Politics – ASK Musings

Monday

3

March 2014

0

COMMENTS

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics, Reviews

Three Stars

You’re not racist, right? I mean, if given two equally qualified candidates for a job you were hiring for, you’d be just as likely to give it to the Black person as the White person, right? And you’re in favor of same sex marriage, so you definitely don’t give any preference to straight people, right?

Not so fast. The premise of this book – which is backed up by some pretty solid science – is that we all hold biases in our unconscious minds that influence what we do. Because they are unconscious biases, it’s hard to imagine we have them, and even harder to figure out how to address them. I mean, it’s one thing to make it illegal to ban people of a certain race from eating in one’s restaurant; how do you fix something that is so deep in your brain you don’t even know it is there?

The concepts in the book are mostly supported by the IAT, or Implicit Association Test. The book goes into much greater detail, but here’s the basic idea: when presented with a variety of words, is it easier for you (as measure by how quickly you do it) to sort them into the category associated with positive characteristics when that category is also associated with a specific race? So, if the option is Black/Positive and White/ Negative, and the word ‘happy’ pops up on the screen, is your reaction time sorting that correctly going to be slower than if the options are Black/Negative and White/Positive? If so, you have an unconscious preference for White people.

It’s a pretty fascinating test and, like I said, has been validated many times, and expanded beyond race to measure all sorts of different possible biases – I recently took the test to see if I had an unconscious negative association regarding people with disabilities. I did not – huzzah! You can play around with it yourself – but man, be prepared to be disappointed. The vast majority of folks who take the race test show at least some unconscious preference for White people. It’s a bummer.

So, what’s the point then? How do we fix this? That’s basically the problem with this book – there isn’t a lot here by way of suggestions as to how to fix this. I can think of some that are alluded to, such as vastly increasing the positive representations of people of color in the media so that those negative associations don’t creep into our minds. But being really aware of these biases seems to be a good place to start. That, and not being so defensive about whether there really still are biases out there. Just because you live in an area where people don’t call Black people the n-word or non-straight people the f-word doesn’t mean there aren’t unconscious biases at work.

Tuesday

21

January 2014

0

COMMENTS

You keep using that word, thug. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics

So, I’m a 49ers fan, but my second favorite team is the Seahawks. You can see the problem I faced on Sunday. In those last seconds, as Mr. Crabtree jumped for the ball and Mr. Sherman made an AMAZING tip that lead to the interception, my heart dropped but then rose again. The Niners wouldn’t be going to the Super Bowl, but the next best team would be.

As Mr. Sherman walked off the field, he ran up to Mr. Crabtree and smacked him on the rear, then stuck his hand out, as if to say ‘good game.’ Now, I know that these two men dislike each other immensely, as Mr. Sherman would soon show in his post-game interview. So I have a VERY hard time believing that in that moment, Mr. Sherman had any goal other than antagonizing Mr. Crabtree. My husband disagrees, and that’s fine. I also think Mr. Crabtree was WAY out of line in literally shoving Mr. Sherman away from himself. I took to Facebook and posted something to the effect of ‘great play Sherman – why ruin it by being a jerk,’ referring solely to the ass slap and (seemingly) faux attempt at a ‘good game’ when Mr. Sherman should have known that it would not have been well-received. This comment went up BEFORE the immediate post-game interview that is getting so much coverage.

It soon became quite clear that I’d need to delete that post, lest it mistakenly get added to the cacophony of racism that Mr. Sherman’s post-game interview brought out from White America. I wasn’t commenting on that interview; my post was about that ass tap (heh). I do think his comment about Mr. Crabtree being not a good player is factually inaccurate, but other than that? He just won a giant game by making a sweet play. Is it how I think I’d react? Probably not. But I’m not a sports superstar, so who knows. Maybe I’d be even MORE pumped up.

But here’s the thing – that doesn’t matter. What I’d do isn’t important. Neither, frankly, is any commentary from the sports punditry, or from the jackasses sitting in San Francisco, nursing their wounds, choosing to use the dog whistle euphemism of ‘class’ to suggest (sometimes outrightly) that Mr. Sherman’s post-game interview meant he’s a “thug.” Which, as we all know, is how so many White people think any passionate black person should be characterized.

It’s disgusting, and even if not surprising, it’s such a pointed reminder of how White America expects Black men to act. Any display of passion means he is a ‘thug.’ Even the folks coming to his defence keep saying that hey, this guy has a Stanford degree; obviously he’s no thug. You know what? He doesn’t need a degree from a fancy school to deserve to be treated as a human, not a caricature. Black men are not just ‘respectable’ or not. They aren’t the generic personalities the sports media have assigned to Colin Kaepernick or Russell Wilson. From everything I’ve heard, off the field Mr. Sherman is a pretty awesome man. And on the field he’s clearly a great player. White people need to stop deciding that Black men must be quiet and reserved to be worth any respect. It’s embarrassing.

