Ethics: Blogtown, PDX, Portland Mercury

The Customer Service Problem at McDonald's Is a Symptom of a Much Bigger Problem

Paul Constant — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:44:43 -0700

Chris DeRose published an article at Business Insider addressing the fact that McDonald's is failing at customer service, with a vice president of the company openly talking about the “rude or unprofessional employees" at some franchises. Here are DeRose's suggestions:

1. Create shared emotion around delivering a great customer experience.
2. Keep simplifying work processes and rules
3. Invest more in tools and training.
4. Reward and recognize great service.

What DeRose doesn't suggest? Paying the employees a living wage. Instead, he spends his time blathering about bullshit PowerPoint terms like "wow stories" and "customer mania" and "creating memories." If you treat your employees like garbage, they're going to treat your customers like garbage. McDonald's shitty pay doesn't even get a mention in DeRose's article, but a program where "employees nominate each other for a series of pins" is suggested as a fix. Fucking unbelievable.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Closer Google Glass Gets, the More Ethical Dilemmas Appear

Paul Constant — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:14:00 -0800

1. Here's a blog post that makes a very good point about Google Glass:

The key experiential question of Google Glass isn’t what it’s like to wear them, it’s what it’s like to be around someone else who’s wearing them. I’ll give an easy example. Your one-on-one conversation with someone wearing Google Glass is likely to be annoying, because you’ll suspect that you don’t have their undivided attention. And you can’t comfortably ask them to take the glasses off (especially when, inevitably, the device is integrated into prescription lenses). Finally – here’s where the problems really start – you don’t know if they’re taking a video of you.

Now pretend you don’t know a single person who wears Google Glass… and take a walk outside. Anywhere you go in public – any store, any sidewalk, any bus or subway – you’re liable to be recorded: audio and video. Fifty people on the bus might be Glassless, but if a single person wearing Glass gets on, you – and all 49 other passengers – could be recorded. Not just for a temporary throwaway video buffer, like a security camera, but recorded, stored permanently, and shared to the world.

Now, I know the response: “I’m recorded by security cameras all day, it doesn’t bother me, what’s the difference?” Hear me out – I’m not done. What makes Glass so unique is that it’s a Google project. And Google has the capacity to combine Glass with other technologies it owns.

Go read the rest. In the weeks since Google Glass has been announced as a definite upcoming product, more and more problems have presented themselves. To give a personal example: I attend a lot of film screenings. At many of these screenings, security guards collect the cell phones of everyone who enters the theater. What do they do if someone is wearing Google Glass? What if those glasses are prescription strength, and the critic is unable to see the movie without them? What about places like banks, where filming is discouraged? I think we're going to see Google Glass banned outright in some locations.

2. Along those lines but on a lighter note, Dartanion London made a video demonstrating how Google Glass will affect the dating dynamic:

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

White History Month: Why Not a Totino's Pizza* History Month?!?

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:00:33 -0800

For those who are still unconvinced by Ian Karmel's argument that white people really don't need a "white history month," here's ModPrimate who also makes an extremely valid case about this unnecessary month for honkies, and how "equality" still isn't all that equal.

*I was paid 25 cents to include the words "Totino's Pizza" somewhere in this post. You're welcome, Totino's Pizza!

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

A Golden Moment: How I Saved One Invasive Animal From Another

Nathan Gilles — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:59:20 -0800

First came the sound: the loud thumping of a soft body plummeting into hard glass. Then the sight: colorful plumage knocked silly by the cunning entrancement of the ersatz sky, that perfect illusion afforded by a window reflecting the sunlight in just the right way. “Holy Shit!” I yelled to myself.

I’d just seen a bird hit my neighbors’ window. And hard! So hard in fact it appeared that—as if by an occult hand—the chicken-sized animal had been plucked from the heavens and tossed around like some vivid marble. But I’ll give whatever capricious god played with this animal his or her due, because what a bird it was. It’s feathers were a kaleidoscope of pigments that ended in an elongated red tail. It looked like no fowl I had ever seen. And as I marveled at the discombobulated ornithological wonder from my bedroom window this past Sunday, I had to ask myself, “What-in-the-fucking-hell-kinda-funky-ass critter is this?” As of yesterday afternoon, I got my answer.

My mystery bird was a golden pheasant, an ~~invasive~~ "exotic" species native to China, and probably somebody’s exotic pet. (This is not to be confused with the much less dapper common pheasant, also a Chinese native, but now super-abundant in America, especially the plains states—hell it’s even South Dakota’s state bird). Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland, broke the news in an email.

And as beautiful as it is, it might also be illegal. And if that's the case, Oregon probably would have wanted me to let it die.

UPDATE: 5:30 PM Bob Sallinger just informed me the animal is legal to possess in the state of Oregon, with the right paperwork.

Here's his full response to my inquiry.

