From the Seattle PI:

Nancy E. Snow, a philosophy professor who helped O’Brien hunt for houses in the area last month, said O’Brien’s work is not the real issue. “I think it’s all about her sexual orientation,” she told the newspaper.

The University’s official statement (video statement included), and what they’ve been sending out to all alumni who are complaining, is the following:

While this person has an excellent background, a record of achievement and a strong academic track record, it was decided after further analysis that this individual was not the person who could best fill this very important position.

…and from the NY Times:

Marquette, a Roman Catholic university run by Jesuits in Milwaukee, said the professor lacked “the ability to represent the Marquette mission and identity.”

It makes sense that they will point out that it’s her writings that were the reason for the withdrawal, and not her sexual orientation, because in Wisconsin, discriminating on sexual orientation is not legal.  It hasn’t been that way since 1982.  In fact according to WikiPedia, Wisconsin was the first state in the country to ban it.

I think this is a bullshit.  I, and quite a few alumni, are not buying Marquette’s statement on this.  I don’t think that her academic writings had anything to do with Marquette rescinding the offer.  I think that EVERYTHING had to do with the fact that she’s an out-and-proud lesbian.   And that saddens me greatly.  Marquette should know better.  Just because an applicant is a lesbian does not mean that she’s not able to lead a department.  And if her sexual orientation, or academic work, were really that big of a deal to the Catholic identity, why then is she currently employed by another Jesuit university?   She was obviously qualified enough to be offered the position in the first place, so why not put your money where your mouth is Father Wild and hire her.  You say the University doesn’t discriminate on sexual orientation in your recorded statement, and that there are other LGB (maybe T?) faculty on staff at the University….  So show us alumni that you know how to do the right thing.  Hire Jodi O’Brien.  Or don’t, and don’t come begging for money anytime soon from me.

One Two more things:

I’m glad to see that Marquette students are voicing their displeasure in this too, and standing behind her. (And here’s the Facebook group.)

As a MUTV alum, as much as I feel dirty linking to them….here’s the Marquette Tribune’s take on this.

Technorati Tags: discrimiation, Jodi OBrien, lgbt, Marquette

How do you feel about the existing tax structure where you live? Do you believe individual income tax is the best way to raise funds or are there better alternatives?

I think it’s wholly unfair. Those who make gobs and gobs of money such as most of Wall Street (didn’t they just bankrupt the country??), upper management in companies, etc. and the mega corporations that are “headquartered” in this country though tax loopholes and use of off-shore tax shelters, etc. pay little-to-no income tax on their money, while the rest of us are left to foot the bill. (Ex: ExxonMobil has their HQ in like Bermuda or something and doesn’t pay the US Government a penny in taxes)

I think we need a serious revision in tax law in this country. One that more fairly shifts the tax burden onto those who can afford it, the people making larger sums of money and corporations, so that the middle and lower class individuals, families, and small businesses are not being unfairly taxed out of existence.

Individual income tax is fine. What we need is what I said above, a shift of the major chunk of the tax burden from the lower and middle class families and individuals, and small businesses, to the upper class families, individuals, and corporations who are paying less than their fair share of taxes, or no taxes, at the moment.

Technorati Tags: money, taxes

1. It’s now on a faster server, on a faster connection. Hopefully this will improve stability, too.
2. I’ve set all the domains to re-direct to chernow.org. I have the domain, so why not use it, right?
3. The “clean URLs” work again

…ok 4, because I updated the version of Wordpress I’m running, as well.

Yes.. Earthquake in IL. The last time I remember this happening was June 28, 2004.

The USGS information page has more information on the quake, which they say was officially a 3.8 quake.

I did not feel this quake, though, this was also one of the few days where I did not wake up at like 4am from back issues. I’ve seen tweets from people (didn’t have that in 2004!) saying that they’ve felt it in wide ranging places from Rockford, IL, to suburban Chicago, to Milwaukee, WI!