On February 2, I’ll be rooting for the Seahawks, and come fall 2014, I’ll be rooting for the 49ers. I hope that between now and then the racist jerks making ‘thug’ comments about Mr. Sherman – or any Black man expressing anything other than ‘yes ma’am’ in the media – get some much-needed education.

Saturday

30

November 2013

0

COMMENTS

Good Calories, Bad Calories

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics, Reviews

Four Stars

CANNONBALL!

It seems appropriate that I finished this book over Thanksgiving weekend, given our national propensity towards eating a fair bit more than usual during this time. I’d seen this book on the shelves at the bookstore before, and ignored it because it seemed like another cheesy diet book. After a friend described it as a book that made her actively feel smarter, I picked it up.

Before I get into the book, I want to point out that people can be fat for many reasons (as the book will show), and that moreover it is absurd to suggest – as society so often does – that one has to lose weight or become skinny to have value (or to be healthy). Lots of people want to say that fat people are unhealthy because they are fat, but when it comes down to it you really can’t usually tell if someone is healthy simply by looking at them or if you know their height and weight. Moreover, I don’t think anyone owes it to anyone else to be healthy. I think everyone should have access to things that can help them be healthy, but I don’t think anyone owes ME their health. And yes, that includes fat people who some think cost the healthcare system more. First off, they don’t but secondly, if we’re going to start requiring fat people to lose weight because they might cost us more in health care, then there are a whole lot of other people (people who drive, people who ride in cars, people who smoke, people who ski and might break a leg, people who play professional football) who apparently need to change their behaviors because we think they might cost us more. Alright. On to the review.

The next time you’re around family discussing weight loss, obesity, or anything really related to diet and nutrition, and someone (usually smug, usually skinny) says “it’s a simple matter of physics: calories in has to equal calories out or you’ll gain or lose weight,” hand him a copy of this book, and tell him to not comment on such things until he’s read the whole thing. In addition to possibly contributing to his education, it’ll have the added benefit of shutting him up, because no one wants to hear from that douchey cousin anyway.

Mr. Taubes’ purpose with this book is to examine as much of the science behind weight gain / loss and the diseases that tend to be associated with it as possible. He’s not so much interested in proving or disproving any one hypothesis; he’s interested in seeing what is out there from the last 100+ years and trying to figure out if any of the conventional wisdom we hold regarding weight, nutrition and health stands up to scrutiny. It turns out much of it does not.

There is so much in this book that I can’t cover in this review (especially the discussion on why cholesterol tests may be measuring the wrong thing and ultimately not telling us what we think they are – I need to re-read that section to really understand it), but I wanted to pull out some interesting bits. While looking at some weight studies that have been done, Mr. Taubes pretty quickly dismisses the idea that people are fat because they ‘overeat’ (in fact he repeatedly uses many different studies to fight off this repellant ‘lack of willpower’ argument). The most interesting ones were the studies that had people eating the exact same diet and exerting the same amount of energy (usually these were prison inmates and thus easily tracked) and showing that across the board, some people gained weight, some stayed the same, and some may have lost weight. And among those gaining weight, some would gain two pounds, some would gain 10 or 15. Yes, those are just a few studies, but it does hold up when you think about the people you might know who seem to eat as much as or more than you and yet never gain any significant weight, while you might eat 1,500 calories a day, work out for 30 minutes six times a week, and struggle to fit into a size 16 pants. The question then becomes WHY does this happen?

Another interesting discussion revolved around exercise, and how it may have many health benefits, but that weight loss is not likely among those benefits. I’d read articles about this before; the thinking is that yes, you work out and burn some calories, but the attendant rise in hunger will usually cancel out any weight loss based solely on activity. Let’s say you work out on the elliptical for 30 minutes more than usual and burn and extra 250 calories; just off of the hunger that a workout can produce you might consume that extra 250 with a single Cliff bar on the walk home from the gym. The author is not saying that exercise doesn’t have health benefits; only that those benefits don’t necessarily include weight loss.

It’s so interesting that many of the studies, if properly interpreted, provide very different conclusions than the ones the authors of them – and the policy wonks who reference them – concluded. That then leads to a whole lot of confirmation bias – people looking for support for answers they already have decided are correct and only conducting studies or referencing studies that support the answers they want. So you get one study that claims that fat is bad (but doesn’t actually properly measure that); common sense says well, people who are fat have a lot of fat, so duh, eat less fat to have less fat, and the wheels are set in motion. But what Taubes’ meta-research shows is that it is not fat that makes people fat and keeps people from a lower weight, but simple sugars and carbohydrates.

