582. That the Sociology Rumor Mill site did not exist when I was on job market.

Rupert Murdoch is in talks with Microsoft to remove his news content from Google. See here. I really dislike this move (where Microsoft pays Murdoch, or others, to only use their search engine). Then again, as a Google user I can’t say I mind Murdoch’s “news” no longer being part of my search results. I can live with the quality (tabloids) like The New York Post or The Sun in Britain. The Wall Street Journal is another story.

Irv Piliavin passed away November 19 at age 81 of cancer. Irv was an emeritus professor of social work and sociology at the University of Wisconsin. Because I knew him best as the husband of my beloved colleague Jane Piliavin, I am linking to celebrations of his career by two of his former students, Brad Wright and Chris Uggen as well as the official statement by the School of Social Work, which also gives memorial contribution information. Irv was a great guy and a creative and rigorous social scientist. He will be missed by everyone who knew him.

The “got to have” toy this holiday season is the Zhu Zhu Hamster.   I started hearing about them from a friend’s kids last week.  They move around randomly all over the floor, make little clicking chatty noises, and -best of all – don’t require cleanup.   They’re also cheap at $8, IF you can find them at a toy store.  On the internet, typical price skyrocketing is pushing them up to $50 or $60 each.

I remember the Cabbage Patch Kid craze well (as well as the dolls that then sat against the wall, un-played with, for several years).   I remember Tickle Me Elmo a few years ago. I remember the Beanie Babies.  I remember tulips from my Econ101 class.

Now, I’m looking forward to watching Hamster-mania play out on Black Friday.  It’s kind of fun to just sit back and watch the madness of this scenario playing out over and over and over again.

Unexpectedly, my wife and I lucked into receiving H1N1 vaccines yesterday. I say “lucked into” because it was pretty much exactly that- we were receiving treatment for an unrelated issue, got to talking with the professionals and discovered that they had both doses and the inclination to use them. The purpose of this post is not to brag- particularly given that there’s no point bragging about dumb luck- but rather to make an observation:

So far, as a result of the H1N1 vaccine, we have NOT had strokes, heart attacks, neurological distress, developed autism, died, or been forced to only walk backwards. So far, side effects for us DO include: soreness at the injection site and, in my case, a mild headache and some muscle aches. And frankly even that may not be due to the vaccine since I was doing some major yard work yesterday evening and may just be stiff from that.

So, just to counter-balance the Jenny McCarthy’s of the world, allow me to state as plainly as possible: we have been vaccinated against H1N1 and we are perfectly fine.

That is all.

We turn 2 today!

If you’re going to SSHA too, say hi!

I study racial disparities in criminal justice, but this still completely blew me away. I started clicking around and have ended up collecting links to a large number of quite amazing videos of racial interactions that would be great discussion-starters in class. The two segments that just make my jaw drop were broadcast last February on ABC 20-20’s “What Would You Do?” series last February. They are a little over six minutes each after a 15 second commercial*. The setup is a parking lot in a public park in a White suburb. In part 1, for several hours three White boys overtly vandalize a car. Dozens of White people walk by, looking but doing nothing. Only one ever calls the police; a few say something to the boys. It’s quite amazing to see. In part 2, three Black boys do the same thing: lots of people call the police, many more people intervene.   On balance, a clear demonstration that failure to sanction overt White crime is part of a racial disparity pattern, not just response to Black crime. But the real shocker: while the White kids are vandalizing the car, the police DO get TWO 911 calls from the same parking lot. What they call about is Black people SLEEPING in a nearby car: they phone it in as “possible robbery!”

Vandals 1 (white)
Vandals 2 (black)
(*I found these originally on Youtube but link to ABC despite the commercial opening in the interest of supporting copyright holders where possible.)

There are also some really chilling Driving While Black segments available.

This 10-minute segment was produced by a New York news station about Nassau County. It is really quite incredible, the tester ends up handcuffed and held for thirty minutes after making a U-turn on a residential street and refusing to explain what he is doing in the area. No response to White testers who duplicate the action, although the Blacks in the trailing news car are stopped and hassled.

This ABC Primetime episode on Driving While Black is also very good, but the YouTube versions are all scratched and vertically stretched. I cannot find an on-line version of the original. The first segment is 10 minutes, the second is about 2 minutes of wrap-up
10 minute main segment
2 minute wrap up

A Fox news video shows a black customer being surrounded and beaten by whites but the black man is the only one arrested

The ABC Primetime What Would You Do? series also has a number of great segments (generally 8-10 minutes long) about bystander intervention into overt cases of racial/ethnic discrimination. Actors play the part of store clerks or real estate sales people who overtly insult and harass Black or Muslim or Spanish-speaking lower class (day laborer) shoppers (also actors). Bystander responses are videotaped. Each segment shows lots of people either standing by without intervening or in some cases approving the discrimination, but also highlights people who do intervene. John Dovidio (a psychologist known for work on bystander intervention) provides commentary that praises those who do intervene. Again, these seem like great discussion-starters. I linked to YouTube when I could not find the segment on the ABC site.

Real estate agent insulting Black and Muslim couples looking at a home.

Black shopper in a upscale clothing boutique gets insulted and even frisked

Muslim woman trying to buy an apple Danish (quite a few shoppers join in on the discrimination, while a White man who says is son is fighting in Iraq challenges it)

Spanish-speaking guys in work clothes trying to buy coffee (quite a few shoppers again join in on the discrimination, few seem to speak against it)

H/T to http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/ which pointed me to the Muslim shopper video on YouTube, from which I found the rest through YouTube searches, ABC News searches, and Google.

I’m scheduled to teach intro to sociology next term for the first time in 30 years. It will be a small (15-20 students)  honors section (targeting freshmen), so I’m thinking of centering the course around sociology’s most important ideas (rather than the “little bit of everything” approach) and the  reading on 4-6 good books interspersed with a relatively small number of key articles. Do Scatterplotters have nominations for (1) big ideas, (2) good books for motivated but young undergraduates, (3) good articles ditto? Drop them in the comments, please.

The APSA sent out an email today bringing our attention to the Coburn amendment to strike the NSF budget for political science because, well, who needs them anyway? It turns out that the amendment was defeated on November 5, by a vote of 36-62.