Really, Mr. President? Really?

First it was Dick Morris saying “retarded” on The O’Reilly Factor, now it’s the freakin’ president! Obama was on Leno the other night and said something to the effect of I bowl like someone in the Special Olympics. Really, Mr. President? You bowl that well?

President Obama had the decency to call Tim Shriver at Special Olympics and apologize before the show even aired, but still… It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

C’mon, can we please get rid of those parts of our vocabulary that are offensive to people with intellectual disabilities? Do we have to use retarded when we mean stupid, or make a reference to the Special Olympics when we want to say we’re bad at a certain sport? What if I said “I did as well on my science test as an inner-city black kid?” That wouldn’t be cool! Not cool at all!

So stop it! Stop! Think before you speak, for Pete’s sake.

And don’t think Sarah Palin is on my good side because she has spoken out about the same issue. She is the political equivalent of one of those D-list actors you always see on VH1, she’ll do anything to get press. Where was she on the Dick Morris thing? Nowhere, that’s where. Nobody cares what you think. Go back to Alaska and try to explain how we rode around on the backs of dinosaurs.

How not to lie

I am constantly imprerssed by the ways people will lie. Even myself. I’ll be in a situation where I screw something up at work, or forget something, and I think “I just won’t tell anyone. If someone finds out that I screwed up, I’ll deny it or something.” Then I realize that the worst the happens if I tell the truth is I get a couple of cross looks and I’m done.

But the excuses thaqt some people come up with. ApparentlyMayor Dean Grose of Los Alamitos, CA (Orange County) sent an e-mail to a black co-worker depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons. The caption read “No Easter Egg Hunt This Year.”

His co-worker is complaining, so the mayor has apologized by saying that he did not know there was a racial stereotype relating to black people ans watermelon.

That’s shit. And here’s why. In order to believe that, I would have to believe that this guy has never seen Bamboozled,  or any representation of a black man with a big smile and watermelon. In fact, the movie poster to Spike Lee’s spectacular film:

That, and I would have to believe that this guy has never heard Dave Chappelle, or Chris Rock, or Richard Pryor, or any other black commedian who challenges political norms. This is hard to believe, but not impossible. The guy would also have to prove that he’s never listened to this album from Nappy Roots.

But there’s another reason not to believe Mr. Mayor. Because if you don’t know that there is a racial stereotype which says that Barack Obama loves watermelon, there was no reason to send that e-mail. It’s not funny.  Without the knowledge of the racial stereotype, this e-mail doesn’t make sense, and there would be no reason to send it to someone. Simple as that.

So if you’re going to lie, make your lie make sense. He should have said ‘I was so horrified by this e-mail that I had to share it with all of my friends so they could be enraged as well.” It still barely flies, but at least it’s plausible!

On earning a title

Apparently, there’s some big to-do about the fact that Jill Biden is referring to herself as Dr. Jill Biden on official stationary. There are stories about it here and here. Biden earned her PhD in education in 2007, and kudos to her. As a lowly master’s student, I know how much work postgraduate work entails. But an L.A. Times story shows us that some people are not as happy to refer to has as “Dr. Biden”:

Newspapers, including The Times, generally do not use the honorific “Dr.” unless the person in question has a medical degree.

“My feeling is if you can’t heal the sick, we don’t call you doctor,” said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post’s A section and the author of two language books.

Of course, PZ Myers points out that no one has trouble referring to Henry Kissinger and Martin Luther King, Jr., as “Doctor.”

I know that Wikipedia is not always widely accepted, but the article on the title “Doctor” states that in the United States it is customary for anyone with a doctoral degree, aside from those with JDs and honorary doctorates, to use the prefix “Dr.,” but typically only medical folk use the stand-alone title “Doctor.”

They can’t even argue context. Is there any place where knowing that Kissinger has a PhD is important? Is there any context where knowing that King had a PhD was important? Hell, it wasn’t even that important to know that he is a reverend. (Of course, we always call reverends “reverend” and priests “father” in the media. Why is that so important?)

So you have a policy. Change it! People work hard to get to the PhD. It is a sign of respect for the hard work that the person has put in to their education. Refusing to use the prefix “Dr.” for PhDs is akin to not using “Gen.” for generals, and it has the uncouth disrespect about it that replaces “Excuse me, sir” with “Hey, asshole, watch where you’re going!”

Because I’ll tell you this. When I get my PhD, I’m going to make everyone call me Dr. McCaslin. And if you don’t, BAM, flaming bag of poo on your front porch!

Introducing the Obameter

The St. Petersburg Times, I’m presuming Florida, not Russia*, has set up a website called Politifact containing The Obameter, a way to hold our current president accountable for the campaign promises he made. One of my favorite promises is to double funding for basic science research. We should be able to afford an extra few grand.**

* Yes, I know it’s from Florida. That was a geography joke. A bad one, I know.

** Yes, I realize that current funding for science research is higher than three grand. That was an unfunded mandate joke. Equally poor as the previous geography joke, but not too bad as far as unfunded mandate jokes go.