That’s right – the data (annoyingly) seems to overwhelmingly support the ideas that those obnoxious Atkins / South Beach / no carb diet books promote. Sort of, although not necessarily for the reasons those book site. Taubes’ understanding of the research out there suggests that what matters is not necessarily the amount of energy we consume (via food) but the type we consume that impacts the energy that is available to us, and the consumption of carbohydrates (think flour and potatoes, not the kind found in veggies and fruits) hinders the ability to make use of the energy we already have stored in our body, while also adding to those stores and increasing our fat. The book goes into a lot of detail and is very dense, so it’s hard to synthesize it down to this review (he’s apparently followed this book up with a book targeted more at the average reader, not science readers). But I am going to say that the argument he makes was really convincing to me. There’s so much more to say, but this review is already silly long, so if you’re interested (or screaming NO YOU’RE WRONG while reading this), then pick up the book.

As I said, this is NOT a diet book; however, the epilogue does offer his thoughts on what he thinks his meta-research has shown and what that means for people who want to maintain certain weight levels and stave off some diseases (the section on sugar and diseases is enough for me to seriously contemplate giving up added sugar completely), but he points out that there is so much more research that should be done and IS NOT being done because society assumes it already gets it. It’s sort of like the drunk who drops her keys and then only looks for them under where the streetlight is shining; it’s the easiest place to look, but that doesn’t mean the keys are there, and she’s likely going to miss them if the light is only shining on a small bit of street. We seem so focused on the ‘conventional wisdom’ (and so few of us have really read the studies) but that wisdom seems to have really not worked for so many people, so perhaps it’s time to focus more on what we haven’t yet tested.

Saturday

23

November 2013

0

COMMENTS

Blackwater

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics, Reviews

Four stars

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page: Blackwater is a horrible, horrible, horrible company, right? Like, everyone with a conscience is aware of that fact? Everyone who works there is not a horrible person (many are just trying to survive), but we all know that the organization is bloody awful, yes?

Okay, so starting from that premise, why read a book that tells you in detail about how horrible it is? Because it’s good. Really good. It is very well researched, with a level of detail in the writing that brings home the realities of just how atrocious an organization this is.

Scahill provides a history of the company, from its roots in the southern U.S., through the Iraq war and into present day, where Blackwater (now ACADEMI) has truly terrifying plans. He discusses the problems of a mercenary army – recruitment, payment, accountability (well, lack thereof), lawlessness. He uses the murder of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah as backdrop against which the book is set, returning to what happened, how it happened, and the impact on the families. That running story points out how expendable these contractors are to the company. Their lives may be on the line, and they may be getting great compensation (unless they are from South American or Africa, which Scahill addresses in the book), but in the end, the company doesn’t care about them. Their deaths are a PR issue, but that’s about it.

The biggest problem with contractors like Blackwater from the perspective of the county and the world is that they are essentially mercenaries. They are paid to protect the elite, to do things that our military might or might not be able to do, and they aren’t accountable to anyone. They may technically be subcontractors, but they aren’t covered by the same laws as private citizens, and they pretend to be military even though they don’t have the same oversight. They can do whatever they want with minimal consequences; claiming immunity as a quasi-military organization. It’s despicable.

From the perspective of the families of the contractors who are killed due to the careless policies of Blackwater (and, by extension, the U.S. government for contracting with them), these contractors don’t get the same respect and care as the military. Some of them may be doing work that troops would have done in the past, but because they aren’t military, they don’t get the same benefits, or support. Is that wrong? I don’t know. You can argue they know what they signed up for, but Blackwater is so shady that who knows what they were really told, and how much time they all had to really review what they signed.

Beyond the tasks Blackwater performed in Iraq and Afghanistan, they also ingratiated themselves in the Katrina response, taking part in disaster profiteering. They lied about saving lives, and tried to not pay the contractors the prevailing ways.

This company isn’t just bad for the reasons stated above; they are bad because of what they represent: a shift from governmental accountability to private (stockholder / owner) accountability. One thing about war is that the country is supposed to feel the consequences of it. It should keep us from just going to war with anyone we dislike, without cause. But as more of the actions are shifted to mercenary companies like Blackwater, who’s to speak up and say it’s not okay?

If you have any interest in this, and want to have some details to back up your understanding that Blackwater is just appalling, check out the book.

Sunday

13

October 2013

2

COMMENTS

Obligatory Post on the GOP Government Shutdown

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics

I work for the government, and have for seven of my 10 years in the full-time world of work. I don’t always enjoy the day-to-day tasks, but I love the fact that I’m in public service. Sure, some days there is a inexplicably intricate bureaucracy I have to jump through to do something like accurately complete a time sheet, and there are rules that sometimes mean we have to take the lowest bid as opposed to the best for the job, but the reality is that we get to do work with the public, not the profiteers, in mind.

Now, I’m not of the mind that we should go full-scale socialist and eliminate the private sector. I think it’d be pretty challenging for me to argue that the government should be in charge of creating, say, video games. But for the things the government already has a hand in? I think it mostly makes sense, which is one reason why I’ve been so frustrated during this government shutdown when I see pundits or even journalists talking about how so little of what the government does is truly essential. The argument is, if we could furlough 800,000 employees, is what they do *really* that important?

