David Erik Nelson's Blog, page 33

Advertising that displays different messages to children and adults

What's most interesting isn't the technology (which is more than 300 years old) but the fact that this application is first being used for humanitarian, rather than commercial, purposes. I'm a little less jaded now than I was yesterday.

This Ad Has a Secret Anti-Abuse Message That Only Kids Can See

In an effort to provide abused children with a safe way to reach out for help, a Spanish organization called the Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk Foundation, or ANAR for short, created an ad that displays a different message for adults and children at the same time.

Drugs, Sex, and #Risk

I was in a coffee shop last weekend where they had a blaring television playing sportsball (I was in Detroit's suburbs, where this seems a lot less crazy), and I happened to catch this Viagra ad during a commercial break:

VIAGRA 2011 COMMERCIAL - YouTube

Now, I love a good pharmaceutical ad, because the "small print" side-effect warnings--which tend to take up no less than half the ad's running time--always crack me up. This ad did not disappoint. Check out this fantastic rhetorical switcherro at the 26-second mark:

"With every age comes responsibility; ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough to have sex."

(emphasis mine, all mine)

So, just to be clear, you should talk to your doctor and be extra sure that your *heart* can tolerate the very mild cardio stimulation associated with natural sexual arousal (which, if you're a dude old enough to worry about ED, you've probably experienced thousands, if not quajillions, of times over the course of your life), but perish the thought of asking if your ticker and brain can handle the chemical stimulation of grossly altering the mechanisms of blood-flow regulation throughout your body.

Simply astounding.

With one sentence the problem is no longer 60 years of steak and eggs, or a sedentary life, or a narrow view of sexual fulfillment, or drug interactions, or pharmaceutical industry hijinks, or doctors too used to being bullied into writing prescriptions--the problem is sex itself, which we all know is *crazy dangerous.*

Sex? *Dangerous!* Be responsible! Make sure *sex* isn't gonna damage your heart or give you a stroke, because sexy sexing is the thing that's gonna hurt you here! Seeeeeeeex!

Prescription drugs? Don't even really warrant a serious warning; those things are safe as houses.

The Headline Says It All: "Middle School Mom: Censor 'Pornographic' Anne Frank" #PureMichigan

Middle School Mom: Censor 'Pornographic' Anne Frank - Gail Horalek not happy with discussion of sex organs in book

There's a passage in the unexpurgated book where Frank talks about peeing--because, you know, this is in fact the *actual* diary of an *actual* middle school human. According to this mom (who lives in Michigan, just like me), that passage weirded out her own American middle-school girl, who was reading the book for class. Quoth mom: "It doesn’t mean my child is sheltered, it doesn’t mean I live in a bubble, and it doesn’t mean I'm trying to ban books." I can totally see the final clause but needing another girl whose been a ghost for 68 years to tell you about your own genitals is sort of the definition of either being sheltered or living in a bubble, isn't it? Here's the offending passage:

"What's even funnier is that I thought urine came out of the clitoris ... When you're standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between your legs there are two soft, cushiony things, also covered with hair, which press together when you're standing, so you can't see what's inside. They separate when you sit down and they're very red and quite fleshy on the inside."

Is Anne Frank seriously telling any girl something she won't see for herself on any given morning?

How the Textbooks Get Made (or "The Writer's Life for Me")

I continue to write a monthly column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. In the latest I take a break from talking about guns and "gun control," and instead talking about my actual work-life as a freelance writer/editor:

The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: Not Safe for Work

Illustrative example: I recently put together a classroom reference on Internet pornography (not kidding). The book consists of a couple dozen point-counterpoint pairs on topics like “Access to online porn does/doesn’t encourage rape” or “Teen/preteen sexting should/shouldn’t be prosecuted as child pornography” – fun stuff like that.

I hunt down these articles, then revise and massage them so that they’re high-school accessible, because that’s the market for this book – high school libraries. That’s my job:

I write reference works on pornography aimed at high schoolers.

I’ve also done books like this on drugs and teen sex. I don’t even know what to say about my life, except that if you had told 12-year-old me that this was how it was going to end up, that kid would high-five you all over the place.

The only time a lay person hears about what goes into a textbook is when some jerkwater school board in North Carolina mandates that they aren’t buying anything with this untested evolution crap in it, or whatever.

I’ve done this about a dozen times (not counting projects I ultimately passed on because the money or timing were wrong). And I gotta tell you, the editorial guidelines have never remotely approached that kind of political micromanagement. More than politics, “expedience” and “balance” are the rule.