As far as I know, golden pheasants are legal to possess in Oregon and are not becoming prolific in the environment. They are listed as controlled which means there are some rules governing their possession. However people are allowed to keep them in captivity. If one were brought to Audubon or another rehab facility, we would transfer or refer it to either somebody who is qualified to have them or to domestic animal shelter that could adopt it to an appropriate home. We would not be required to euthanize it. The terminology gets confusing...but there is a difference between an exotic species and an invasive species.

The one place that legality might come into question would be if it was deliberately abandoned into the wild. It would not be legal to just dump a bird like this into the environment if it was not longer wanted..

An invasive species is classified as any non-native animal or plant that, once introduced to an environment, causes economic or ecological harm. And as I reported back in August, if you show up at an animal rehabilitation center with an injured invasive in your arms, the center by law has to either turn you away, or euthanize the animal.

Rehab centers can’t legally treat injured invasives, and if they do, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife finds out, they could lose their license. And how the animals are killed can get a little gruesome.

The problem is the whole invasive classification system is a little prejudiced. Some invasives get a free ride on the whole euthanasia thing—regardless of the damage they may cause to the environment—because they are "useful" to humans. This “useful” category includes, livestock, introduced non-native crops for agriculture, and house pets. Here enters the irony.

I wasn’t the only one that heard the colorful creature smash into the window; so had a neighborhood cat.

Cats are one of these privileged, "useful" invasives that, no matter how many songbirds they murder, we let off scot-free. Having heard the pheasant’s body slamming into the window, the cat ran toward it. And here comes the rest of my story.

When it got to the now shocked bird, it stopped and looked. It was obviously puzzled by the bird’s sheer magnitude. But the cat—which looked just like the Clintons' old cat, “Socks”—looked like it was going to pounce, so I, ever the nurturing moron, ran outside to scare predator away from prey. When I got there, I said something like, “Fuck you, Socks!” I had successfully saved ~~one invasive species~~ an exotic species from being ripped to shreds by an invasive species. Minutes later, the bird, now out of shock, got up and ran away. ~~Of course, I didn’t know at the time the pheasant was invasive.~~

~~Now that I do, I’m feeling more than a little conflicted. But who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and both the cat and the bird will be hit by a car, and the natural order will be restored.~~

Lastly, to my neighbors’ neighbors, who I accosted in the early morning with rumors of a preternaturally colorful rooster running about, just ignore me. I was obviously confused and in a state of shock myself.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Apparently the Words "Press Event" Mean Different Things to Different People

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:59:39 -0800

Food Dude over at Portland Food and Drink got his lobster bib in a knot over our Chris Onstad's blog review of Quartet—posted soon after the restaurant's press event dinner. Here's the nut of Food Dude's post titled, "Is It Fair for a Journalist to Review a Press Preview Dinner?" (Spoiler alert: Apparently IT IS NOT!)

Portland Food and Drink was invited to a friends/family/press event to acquaint us with the new restaurant Quartet, which officially opens today.

I don’t go to press events, but know several people who were there, and from texts and emails I was getting, there were some serious issues.

However, because it was a pre-opening dinner, as in the restaurant wasn’t even open to the public yet, I didn’t write anything about the experiences of my friends – it just didn’t seem right.

This did not seem to be the case with Chris Onstad over at the Portland Mercury, who published a screed this morning, lambasting everything from the decor to the service, the food, and everyone else who attended the dinner – because they didn’t tell the management how bad their experience had been. This wasn’t just a negative piece, it was an all out attack.

Apparently Chris broke some unwritten rule that if press is specifically invited to a food event, the press should not write about it in any form. Now this seems odd to me—because usually, say, if Mayor Charlie Hales invites the press to a "press conference," there's a reasonable expectation that the press is going to write about what happened at the "press conference." BUT HEY! WHAT DO I KNOW, RIGHT?

The comments on this Portland Food and Drink story are fun, you should go check 'em out. NOTE: In fairness, there is an unwritten rule that food critics should wait two-three months after a restaurant opens so the place can get all the kinks worked out. The Mercury consistently does this for all our Last Supper reviews, because that's only fair. HOWEVER, if you've got enough confidence in your product to make a dinner an actual "press event" that does not include any mention of embargos, and if the writer clearly notes that the restaurant is still in its infancy... wellllllll, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

North Portland Gay Bar Cancels Drag Queen's Black Face Act

Cara "The Intern" Mico — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:32:47 -0800

So the Eagle, a gay bar in North Portland, booked comedian Shirley Q. Liquor—a drag queen who performs in black face. Comedians constantly push social mores and the less politically correct often the more famous the comedian. And as Dave Chappelle highlighted, when done right, poking at racial stereotypes can be hilarious.

That was until Portland unleashed a flurry of protests in every corner of the internet.