Yes. Good grief, yes. Federal funding and federal employees are essential to so much of the work in this country. And from my perspective, that isn’t an issue of the government being too involved in our lives; it’s an example of all the amazing ways the government does things that no one else can do as well, for myriad reasons. It isn’t just about the people you see, like the disease investigators at the CDC. It’s about all the people who make it possible for those epidemiologists to do their work

For CDC staff to function, we need folks to help with training. We need equipment – HAZMAT suits, microscopes, lab equipment. The government doesn’t make those things, but we do buy them. We keep the private sector churning those things out. And someone needs to enter into contracts with them. Someone needs to make sure that those private sector companies don’t screw over the taxpayers. And the people doing that? Also government employees.

My own position is funded by federal grants, although I have not been furloughed. I spend my days writing plans that I hope we’ll never need to use, and, during winter storms and disease outbreaks, I work even longer hours to respond to issues in the health care sector. You may not know that my job exists, but if you ever lose a loved on in a mass fatality, or live through the next earthquake here, you’ll be glad it does. And while not everyone I work with writes the plans, everyone has a role to play, and those roles are essential to getting the work done.

My point with all of this is that all of these government workers are all essential.* When you eat that burger, you’re already taking a big risk, because inspectors are woefully underfunded and understaffed. Furlough some of those inspectors, or the people who track the data from across the country showing people are getting sick, and you’re putting yourself at even greater risk.

For the purposes of the government shutdown, those who are considered essential are basically doing work that can’t go more than a day without happening. These are often positions that are staffed around the clock, or at least have a duty officer (someone to take calls) 24/7. Think health, medical, safety. People who perform tasks that can mean life or death. The other employees, classified as “non-essential”, aren’t superfluous; that classification simply means that a day might be able to pass without them coming to work. Think building permits. You need one eventually to keep horrible, unsafe, cheap buildings going up all over town, but in the middle of a snowstorm it might be okay for that service to wait for a day or two before you devote resources to starting that office back up. This type of demarcation is really useful when you are facing limited resources or personnel, especially after a disaster. If some areas can wait, you can redirect their personnel to other places for the first few days before more people can return to work.

So, as the GOP continues to hold the government workers, those who receive any sort of government service (i.e. everyone), and our economy hostage because they hate the idea of poor people accessing health care, keep in mind that those government workers that pundits are just fine with furloughing are performing real work that has a real, positive impact on your daily life, even if you can’t see them.

*for the most part; I’m sure like any other sector there are some incompetent employees; that’s not unique to government work.

Wednesday

17

July 2013

0

COMMENTS

American Savage

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics, Reviews

This is the best memoir-style book I’ve read this year, and probably ever. It’s a mix of very personal and very political stories used to discussion issues like gay rights, same sex marriage, religion, death with dignity and feminism. It twice made me tear up, and had both me and my husband laughing, shouting and really thinking about the points being made.

Instead of reading the rest of my review you should really just open a new tab (or run to your local independent book store) and purchase it.

Okay, have you done that? Awesome.

What, two sentences isn’t enough for you? Fine. If you still need some convincing, read on.

My husband and I listened to the audio version (read by the fantastic Mr. Savage himself) while driving across Scotland and Ireland on our honeymoon. Given how much time is spent on the Catholic Church and the conservative Christian fight against civil marriage rights, it seemed both appropriate and a little naughty. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Savage’s work, he’s been a sex columnist for the Stranger for years, and hosts a great weekly sex advice podcast (look up Savage Love – it’s wonderful). He is also one of the great minds behind Hump, the amateur porn film festival held in Seattle, Olympia and Portland each fall (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Hump2013/Page). He is an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights, and, probably most importantly to so many, he and his husband founded the It Gets Better Project, which brings words of hope and comfort to LGBT kids around the world. If you’re not familiar with the It Gets Better Project, get yourself to the internet (http://www.itgetsbetter.org/).

With chapter headings ranging from “At a Loss” to “Bigot Christmas”, Mr. Savage addresses the loss of his mother, the fight against anti-gay hate groups, and some simple rules for when cheating might actually be okay. It’s made even more interesting set against the backdrop of his Catholic upbringing. He makes extremely well-reasoned arguments, addressing issues that so many are passionate about with logic and determination. Yes, I agree with him on most everything, but wow, I can’t imagine how those who disagree with him could even begin to logically address his points. They are just that good.

