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The Angels on my Porch
It's never sad for me when I find out there's one less cat in the world. But, reading this, almost did bring a tear to my eye. At least the birds in your area have nothing to fear. My stepdad loved hummingbirds more than anything. But having feeders as a kid, and a bird bath, were horrible because of neighborhood cats that would sit around waiting and stalking their prey.— May 10, 2009 8:30 p.m.
The New Adventures of an Old Houdini Hound
Well, let me just say...my parents just got rid of two parakeets. My mom has had them her entire life. But now that it's harder for her to hear the television, and they chirp non-stop, she decided she had enough. As well written and funny as this blog is...it's hard to have sympathy. You see, my stepdad was a mailman. And the amount of times a big, German Shephard was barking at him in the backyard and he'd express concern to the owners, they'd tell him not to worry. There's no way the dog could clear that 7-foot fence. The dog would be out the following week, and biting him on the thigh. Sometimes, he'd mace them. And the owners would be yelling at him, as their dog wimpered and ran underneath the nearest parked car to hide. And currently, my stepdad is retired. And he has to deal with a neighbor that has two dogs, that run around the neighborhood, and crap on THEIR LAWN. They've asked once, nicely, if the could keep the dogs from crapping on their yard. THe neighbors just claim it's not their dogs (although, they are the only dogs roaming around the cul-de-sac). There's a great comedian, forget his name. He was in the Vince Vaugh movie about touring comedians...he mentions wanting to get a dog, and his friends saying "That breed is really dumb, you don't want that." To which he'd reply, "I'm not asking it to do geometry problems. I just want it to sit there while I pet it. A smart dog might be intimidating me. It would be sitting there, judging me while I watch crappy TV and (insert naughty activity here).— May 10, 2009 8:26 p.m.
Museum Thefts and Cops Pay
No Mindy, that was the crazy thing. They were going to PAY HIM, for the death of his dog. They had talked about charging him with animal cruelty, and I think that is part of the reason he "decided" to give that money to some animal safety project, or whatever it was.— May 10, 2009 8:20 p.m.
Paying Housewives
(continued): And women who major in business administration gravitate to HR, while men often specialize in finance. Employees who manage a corporation’s financial lifeblood tend to be paid well. But the AAUW put both groups into the "business and management" category. Yikes, more discrimination! This isn’t the first time the American Association of University Women resorted to smoke-and-mirrors research to further its political agenda. Back in 1992 the AAUW published the report, How Schools Shortchange Girls. The report purported to show that American schoolgirls were being kept down by the ever-present patriarchy. Man, they make those guys sound so powerful, I want to go to their meetings, and join up, but I just can't find them anywhere. Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education, took issue with that conclusion, saying flatly, "The AAUW report was just completely wrong. What was so bizarre is that it came out right at the time that girls had just overtaken boys in almost every area." To redeem itself, the AAUW finally came out with a second report. Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children had to admit that "National data indicate that girls consistently earn either equivalent or higher grades than boys in all subjects at all points in their academic careers." But that oops-I-goofed document could not reverse the hysteria generated by the first report, which fueled the passage of the Gender Equity in Education Act in 1994, a law that contributes to the boy crisis I first saw near the end of my 13 year service as a school board member, and that we’re now seeing fully developed in education. Again, this pay gap myth is perpetuated by your editorial, as it was with the Job Fair insert. You demonstrated the same tactic that the misandric and hateful Women's Industry always uses, repeat the same lie, over and over, and eventually it becomes accepted as the truth. See: Superbowl Sunday, Rule of Thumb, Hospital Emergency room admissions, the whole Title IX issue, and the like. Is it too much to ask that you take more care in analysis and conclusions in your editorial positions? And I know you buy the ink, not me, but is it unreasonable to expect that when a local boy has facts and figures that shine some light on the darkness of your conclusions that you do not print even a letter to the editor? A letter signed by me and my colleague from the Washington Civil Rights Council?— May 10, 2009 4:07 p.m.