Technorati Tags: earthquake

In technology:

• Android will gain enough market share to pose a serious threat to Apple.  Blackberry, while still relevant in the enterprise, will quickly lose on the consumer side of the market.
• Because of Android, and to a lesser extent Blackberry, Apple will be forced to make changes to the iPhone…

1. They will end AT&T exclusivity.  Unfortunately the only other carrier that will offer the iPhone will be T-Mobile because they will not produce a CDMA version.  T-Mo’s 3G network, will also disappoint iPhone users.  Verizon, Sprint, US Cell, et. al. won’t offer it for a few more years when their LTE networks, and the 4G iPhone become available.
2. They will be forced to abandon the App approval process, thereby opening up the iPhone platform to more developers in response to the sharp increase in available Android apps & Cydia apps for Jailbroken iPhones.
3. They will abandon the notification system in the iPhone OS in favor of true background apps.  In typical Apple fashion, though, this will only be available to people who own 3GS and the new 3GS+ iPhones, leaving 2G and 3G users behind.

• The iSlate will be a disappointment.  It will feature a “new” OS that won’t run any iPhone OS or Mac OS apps.
• A revised Apple TV, Roku and Boxee boxes will gain market share and start to eat away at the cable companies, especially after the FCC releases new guidelines for set-top boxes.  The pending merger of NBC & Comcast will become meaningless by the end of the year.

In politics:

• The FCC will pass net neutrality.  It will be completely not what AT&T et al want and will actually provide reasonable consumer protections.
• After passing NN, the FCC will turn to abolishing consumption based billing for internet access as they reclassify ISPs as “common carriers.”
• To spur rural broadband build-outs, the FCC will begin the process to force the separation of ISP from the lines coming into the house.  This will allow third parties to build the rural networks without telco intervention.   Congress will pass legislation to provide these companies subsidies, and money from the USF, to build the networks.
• …however, the FCC will fuck up the last two royally.
• We will see countless delays in the ENDA, and repeals of DoMA and DADT.  Because the Republicans will gain a few seats in the Senate we’ll see them crammed through and passed in the legislative session between the elections in November and when the new members take over.
• Health Reform will pass both chambers of congress after going through conference committee.  Unfortunately, the bill will look a lot like the Senate’s version of the bill, will contain Stupak, and no public option.
• However, in exchange for the public option in the bill, House Democrats will demand, and get, the following:

1. A mid 2010 start date for the mandates that drop pre-existing conditions, demand equal coverage, etc.
2. An immediate start to the “exchanges” by utilizing the existing exchange that is set up for Federal employees
3. A version of Medicare-for-all in the exchange, that is basically the public option they dropped from the bill

• On the plus side of all of this, there will be a swift rift that forms in the Republican party in this election cycle dividing the Beck/Palin supporters with the rest of the Party, Dems will make substantial gains in the House of Representatives, and the Republican party will be severely wounded as they go into the primary season for the 2012 Presidential elections.

Entertainment:

• We will see at least one television network go bust by the end of 2010.
• Or it will decide to drop it’s affiliates and go direct-to-cable
• Leno-in-primetime will not be renewed.  NBC will trade out the 10pm hour to affiliates for a 5th hour of Today.
• Most NBC stations will move their 11pm news up to 10pm. Some will expand it to 1:35, as NBC will keep the start time of Conan at 11:35.

Personally:

• I will either change jobs or finally get my own production house off the ground.

Technorati Tags: 2010, predictions

1. Is Facebook clueless, unethical or just unlucky? Why?

Facebook is VERY clueless here. Just like beacon, the splitting of the news and live feeds, etc. They’ve made it seemike they’ve listened to their users, but they haven’t. If they had, they’d of noticed the groups that have popped up demanding that we go back to the old privacy system.