In only one part did I find myself somewhat disagreeing with Mr. Savage, and that was one point in his Straight Pride Parade (e.g. Halloween) discussion. I won’t go into total detail here, but he and I differ on whether the teeny tiny costume for women thing is a problem. I think his argument (that it isn’t) was mostly fought against a straw man. I support women making the choice of what to wear, and I do agree that too many people judge that choice. However, I thought that he failed to address the expectation that is created around that, and how when the only choices out there are sexy nurse, not only does that create some messed up expectation for women, but for what men expect to see. That’s not the worst issue to disagree on, and I think reasonable people can. But since I fawned over pretty much everything else I thought I should sneak this point of disagreement in there.

Finally, a warning: the book is filled with honest language that can be extremely foul at time. I certainly didn’t mind it, and found that his way of writing sounds extremely natural, but I know some people cringe when they hear someone say “suck my dick.” So, there you go. Mr. Savage is also clearly very progressive so the conservatives among you are likely not going to like the book – although you might find it interesting to see how his ‘side’ views things.

Now. Go get the book. Please!

Monday

24

June 2013

0

COMMENTS

Bad Science

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics, Reviews

You guys. YOU GUYS. This book is amazing. I started reading it Sunday morning. Now it’s Monday night, and I’ve finished all 258 pages, and I’m sad that it’s over.

I found out about this book thanks to Cannonball Reader Mei-Lu, and picked up a copy on that same trip to Powell’s that netted me an okay and a good book (so far – more reviews to come). As a background, I do have a bout two years’ worth of graduate-level statistics training, and took a philosophy of science class that focused exclusively on evidence, objectivity, and how that all interacts with policy, and I still found things in this book that I’d not been exposed to before. Frankly, I’d love to see it be required reading for freshman in college (or seniors in high school) to help them become better informed citizens.

The book is extraordinarily well written. At times Dr. Goldacre sounds a bit arrogant, but that’s really only relevant if that’s something you find it difficult to get past, which in this case I did not. What is more relevant is that he has great information, strong examples to illustrate his points, and an overall way with words that makes this book feel more like an outstanding novel than a science non-fiction. It reminded me a bit of Mary Roach’s works, which makes sense – she even provided a supporting blurb for the back of the copy I purchased.

The biggest point I took away from this reading is frustration that the people we expect to be providing good information to us often aren’t. And that isn’t just the scientists (or I guess “scientists”) engaging in all manner of deceit to bend data their way; it’s the newspapers and members of the media who either choose not to engage in serious examination of the data and papers themselves, or frame the issue in ways not supported by the evidence. Not everyone has time to read through all the supporting evidence on an issue; that’s why we have the scientists, and the science reporters (or sadly, the general reporters tasked with reporting on science issues). When one or more of those folks aren’t providing good information, or willing to do their jobs, those of us who rely on them are taking a huge gamble.

Please check this book out. I’m so glad I purchased a hard copy of it; I can tell I’ll be re-reading it and referencing it a lot in the future.

Thursday

25

April 2013

0

COMMENTS

Complicated Thoughts on Boston

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics

After the events of last week I was reading through Twitter and saw an old classmate of mine posting about it. We ended up having a somewhat heated exchange after I interpreted a tweet of his as a suggesting that the Boston ‘man hunt’ was motivated primarily by American blood lust. Instead of asking for clarification or perhaps an article he could link to that matched his thinking, I somewhat flippantly said that the search for the Boston suspects may have just been motivated by people not wanting to get blown up anymore.

That was not the best response to his tweets. It would have been much better if I’d asked him to tell me how he thinks Boston should have been handled. Was he suggesting that the pictures of the suspects should not have been made public? Was he suggesting that this was acceptable because the U.S. government has employed explosives in other countries? Or was he saying that we should not be upset when those same countries come after our military, because those situations are similar to Boston? Even with a few qualifying tweets from him I still am not clear on what his overall thesis is, and I don’t feel like Twitter is the best place for that discussion anyway.

So, why am I sharing this? Well, in addition to it being a great reminder of how (not) to interact with others on Twitter, that exchange also got my mind going to a more philosophical place than it was the week of April 15. Between the Boston marathon bombings and the West Texas explosion, my brain was mostly focused on the emergency management response. An unfortunate side affect of my work is that instead of viewing these incidents ‘as a human’, as one kind co-worker said, I ended up viewing them as an emergency manager. How quickly were patients distributed to hospitals? Did they set up a reception center for family members who couldn’t find them? Did they have a phone number for the public? What were they telling them? And who was providing that information?

But now that I’ve had some time to reflect and read some of the articles out there, I am becoming more aware of my own thoughts about the incident itself and what it says (or maybe doesn’t say) about our society and what we value. I am interested in how we make our decisions about what is unacceptable (a bomb that kills three people) and what is a seen as a legitimate cost of living in our society (assault weapons being available). If someone kills three people and injures 200 more, the city is shut down and people are calling for the arrested suspect to be treated as an ‘enemy combatant’ and denied rights, and holding them up as a reason why we should not allow immigration to this country (or something – sometimes it’s hard to follow the ‘logic’ of people like Lindsey Graham). Meanwhile, if someone kills 27 people (including 20 small children), he’s just ‘mentally ill’, and there should be no action taken at all to try to prevent someone’s ability to replicate that act.