Paying Housewives
(continued) First, let’s apply Mark's acid test, shall we? If true, that you can pay a woman 75 cents to get the same work product you would pay a man to do, why hasn't an entrepreneur fired all the men, hired only women, and by the labor savings kicked the competition's ass? Because, it 'taint true, Mr. Funk! Now, running down the article, I offer the following, some of which I stole from those more articulate than I. Equal Pay Day has become one of our annual rites of spring. This year the gender victimologists came armed with a new report from the American Association of University Women, Behind the Pay Gap, which purports to show that one year after graduation, women are paid 80% of what men earn. The AAUW’s press release featured this startling statement: "Women earn less even when working in the same career field, likely due to sex discrimination." So no surprise, you trumpeted the 80% figure like it was revealed truth. But women who are familiar with the AAUW’s long-standing gender agenda began to question the study. Mary Kay Ham sardonically wondered why she, as a highly-educated columnist, should be paid less than a dime-a-dozen brain surgeon. To settle the issue, I suggest you download the report and see for yourself. I quickly noticed that the 80% figure is deceptive because it doesn’t take into account differences in work hours, occupational choices, commutes, danger (hence pay) of the job and other key variables. When you do that, the wage gap shrinks dramatically. As the AAUW report finally admits on page 39: "The regression analysis of earnings one year after graduation for the combined sample of women and men shows a gender pay difference of 5 percent, controlling for educational and occupational choices as well as demographic and personal characteristics." But it turns out the AAUW study omitted a number of important factors in its analysis, so even the 5% figure is exaggerated. For example, many men coming out of high school enter the military and later go to college. These men command a bigger paycheck upon graduation. Likewise, men tend to accept big-city jobs with longer commute times. But the AAUW glossed over those facts. Of greater concern is how the AAUW shoe-horned the many thousands of jobs into 11 broad occupational categories. For just one example, take the medical profession which is evenly divided between the sexes, compared to nursing which is overwhelmingly female. The AAUW lumped all doctors and nurses into the same "medical professions" group. So you guessed it -- doctors are paid more than nurses, and that’s discrimination!— May 10, 2009 4:06 p.m.
Paying Housewives
The following is from a website for a paper that is called the Everett Herald, after they did one of the usual idiotic stories on women making less then men. Please read the mans response carefully (it'll take a few posts here) I have been reading the Herald since there were block letters on top of the building, no Sunday paper and a row of VW Beetles out in front. Cruise the hallways, and you will see the picture still hanging in your building. Second, you should know that I have been certified as a political gadfly by the King Co. Sheriff's Dept. Occasionally I have a lucent and cogent thought. The other day, after reading your editorial about women making 75 cents to a man's dollar came out was one of those times. I fired off a smarmy letter, as is my habit, to Mr. Bolerjack, who, apparently in need of a round of verbal sparring, was considerate enough to ring me up. As is my style, I suggested that his, and yours, by extension, analysis of the AAUW report was wrong, misleading and downright the result of drinking too much Kool-Aid from the misandric and hate-filled Wimmin's Industries. I offered to write an op-ed, and was told, no, no, booked far in advance with too many very important articles for that. He did invite me to write a letter, which is very constricted to try and develop the issue. Nonetheless, I enlisted my colleague from the Washington Civil Rights Council, Elisa Teague-Cooper, and we knocked one out. It was not published. I noticed over the next week that those very important pieces he had scheduled included a darn near verbatim press release from the Governatrix (new press photo here), which is available daily on the Governor's website and another breast-beating puff piece from Jack Oharah, who must be a stepson of someone down there, or if not, I want to see those pictures he must have of someone in your company! Not what I would consider urgent issues of the day. This is the second time the Herald has printed that (un)factoid. The first time was in a Job Fair supplement shortly after Ms. Iverson came on board, and when I tried to track that one down, the ad department didn't want to respond, and when they did, through Ms. Iverson's assistance, the deferred responsibility because that article was written by ECC folks. Of course, no where in the tab was there a disclaimer that it was a production of the ad, rather than news department. So, turning smarmy mode off for a moment, hoping you are still reading, and understanding my warped sense of humor, let’s analyze that AAUW article that was used as the basis of your corporate opinion. First, let’s apply Mark's acid test, shall we? If true, that you can pay a woman 75 cents to get the same work product you would pay a man to do, why hasn't an entrepreneur fired all the men, hired only women, and by the labor savings kicked the competition's ass?— May 10, 2009 4:04 p.m.
Paying Housewives
(continued) Although differences in starting salaries are usually modest, small differences can have big effects down the road. If a 22-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman are offered $25,000 for their first job, for example, and one of them negotiates the amount up to $30,000, then over the next 28 years, the negotiator would make $361,171 more, assuming they both got 3 percent raises each year. And this is without taking into account the fact that the negotiators don't just get better starting pay; they also win bigger raises over the course of their careers. The traditional explanation for the gender differences that Babcock found is that men are simply more aggressive than women, perhaps because of a combination of genetics and upbringing. The solution to gender disparities, this school of thought suggests, is to train women to be more assertive and to ask for more. However, a new set of experiments by Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies the psychology of organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, offers an entirely different explanation. Their study, which was coauthored by Carnegie Mellon researcher Lei Lai, found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".— May 10, 2009 3:39 p.m.