. . .

Welcome to the Rap Singularity, Ladies and Gentlemen

(FYI, this is NSFW if your workplace is *lame.* Headphones, children!)

reggie watts - fuck shit stack - YouTube

Also enjoying this, 'cause I remember going to Steve Miller concerts and making sure my Zippo was all fueled up in advance.

DIY Standing Desks

(Reposting this from my more DIY-oriented blog, because I love you guys and want you to be comfortable as we squander our hours at the keyboard, together, like a family!)

On the off chance you missed the memo: Your chair is killing you!!1!

The tl;dr goes something like this: Human bodies are really ill-served by sitting in a chair for periods longer than ~30 minutes; it tangles up your digestion, causes problems all up and down the spine, and if you are typing at a keyboard is also pretty hard on your blood circulation. Also, "resting" this much strains the heart, as we're evolved to use the big muscles in our legs to help circulate our blood, thus relieving stress on the heart. We evolved to move around a lot--mostly walking from place to place--not sitting super still while moving our fingers super fast. If you prefer this sort of thing as a totally excessive infographic, the canonical one is to the right.

Anyway, over at the Workantile--which is populated by folks whose jobs are to sit very still while their fingers move very fast--we talk about the health ramifications of our sedentary jobs *a lot*. One of the easiest solutions--in addition to mandating regular perambulations--is to add a standing desk to your office. Our space includes a couple of high cafe tables, as well as one of these bad boys:

[image error]

This is one of the best store-bought standing desks I've seen, because:

It has an adjustable monitor mount: Many folks choose standing desks because looking down at their hands all day is screwing up their necks and backs--looking straight ahead is much more comfortable
It's convertible: The whole thing can raise and lower so that you can take periodic sitting breaks; shifting from sitting to standing (and being able to sit in multiple different postures) is ideal
It's flexible: This fella clamps to a wide variety of existing desks, and is really quick and easy to set up

I'm 99 percent sure this particular model (which a member donated) is an "WorkFit-S Single HD Sit-Stand WorstationErgotron WorkFit-S Sit-Stand Workstation," which costs several hundred dollars.

For those on a budget, their are *tons* of ways to rig up a workable (if, let's face it, ugly as hell) standing desk. This is a project that's totally responsive to Roosevelt's Law of Task Planning (aka Akins Law #34: Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.) Here's mine:

(The sheet is just there to aid visibility; otherwise it's hard to see the damn thing against all the clutter hung in my cave)

Yes, this thing--the Fool's Swing--is ridiculous. I originally hung it up as a platform to test different standing-desk heights in order to determine what I wanted to build (it's next to my sit-down desk--in ancient, dented Steelcase monster I bought for a dollar--so I can readily shift between sitting and standing). But I discovered that the swing--which took all of five minutes and no dollars to construct--was a good solution for me. Part of the reason this works is that my neck and spine are in great shape--looking down all day doesn't bother me (also, I touch type, and frequently look away from the screen and just stare into space in front of my as I write); I use a standing desk because working a sit-down job wrecked up my digestion pretty badly (a hereditary thing, as it turns out). The other advantage here is that the swing pushes away from me. I have a tendency to put too much weight on my wrists and lean into them, and the swing doesn't let me do that. My wife constantly predicts that this arrangement is going to end in a computer-dumping disaster, but it's been a year and some change, and I've never even had a close call. Seeing as how it is basically the same structure as swings I've hung--which have put up with much greater weight and abuse without collapsing--I'm not that worried.

Another member of our workspace has this rig, which I love:

Totally ad hoc, but it allows him to pace while working, which is brilliant. Again, zero-cost, and under 30 minutes to build.

Another option is just to boost your desk as a whole. One thing I envy here is that he has an entire raised workspace; when I'm revising (which I do on paper) at home, I generally have to sit at my desk; on book projects, this can mean full days seated, which gets pretty miserable by mid-morning. Although this method requires a lighter desk to begin with (my Steelcase would crush those milk crates), it's another no cost/quick build solution:

Finally, here's a link to the canonical $22 Standing Desk from Stock IKEA parts. No one I know has built one, every standing-desker I know has been inspired by it.

FYI, if you're going to shift to standing and you have a hard floor (mine is vinyl tile on concrete), invest in an "anti-fatigue" gel mat. I got a "Martha Stewart" branded one for $20 at the hardware. Your feet and lower back will thank you. (These are also great in the work room and, if you cook a lot, in front of the sink.)

Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) Classic issue #403 (published October 9, 2008): "More insights per pound than the Bible."

Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) Classic issue #403 (published October 9, 2008)

More insights per pound than the Bible.

Giant Squid: Ask The Giant Squid: A Mollusk Does Not a Cephalopod Make by the Giant SquidDear Giant Squid,

I received this question from my mother and thought you might best answer it, as it concerns a mollusk.

"Do snails hop?"

. . .

Fiction: Night in a Tree by Richard LeeHe ran, ran, stumbling and rolling, the feral dogs always just a step behind. As he ran he scooped up rocks and sticks to fling back blindly at the beasts, but now the path turned to cross a meadow where there were no stones, and instead he beat across it to a copse of sturdy trees and hurled himself up the first trunk like a squirrel, and so he sat for a long time in the top, panting. One of the cuffs of his shirt had torn or frayed, and this he absentmindedly put in his mouth while he watched the dogs below. Then, looking around, he noticed that there were others in the trees, people, like himself, gaunt and silent with eyes flashing in the near-dark.

. . .

Poetry: Photo Gallery 1983 by Leah MuellerI didn't own any photos of myself

from my rollicking early adulthood

until recently, when I had dinner

with someone I hadn't seen in twenty years.

He and his ruddy suburban wife were friendly . . .

Rant: Direct Translations of Six Phrases I Used in Costa Rica by David Erik Nelson<< Perdoname, doña, ¿usted tiene una machina para eliminar el sombrero de mi coca-cola? >>

"Pardon me, madam; do you have a machine for to use to eliminate the hat from my coca-cola?"

(August 6, convenience store, village of Brasil de Mora) . . .

Gun Numbers and Online Comments

I like writing for the Chronicle for a lot of reasons--I like the publisher and editor as people, I like that they let me eat up 2k words to really lay out an argument, I like that they'll do the fiddly business of making a good looking pie chart--but one of the things I like most is that, in an age when newspapers basically insist on having open comment threads (something I generally don't support, especially when they are basically unmonitored), the Chron has *excellent* comments--*because* they carefully husband them, trashing the spam, hate, and stupid vitriol). The result: Meaningful discussions where readers bring different perspectives and new *factual* information into the conversation. So, that's one thing that's happening with my latest column: Some readers are showing up with links to legal précis that outline the current state of interpretation of the Second Amendment, and new data visualizations that can be meaningfully inform the discussion in my column.

But what's most telling, for me, is the response from pro-gun folk--and not the glancing ad hominem or the patently absurd notion that gun owners constitute a minority in the same protected-class sense that, say, African-Americans do. What interests me is that the act of laying out these numbers--even as I clearly state that I *am not taking a position on gun control,* because I don't *have* one (for reals!)--implicitly reads as an argument *for* gun control to many gun owners.

More than anything *I* might say about gun control, *that* says it all: Pro-gun folks see the numbers on gun casualties and intent in this country, and just those *numbers*--with no surrounding rhetoric--read like an argument for gun control.

I think we maybe found the place that this conversation *really* starts, America.

The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: Running Gun Numbers

Here’s a favorite Glib Gun Lover comparison: There are roughly as many cars in America as guns [9], and there were 2,771,497 motor vehicle occupant injuries in 2010, and 33,687 deaths for a total of 2,805,184 American motor vehicle casualties. Cars are 27 times more dangerous than guns!

But, the thing is, of those 2,771,497 automotive injuries, only 8,954 were acts of malice or sorrow, and only 1,789 were attempts at suicide.

Check the pie charts: Orange represents blameless accidents; red and blue (and green) represent active human efforts to inflict pain or suffering. We’d have included a pie chart of Automobile Deaths, but it would have just been an orange circle.

In other words, those 2.8 million car accidents were basically just that: accidents. Those 33,000 corpses on the highway were largely the result of bad decision-making and bad weather, bad maintenance and bad luck. Meanwhile, our 30,000 gun deaths weren’t accidents – sorry, 4% were accidents. The rest were acts. They were deliberate expressions of hate and sorrow and frustration and desperation. That should mean something to us as human beings.

Oh, Canada . . .

Jimmy Fallon's 'Do Not Read' List For Spring 2013 (VIDEO)

SPOILER ALERT: Check this subtitle!

(Yeah, that's an associate link; you click that link and buy this book, and I'll get a dime or something. I'm not ashamed.)

MI voters: Plz take 10 seconds to help preserve public education in Michigan! Plz Share & RT! #PureMichigan

If you live in Michigan and give a crap about local-control of the public schools you pay for, please contact your rep *right this second*--you can even crib from my letter, included below!