How can we rationalize the willingness to lock down neighborhoods in an attempt to stop someone who has killed three people while simultaneously suggesting that it’s too invasive to require background checks before people can purchase guns? To me it seems ideologically inconsistent. And meanwhile, the West explosion in Texas killed 14 people and may have been caused by lack of regulatory inspection and corporate negligence, but there’s been no manhunt for the owner of that facility, no calls to properly fund the government oversight organizations that could best regularly inspect such facilities.

When I was in school in London one of our areas of study was perceived versus actual risk, and to me that seems to be pretty clearly in play with these issues. For example, people fear flying even though statistically they are more likely to die in a car crash than an aviation accident. When someone dies at a train crossing, people clamor for more barriers no matter the cost, even though few people are dying that way. And yet, when precautions that could save literally tens of thousands of lives are suggested, people shy away from them. It’s also interesting to think about how we view lives close to us (whether in our towns or country, or if they look like us) versus lives across the ocean. Peter Singer wrote about this extensively in “The Life You Can Save”; I highly recommend it.

Many people wiser than me have written much more interesting articles about this issue. I’m going to keep reading their articles and really thinking about what happened last week – the bombings, the West explosion, the gun vote and the suspect detention. If you have any further interest, below are some articles I found really interesting.

Rania Khalek: http://raniakhalek.com/2013/04/20/james-holmes-adam-lanza-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-and-double-standards/

Glen Greewald: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/22/boston-marathon-terrorism-aurora-sandy-hook

Michael Cohen: http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/21/boston-marathon-bombs-us-gun-law

Owen Jones: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/owen-jones-our-shameful-hierarchy–some-deaths-matter-more-than-others-8581715.html

Monday

15

April 2013

0

COMMENTS

We Do Not All Work the Same Way

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics

Time for me once again to jump into a discussion about a month (or three) late. And before I get into this, I want to point out that I recognize that this discussion comes from a fairly privileged place – one where we’re talking about office workers who generally have (physically, if not mentally) comfortable jobs where they can sit or stand, take a bathroom break when they need it and are paid something more than minimum wage. Concerns related to that type of labor are beyond the scope of this discussion.

You’ve probably heard about the policy change, or even read the memo [http://business.time.com/2013/02/26/memo-read-round-the-world-yahoo-says-no-to-working-at-home/]. If you’ve managed to miss it, in one of her acts as CEO, Marissa Mayer decided that Yahoo employees will no longer be able to telecommute. Whether the employee had an agreement to work from home one or two days a week, or was permanently operating out of a home office, from now on everyone will need to report daily to one of Yahoo’s offices.

The Arguments

Some are in favor of this decision because they assume that most anyone who works from home is lazy and/or unproductive, or is of the personality type that should not expect to be involved in any innovative or interesting work. For example, there’s this article that showed up in my Facebook feed soon after the memo came out (trigger warning: may cause SEVERE eye-rolling and sadness that this person has a widely-read blog) [http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2013/02/27/yahoo-kills-telecommuting-three-cheers-for-marissa-mayer/]. The line that kills me the most is the one where, right after she acknowledges the argument I will make below, she states “But there is also evidence that top firms don’t need to accommodate those people.” Awesome.

Some are in favor of seeing how it goes, because Ms. Mayer needs to do something to save Yahoo, and this might do it. [http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/02/marissa-mayers-job-is-to-be-ceo-not-to-make-life-easier-for-working-moms/273584/] I take exception to the idea that’s in the title – that the CEO doesn’t have an obligation to her employees. I’ll get to that below.

Now I do not know anything about being a CEO, except in the U.S. you apparently get to make literally hundreds of times what your employees make [http://www.epi.org/publication/ib331-ceo-pay-top-1-percent/]. I do, however, know what I value, and I believe that actions like this – saving a company by treating its employees like children – go against what I value and what I hope others value as well.

A Caveat or Three

1. I will say up front that I am confused as to why Yahoo’s employees can’t just sign into a Google Hangout or a Lync meeting if they want to involve people in a face-to-face discussion. Will that work every time? No. But the people you need in your meeting are rarely all going to be available at the drop of a hat, whether they are in the office or not.

2. I am not going to support Ms. Mayer just because she is a woman. I am also not going withhold support because she is a woman. I will support her or not support her based on how her actions work to improve the lives of others, understanding that she comes from a different perspective and has determined she has certain duties and responsibilities.