Paying Housewives
Geez...you guys are making me do research. From the Washington Post: About 10 years ago, a group of graduate students lodged a complaint with Linda C. Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University: All their male counterparts in the university's PhD program were teaching courses on their own, whereas the women were working only as teaching assistants. That mattered, because doctoral students who teach their own classes get more experience and look better prepared when it comes time to go on the job market. When Babcock took the complaint to her boss, she learned there was a very simple explanation: "The dean said each of the guys had come to him and said, 'I want to teach a course,' and none of the women had done that," she said. "The female students had expected someone to send around an e-mail saying, 'Who wants to teach?' " The incident prompted Babcock to start systematically studying gender differences when it comes to asking for pay raises, resources or promotions. And what she found was that men and women are indeed often different when it comes to opening negotiations. These differences, Babcock and other researchers have concluded, may partially explain the persistent gender gap in salaries, as well as other disparities in how people rise to the top of organizations. Women working full time earn about 77 percent of the salaries of men working full time, Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other factors are controlled for, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children earn about 11 percent less than men with equivalent education and experience. In one early study, Babcock brought 74 volunteers into a laboratory to play a word game called Boggle. The volunteers were told they would be paid anywhere from $3 to $10 for their time. After playing the game, each student was given $3 and asked if the sum was okay. Eight times more men than women asked for more money. Babcock then ran the experiment a different way. She told a new set of 153 volunteers that they would be paid $3 to $10 but explicitly added that the sum was negotiable. Many more now asked for more money, but the gender gap remained substantial: 58 percent of the women, but 83 percent of the men, asked for more. Another study quizzed graduating master's degree students who had received job offers about whether they had simply accepted the offered starting salary or had tried to negotiate for more. Four times as many men -- 51 percent of the men vs. 12.5 percent of the women -- said they had pushed for a better deal. Not surprisingly, those who negotiated tended to be rewarded -- they got 7.4 percent more, on average -- compared with those who did not negotiate.— May 10, 2009 3:38 p.m.
Paying Housewives
mike...it was the opposite. I made transition from radio to P.O (while between jobs, I decided to give my dads profession a try). My experience there also makes me not care for unions much, either. Yet another debate for another day. refried, you are right about one thing. I try for topics like this on occasion to spur debate and discussion. So that was kind of my goal, but I never do that just for that reason. I know I take a stand on some things that most disagree with me on. I just checked out your link. It was ridiculous. What in the world do you think the Istitute for Women's Policy Research is for? As they state: to promote the needs of women. Yeah, that's hardly an unbiased source. Adam Carolla used to joke about how women SHOULD make less, because unlike a man that would go out drinking until 4 a.m. and then be on the construction site two hours later (as he witnessed), they'd take two days off if a relationship ended, because they're home in bed crying. Now, he says all that for comedic value, but he feels the same way I do on the subject. You get paid to do a job, and it really makes no sense for a boss, or employees, to let anyone get away with paying anyone less for doing the same job, based on gender. And there's just no proof it happens with any regularity.— May 10, 2009 3:20 p.m.
Paying Housewives
mike, let me ask you this. i totally agree female letter carries do the same job. it's not like on Pennysaver day, the females don't have to lug that extra mail around. but...let me ASK YOU THIS: do women carriers make less than males? you see, here's what I've found out over 15 years of debating this subject. i've talked to hundreds on this, and at every persons job, there is no pay difference. so please, instead of people posting links and stats, tell me what company has a pay descripency. the simple fact is, you won't find them. when i researched this years ago for a debate...i found that what these womens groups did was they'd find out what lawyers make. and, the male lawyers made on average, a certain amount. the female attorneys a bit less. they didn't dig deeper, but once people did, they found reasons for that. there was the woman that didn't want to work the extra hours. another that didn't want to become partner. another that claimed she felt she was underpaid, but never asked for a raise because she was content and happy, whereas her male counterparts, she said, always demanded raises, and usually got them. so again, i say this: tell me which jobs women make less. or which companies. name them. name a profession. do female journalists make less than males? i know in entertainment, it all goes out the window. the first actor to make a million bucks was Liz Taylor for Cleaopatra. so, somebody tell me which profesion it is that they make less, or which company (i'll read the link that refriend posted right now)— May 10, 2009 3:14 p.m.