I know that at least for me, it DID NOT default to wide open. But then again, I had a fairly locked down profile to start with. You couldn’t search me or even *see* that I existed on there. Why did I do this? Well, I’m in the job search and I’d rather not have someone see me. Not that I have anything remotely bad on my profile… But I don’t trust friends to not tag me in a photo that could be embarrassing. (Trust me, I just untagged myself from a few pictures taken at a business social function because I had a red cup in my hand which could be seen as I was drinking something other than Diet Coke.)

The only good thing to come out of this? Per-item privacy controls.

2. Will Facebook’s latest behavior result in more lawsuits and/or
industry regulation?

I don’t neccesarily think so. But then again, lawyers in this country can be sue-happy sometimes. And I also wonder if there is anything in this change that may have run afowl of California state privacy laws.

3. Do you trust Facebook with your information?

Absolutely not. In fact, since this change, I’ve removed all pictures but my current profile picture, I’ve deleted all of my shared links, and I’m working on deleting all of my notes that were imported from my blog.

If they don’t want to allow me to control how my data is seen, then I don’t want it to be on there. Plain and simple.

Final thoughts…

I think this will be a wakeup call for Facebook. I think there will be a mass revolt from the users. (In fact I know a couple of users who are seriously considering deleting their profiles.)

Where will they run to? I have no clue. I doubt, though, that it will be MySpace or Twitter.

Sent from my iPhone

Technorati Tags: facebook, technology

“just another dead fag
to you that’s all
just another light missing
on a long taxi ride”

- Tori Amos, “Taxi Ride”

Too many trans-persons are becoming victims of senseless hate crimes. In the past year, more than 160 lives were stripped from this earth. These are women and men who have families, friends, partners. And they all died just because they were being their true selves. For that matter, there is one name on this years list, who was killed not because he was transgendered himself, but because he dared to love and accept a transgendered woman. It’s sad really that this hate exists. The hate that would allow someone to take a fellow human’s life just because of who they are or who they love. It’s not right.

Edit @ 11am 11/20: Quick Note — This morning I’ve now seen 3 different numbers on the number of trans-persons killed. There is the 160 that I saw last night on Questioning Transphobia and reported here. This morning, however, Jenn Dolari is reporting 132 on her Twitter feed, and Pink News & The Bilerico Project are reporting 117. I’m not sure what the actual number is at this point, however, any more than 0 is too many.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

- Master Yoda

He may have been just a movie character, but his wisdom is spot on in this struggle. The fear of differences is what cost these 160+ people their lives. Because the fear, brought hate, and the hate turned to anger and rage, and that then lead to the suffering. Not of the attacker…but of the victim, their families, friends, and the world at large.

We shouldn’t ever be hating or fearing the differences that people have. It’s the differences that we each bring to the table which make each one of us as a whole, the whole human race, better. We should take the time to learn. To talk. To listen. For then and only the will you see that each person is not that much different than you or I.

“I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring me down
So don’t you bring me down today”

-Christina Aguilera, “Beautiful”

These 160+ souls should never have had their lives cut short. They were people with the potential to go on and do great things. Who knows what they could have been or become. The only thing that’s known is that they did not choose to be who they were, or to die at the hands of hate. I encourage everyone to please stop the hate in this world.

The names of the deceased for 2009 can be accessed here.

You can find more information on the Transgender Day of Remembrance here.

And I also encourage everyone to read this article that has a lot of sobering statistics about transgender related crimes, or at least to watch the attached video.

If you would like to know why I chose the lyrics I did, click here.

Technorati Tags: death, friends, hate, remembrance, transgender

Let me know if you see any bugs.

Technorati Tags: Health Care, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC

Anyway… Credit goes to Jessica for finding on YouTube, the making of the HBO open:

Seriously… It blows my mind how something that complex, that cool looking, that awesome, was done by hand. There’s absolutely no computer generated effects in it AT ALL! Yes, there were computer controlled cameras, but still. The entire thing was done with, as Dr. Havice would remind us they’re called, physical graphics.

And to think how easy someone could bang this out in a day using the CGI systems and computer technology we have these days.

-Adam

Technorati Tags: 1980s, HBO, Television