3. I do not accept the premise that the purpose of any organization is to make as much money as possible for shareholders. I recognize that this means some people will stop reading now because I ‘don’t understand capitalism’ or the way the ‘real world’ works. But here’s the thing – I’m actually very interested in how the ‘real world’ works. I’m interested in how the actions we all take actively impact the real world. And I refuse to accept that we’re stuck with this broken system simply because we haven’t found anything better. That’s just uninspired thinking. That’s the kind of thinking that leads a feminist to say it isn’t Ms. Mayer’s job to make life easier for working mothers.

What’s the Big Deal?

Ms. Mayer sent out a memo that made it clear that everyone must work from the office because that is the best / only way for innovation. Perhaps this is actually true for Yahoo specifically; it might help explain the company’s poor performance over the past years. Additionally, numerous articles have cited a Harvard Study about workplace productivity and the benefits of working together.

But these articles often don’t seem to touch on the problem of expecting the exact same work environment to work work for everyone, or at least everyone of value to an innovative company. The ‘then don’t work there’ retort to the idea that someone might perform better working remotely demonstrates fear, unjustified defense of the status quo, and a willingness to forsake innovation and increased productivity to help make people who fit the status quo feel better about their own life choices.

Sweeping statement, I know. But stay will me.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Do you know those people who wear their work hours as a badge of pride? They may also be the same people who have ‘never taken a sick day,’ (thus being responsible for most of the colds that spread around your office) or who roll their eyes if you leave at 6:30, since they plan to stay until AT LEAST 8. Interesting fact – working longer than eight hours a day might actually kill you [http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/09/04/aje.kws139.abstract] and it doesn’t make you more productive [http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/]

But Yahoo’s decision isn’t necessarily about longer hours, is it? No, but I shared those articles to point out that the status quo – working long hours and putting in ‘face time’ so your boss knows you are in early and leaving late – not only doesn’t achieve what people claim it does, but can actively hurt both the worker AND the employee. You’d think companies that claim to be so efficient and interested in making money would wise up. But no, instead you have people like Ms. Mayer who seem more interested in regressing so that they can send a message and look like they are doing something productive as opposed to … actually doing something productive.

In addition to removing the ability of some people to work in an environment that works best for them, the implication is that the job is what matters the most.

I disagree.

Because here’s my not-at-all-novel or radical idea: work is not all that matters, and while society should not actively punish people who live to work, it also should not punish people who recognize that work is just one part of who we are as people.

I’m not suggesting that people who are in the midst of a very busy time at work should just get up at 5 p.m. and leave. But these same people shouldn’t expect a cookie if they stay an extra two hours every night during regular operations. If they have too much work to do in the allotted time, then that means the company has more work than employees and needs to hire more people.

What? Hire more people? Please.

I know. But really, it’s only an absurd notion if you accept the premise that we should all just accept that we’re going to have work 10 hour days with an hour-long commute each way. It happens because enough of us allow it to happen. It happens because when Ms. Mayer makes this kind of move, people applaud her for ‘taking decisive action’ instead of encouraging her to look for ways to include diversity in the workplace.

Yup. I said it. Diversity. Not just talking about men and women, or racial, ethnic or economic diversity. I’m talking about diversity of work styles. I’m talking about the people who get energy from being in groups and talking things out AS WELL AS the people who think things through, sit and reason, and get energized when they are able to work alone. The idea that there is more value in the former is preposterous and should be discarded by people as high up as Ms. Mayer.

Why do we value the people who are outspoken over the people who are introspective? In the comments section of the hideous article I linked above, the author says that no innovative company wants an introvert working for it. Um … I call bullshit. They may not be the workers who fit the CEO’s ‘vision’ of how everyone should work just like them, but they are ones doing work just the same. If whole swaths of the population are disregarded because they aren’t as vocal or as in-your-face as others, then as a society we are really missing out on the innovation and creativity those people could bring to the table. Not to mention that the percent of introverts in the population varies from 25%-50%. Can any CEO claim that it makes sense to disregard up to 50% of the potential workforce?

But what about the lazy people taking advantage of telecommuting policies?

Direct them to different work or, if they really can’t be trusted to do work from home or in the office, fire them for performance issues. There are going to be lazy people everywhere and it’s bordering on the absurd to suggest that a lazy person will stop being lazy once they are in the office. Perhaps for the first few days or weeks they will be on their best behavior, but it’s pretty easy to waste time while looking busy. If a specific employee is not performing as expected and directed, the manager should speak with that employee. If there’s any laziness here it seems to be with the CEO, who is trying to do with one memo what management should have been doing with people individually.

But no one has a right to telecommute, so isn’t this kind of a silly discussion?

No. Because while no one has a ‘right’ to telecommute, how companies chose to treat their employees affects us all. I don’t use any Yahoo products, but I know people who do. I might even know people who work for Yahoo, or who have family or friends who work there. And while some jobs do not lend themselves to flexibility in terms of where the person can do their job (hello, bartender), society should embrace the ones that do, because we are not all the same, and we shouldn’t all be expected to work in the same way.

