian, are you talking from both sides of your mouth?  I shall elaborate.

So they want John A MacDonald (the first Prime Minister) demonized, because his quest to build Canada meant doing great harm to First Nations in a racist kind of way etc.  OK.  But what about the Canada he built.  Should we not, lest we be hypocrites, also give up everything we know about Canada?  I mean, seriously, the RIGHT thing to do is to leave the fucking place, and everyone who is not First Nations goes back to whatever hell hole they or their forefathers came from.  I mean it.  "This land is not OUR land.  It belonged to the First Nations."  So, let's put our money where our mouth is, and fucking get the hell out of Dodge.

No?  Don't want that?  It doesn't matter how many generations one's family has been here.  You are not fucking First Nations, and everyone you have is built on stolen land and shit.  What do you have to say about that?

Well, you know me, I also feel that extreme positions bring out the clarity of an argument.  A person who only trashes, but offers no solution to the issue, is a simple asshole expressing their opinion.  And opinions are like assholes.  Everybody has one.

Sort of like those who trash the government for not bringing in vaccines fast enough.  What the FUCK would you have done differently?

So back to the Indigenous question.  Instead of bitching about it, as if you meant business, why not come up with ways to deal with the problem?  What will make things right?  What can we afford to do?  Can we not have the parties meet and come up with a middle ground?  And get the thing dealt with once and for all?  Oh, and if one (as in a non-Indigenous person) says I'm not willing to give up ANYTHING, then well, that person has no fucking right to criticize the past.  But, hopefully, enough Canadians will acknowledge that a great wrong was done, and will want to make things right.  

The government likes to apologize and shit.  Fucking senseless.  A First Nation chief said in an interview, You keep asking for forgiveness.  I will forgive anyone who is stepping on my feet, as long as you remove them right away.  But if you keep stepping on me, how do I forgive you?

Instead of saying "sorry," find out from First Nations what should be done.  Find out from non-Indigenous Canadians what CAN be done.  Hire a bunch of business professors, who are not interested in mouthing off shit and never doing anything, have them try to help negotiate a meeting ground.  In a sincere way.  No rhetoric.  Just deal with the issue.

Now of course none of this matters to you if you aren't Canadian or don't care.  But I think the theme of my post is applicable to a whole spectrum of issues.  Too much bullshit rhetoric in this world.  Let's see action instead of constant complaining.  As most of you know by now, I am pretty left of centre.  But I am not an idealist.  Let's be pragmatic for a change.

Taking stock of my undergraduate adventure

 At this point, folks, I am leaning towards going for the MA.  That means that once I finish this current degree in spring, my undergraduate adventure is over for the time being.  Unless I change my mind, of course.

Thinking back, this last three years as an undergraduate has been fun.  Overall, I have enjoyed my experience at UOttawa.  I really like the school, as a matter of fact.  Academically, it's been both fun and challenging.  I seriously didn't expect to work as hard as I did.  But that's good, no?  Professors, well, I've had two that I absolutely detest.  One in the current semester, no less.  At the same time, I've had some very good ones.  Two in particular I really love.  As for the others, they were either "fine" or "pretty good."  So, in three years, I've only had two that I really really absolutely detest.  Pretty good odds, I'd say.  I wonder how your own previous experience was like, how you feel about your profs, and so on.

And the folks in administration at UOttawa are by and large very pleasant to deal with.  The people at the Faculty of Arts (where my degree is from) are super friendly.  And beyond my own faculty, everyone I've dealt with, from parking permit to building maintenance, to librarians, IT people, campus security, they have all been great people to deal with.  What more can I ask for?

No wonder Alex Trebek liked his alma mater so much that he gave $10 MM to the school!

If I had that kind of money, I would do the same.

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Enough of advertising for UOttawa.  I am just trying to find something positive to say in the middle of this fucking pandemic.  If you know the song "Alone Again, Naturally" you will know how I feel these days.  Many a times I have thought about the line about visiting a nearby tower.  If you don't know that song, well, Youtube it.  It's great.  And so fucking appropriate.

And that reminds me of the good old days when you had to pay to use the public toilets.  I remember what someone wrote on the wall of one of the stalls -- "Here I sit broken hearted.  Paid a dime, and only farted."

That is essentially the ethos of life these days...