I’ve been trying to come to terms with Ferguson since it began. The shooting of Michael Browne sparked a response that surprised many people and the counter responses have been equally surprising among certain people, not so much among certain others. Every time I start to write something I find what I intended to say had already been said better elsewhere. [More . . . ]
Delightful detective and unsurprising information from Patheos. Amazingly proud ignorance displayed her, and a green-screened lab thrown in for shits and grins. Wow. These are the people who want to have equal time in science classrooms.
A new movie, "God's Not Dead," is about to be released. From it, many church-going folks will have their stereotypes about atheists reinforced. Here's a list provided by Nell Carter at Patheos: 1. Atheist professors are predatory, and they are out to convert everyone into ideological clones of themselves. 2. Atheists are selfish, self-absorbed, greedy jerks. 3. Atheists are cocky, self-sure, and totally enamored with their own superiority. 4. Atheists will openly threaten you, bow up, get in your face, stare you down. 5. Atheists are clearly incapable of love. 6. Atheists lack ethical boundaries. 7. They disbelieve in God because something bad happened to them. 8. Atheists are angry at God. You can just hear it in all of their voices. 9. Atheists are miserable because they believe life is meaningless. 10. Atheists have no basis for morality.
Would you like to piss away some money? How about sending money to the March of Dimes, which recently sent me this letter that included a dime glued to the letter.
The first thought in my mind is Robert Cialdini's Rule of Reciprocity, which appeared in his best selling book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion:
Reciprocity – People tend to return a favor, thus the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. The good cop/bad cop strategy is also based on this principle.In his book, Cialdini points out that when someone hands us something, the feeling of indebtedness makes many of us feel compelled to reciprocate, and the reciprocation is often out of proportion to the initial gift. In the case of the March of Dimes, people get only dimes but they will often respond by writing checks for $25 or $50. But should you contribute to the March of Dimes? Consider this, also from Wikipedia:
In his book Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, sociologist Professor James M. Henslin describes March of Dimes as a bureaucracy that has taken on a life of its own through a classic example of a process called goal displacement. Faced with redundancy after Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, it adopted a new mission, "fighting birth defects", which was recently changed to a vaguer goal of "breakthrough for babies", rather than disbanding. Charity Navigator, an organization that attempts to quantify the effectiveness of charities, has given the organization a rating of two stars (out of four). This is a merged score that attributes both a Financial as well as Accountability & Transparency rating to a non-profit. As of Fiscal Year 2012, Charity Navigator gives a 34.68 out of 70 score for Financial and a 67 out of 70 for Accountability & Transparency. This gives the March of Dimes a merged score of 44.93, leading to their two star status. Another criticism has been that President Jennifer Howse's compensation is high. In 2011 the March of Dimes 990 reported it was $545,982.[citation needed] In 2012 her compensation was reduced to $526,679.Related topic: Charities that play the game of giving you something so that you give THEM something. Example: Girl Scout Cookies.
How many ancestors do you have? This article is a delightful excursion into math and biology. I'm always fascinated to hear people over-focused on only that one twig of their family that carries their surname. Too bad we can put a button to see everyone related to us glow, the glow brighter based on how closely they are related to us. Would anyone NOT glow? Maybe such a fantasy device would make us less likely to start wars.