I have a job that allows for some flexibility. I can adjust my hours so that I have a day off every two weeks. It’s pretty amazing, and allows me to focus while at work and get errands, appointments and other tasks done on that day off. Our office also allows for some limited telecommuting. That helps when I have an appointment that can’t be changed that is three blocks from my house at noon on a Wednesday. Instead of wasting an hour going back and forth to the office, I can work at home, maintain nearly regular hours (instead of staying at work until 7 or 8), and still fulfill my obligations as an employee and a member of society. Because I don’t just work for my organization – I also am a member of the community, the partner of an awesome man, a caretaker to my cats and a friend and relative to others. What I do to earn money is part of how I contribute to this world, but it is not the only way I contribute. I think corporations forget that some times.

At my office no one works from home all of the time, but many are able to work from home one day a week. And you know what? We do pretty fantastic work there. Hopefully you won’t ever have to encounter it, but I can say quite honestly that what we do will matter to you if you live where I live and a disaster strikes. And we’re able to do that because we are able to hire great people who do not just live for this job.

That’s right! People who DO NOT live for work are actually making amazing contributions. They are able to see the bigger picture, not just how their one little piece of the puzzle matters. It’s fantastic how someone who has a child to pick up after school or a cat who needs to go to the vet learns over time to cut to the chase. To be efficient with their time while allowing others to work in the way that works best for them. We should value those qualities in not just our colleagues, but in our fellow humans.

But what about the shareholders?

Stop it. I own stock (actually, I own mutual funds, so I guess it is possible I own 1/1000 of a percent of a share of Yahoo). And as much as it is within my control, I try to invest responsibly, with companies and organizations that are interested in more than just money. Companies that are interested in the employees – the people doing the work – as much as the shareholders. It’s not an absurd concept – what should matter is how what a company is doing affects us ALL. Not just the customer, or the employee, or the shareholder. A company can survive and actually THRIVE by treating its employees well, producing a quality product or service, and not fucking up the environment. I don’t tolerate companies pouring sludge into the groundwater – why should we tolerate companies who pour that same metaphorical sludge into their workers?

As I state above – I’m not a CEO, or even a senior manager. I have witnessed the tough decisions that need to be made in the private sector, with senior and executive staff feeling the stress of the desire to GROW MORE FASTER FASTER. I see it with the organizations some friends work at, where what matters is not the quality of the product but the deadline that has to be met so that the people who own the stock can see that percentage point tick up slightly. It’s not cool, and if more of us who can afford to used our wallets to buy from the companies that treat their employees, or (if its possible given our financial situation) turned down jobs at companies that think employees are children to be managed and not contributing adults, maybe we could start to make a dent. Maybe. At the very least, we should stop acting like the only employees who matter are the ones who are able to work in one specific environment.

Sunday

2

December 2012

0

COMMENTS

Please Support Seattle Works!

Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Politics

Preemptive TL:DR – Please help me raise money to support the Seattle Works organization. https://seattleworks.ejoinme.org/rockstar

Longer story: When I moved back to Seattle after being away for over ten years, I was looking to meet people and do something fun. After a little Google magic I found Seattle Works, which seemed like a pretty cool organization. I started out doing Hot Projects, which are just one-off, two-four hour volunteer projects. I rewound books on tape at the Library for the Blind, helped clean up after an organization supporting homeless women moved into a bigger facility, things like that. After that I heard talk about something called Team Works.

Team Works is a way for a group of people to commit to volunteering one Saturday a month for four months in a row. Each team can have up to 15 people, and the projects typically last four hours. I've been on the same team through four cycles now, and been captain or co-captain for the past two. Everyone on these teams actually pays to participate to help offset administrative costs, which is pretty awesome if you think about it.

We've helped at one of the last farms in Seattle, painted the interior of the playroom at a Childhaven location, helped elderly residents with housework at a mobile home park, and done a whole lot of weeding at parks throughout the area.

I've met really cool people and had a lot of fun. Sometimes it's a pain to get up early on a Saturday, or maybe miss out on something else because we're volunteering, but it's worth it. We're providing a service to organizations doing good in the community. My favorite reminder of this was when we were helping out at an organization that provides young childhood education to low-income families. They had a bunch of files they needed to get rid of, but they were up in an attic. So, we formed a chain to clear the boxes out; it took the twelve of us about 40 minutes. They had checked to see how much it would cost to pay someone to do it: $800.

$800 that we helped save them, that I know can be better used by these not-for-profits that are stepping up to provide much needed assistance in our community.

So please, take a moment and look at the the Seattle Works website and see if it's an organization you can support right now. I'll be gently reminding you all online over the next two weeks. My goal is to raise $300 by December 15.

If you're not able to give, and you live in the Seattle area, please consider signing up for a hot project in 2013, or joining our team (Truffle Shuffle) for the spring round. You'd be amazed at how much good you can do in just a few hours.

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