The state House Education Committee will likely vote this afternoon on House Bill 4369, which expands the Education Achievement Authority “takeover” district (currently dicking things up big time in Muskegon Heights and throughout Detroit) to a statewide entity . I wrote about this extensively back in December--the bill numbers are different, but the bad plan remains the same. The website of the Michigan Educator's Association (I.e., my wife's union) has a concise bit on the current bill.

Here's the letter I just sent. You can use it if you want, modify it how you choose, customize it to best speak to your concerns and community--just write your rep and do it *RIGHT NOW!*:

SUBJECT: I OPPOSE HB 4369! DO NOT EXPANDED THE EAA OR PRIVATIZE PUBLIC EDUCATION IN MICHIGAN

Dear __________________,

Please do everything you can to oppose any expansion of Michigan’s as-of-yet unproven Education Achievement Authority, and to limit the implicit privatization of public education in Michigan. This includes opposing House Bill 4369 (which expand the Education Achievement Authority to a statewide entity composed of charter schools). I have deeply held philosophical reasons for opposing the operation of our public schools on a for-profit basis.

Handing over our public institutions – and tax dollars – to private companies with no demonstrable record of success, and doing so without strict oversight, flies in the face of reason and should offend rational, honest public servants on both sides of the aisle.

For a detailed analysis of the hazards of pitfalls inherent in the EAA, charter schools, and “cyber” schools, please take a few minutes to read this 2012 article by Ann Arbor Chronicle columnist David Erik Nelson: http://annarborchronicle.com/?p=102112

Thank you for your time, consideration, and good faith.

Sincerely,

NAME

ADDRESS

(Obviously, plugging my old column is totally optional--but the details are all there, and the concerns for citizens laid out clearly, with citations and everything!)

The MEA suggests contacting both your own rep and the entire House Education Committee. I agree with this strategy; info for the entire Committee is pasted below:

LisaLyons@house.mi.gov Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, R-Alto (chair): (517) 373-0846

RayFranz@house.mi.gov Rep. Ray Franz, R-Onekama (vice chair): (517) 373-0825

HughCrawford@house.mi.gov Rep. Hugh Crawford, R-Novi: (517) 373-0827

KevinDaley@house.mi.gov Rep. Kevin Daley, R-Lum Township: (517) 373-1800

BobGenetski@house.mi.gov Rep. Bob Genetski, R-Saugatuck: (517) 373-0836

PeteLund@house.mi.gov Rep. Pete Lund, R-Shelby Township: (517) 373-0843

TomMcMillin@house.mi.gov Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills: (517) 373-1773

ThomasHooker@house.mi.gov Rep. Tom Hooker, R-Byron Center: (517) 373-2277

BradJacobsen@house.mi.gov Rep. Brad Jacobsen, R-Oxford: (517) 373-1798

AmandaPrice@house.mi.gov Rep. Amanda Price, R-Park Township: (517) 373-0838

KenYonker@house.mi.gov Rep. Ken Yonker, R-Caledonia: (517) 373-0840

EllenLipton@house.mi.gov Rep. Ellen Lipton, D-Huntington Woods (minority vice chair): (517) 373-0478

DavidKnezek@house.mi.gov Rep. David Knezek Jr., D-Dearborn Heights: (517) 373-0849

WinnieBrinks@house.mi.gov Rep. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids: (517) 373-0822

ThomasStallworth@house.mi.gov Rep. Thomas Stallworth III, D-Detroit: (517) 373-2276

ColleneLamonte@house.mi.gov Rep. Collene Lamonte, D-Montague: (517) 373-3436

TheresaAbed@house.mi.gov Rep. Theresa Abed, D-Grand Ledge: (517) 373-0853

(And here's all those emails in one easy-to-copy&paste-string: LisaLyons@house.mi.gov, RayFranz@house.mi.gov, HughCrawford@house.mi.gov, KevinDaley@house.mi.gov, BobGenetski@house.mi.gov, PeteLund@house.mi.gov, TomMcMillin@house.mi.gov, ThomasHooker@house.mi.gov, BradJacobsen@house.mi.gov, AmandaPrice@house.mi.gov, KenYonker@house.mi.gov, EllenLipton@house.mi.gov, DavidKnezek@house.mi.gov, WinnieBrinks@house.mi.gov, ThomasStallworth@house.mi.gov, ColleneLamonte@house.mi.gov, TheresaAbed@house.mi.gov)

Thanks! GO FORTH AND HASSLE YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES! Be the Boss!