The Eagle had the good sense to cancel the show after a major outcry erupted on the bar's Facebook page—and bloggers criticized the bar by noting “community anecdotes have shown that the owners are racist, transphobic, desire controversy, and operate out of white male privilege.”

Whether or not the last part is true isn't clear. A bartender at the Eagle wouldn't comment and messages left for owners were not returned. I'd say it's unlikely, however, that a transphobic establishment would book Liquor in the first place.

Chappelle wanted his black-face sketch to highlight the terrible nature of racial stereotypes, but that intention was completely lost on one audience member who laughed hardily for the wrong reasons. The incident was so unsettling that the episode never aired and is cited as the reason Chappelle took a break from the show.

Shirley isn't Chappelle (not even in the same universe) and her black-face routine, if you ask me, isn't funny. Liquors has been quoted as saying, “my comedy isn't racist, nor am I,” but the internet has spoken (as has every person with an ounce of common sense) and yes, a white man impersonating a black woman by painting his face black cuts to the very core of racism.

What is funny is that people will pay to see it and there is a significant group of people who don't understand why this is racist. Supporters of Liquor cite her New Orleans roots, as if living in proximity to African Americans bestows Liquor with deep empathy for a culture that has faced centuries of deep-seated racism.

In fact, Liquor herself wanted to open her show up with some dialog and a Q&A session, presumably where Liquor, again a white man impersonating a black woman, would wax rhapsodic about what it was like to have relatives lynched during the 1940s, what segregation felt like according to her grandmother, and the fear of living in a world where the murder rate among African Americans is as much as 10 times that of Caucasians. Ahem.

* I incorrectly identified the performer in the first post, Liquor is the correct spelling of her name.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Would You Shut Down a Robot That Begged You for Mercy?

Paul Constant — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:44:06 -0800

The New Inquiry brought this experiment to my attention.

At the end of the game, whether the robot was smart or dumb, nice or mean, a scientist authority figure modeled on Milgram’s would make clear that the human needed to turn the cat robot off, and it was also made clear to them what the consequences of that would be: “They would essentially eliminate everything that the robot was — all of its memories, all of its behavior, all of its personality would be gone forever.”

In videos of the experiment, you can clearly see a moral struggle as the research subject deals with the pleas of the machine. “You are not really going to switch me off, are you?” the cat robot begs, and the humans sit, confused and hesitating. “Yes. No. I will switch you off!” one female research subject says, and then doesn’t switch the robot off.

The full story is by NPR. Here's video of someone facing the choice:

Based on the high volume of outdated electronic equipment in my apartment, I think I would have a really hard time shutting the robot down. Especially when it got to the sad, stroke-eyed pleading right before the very end.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Big Question: Does Violence In Media Cause Violence In Real Life?

Alex Falcone — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:14:41 -0800

[Alex periodically uses his BA in philosophy to help answer major ethical questions. That's how smart he is, he doesn't need to do it very often to be great at it. -Ed (just some guy named Ed, not an editor or anything)]

Violence in media ABSOLUTELY causes people to be more violent. No question. Don't believe me? Here's my two word proof: Cake. Boss.

I challenge you to watch three episodes of the TLC show about a New Jersey baker and not desperately want to stuff pieces of impeccably decorated sponge into your cake hole. It's impossible. I've watched the whole series and some days I'd kill for a piece of cake. Media is just that powerful.

It's not just me and it's not just cake. The poker world experienced a huge boom in the early 2000s because Matt Damon made it look so cool in Rounders (if I get good at No Limit Texas Hold'em I could sleep with Gretchen Mol!). Glee led to record numbers of show-choir auditions (if I get great at singing and dancing, I can sleep with Cory Monteith!). And MSNBC undoubtedly makes people want to go into politics (if I become a senator I can sleep with people who aren't my wife!).

But this isn't new information. You've known it for a while. Dangerous shows constantly tell people not to "try this at home." Why? Because if it looks fun on TV, people are more likely to do it.

I don't think we need to make violence in media illegal; I'm a philosopher, not a politician. But it isn't doing anybody any favors when we pretend it's harmless. It's clearly not. TV makes it seem cool to shoot guns at people / aliens that look like people / zombies that used to be people we love. Healthy people can resist that pressure but not everybody can. For me, it's easy with guns but not with cake, which is why I remain unarmed and overweight.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Is it Okay to Make Fun of Dreadlocks?

Sarah Mirk — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:59:03 -0800

In last week's Sexual Politics column about how a guy choking his girlfriend with his dreadlocks shouldn't be a punchline, I made this flippant joke: "It's tempting to laugh at this news because, of course, dreadlocks are disgusting and everyone who decides to grow dreadlocks should be publicly mocked."

This sparked a couple thoughtful responses from readers about the racial components of dismissing dreadlocks. From reader Alex:

This stereotype is often funny and true, but at it's core has an ugly racial distinction: it is ok for people of one "race" to have a haircut that you consider disgusting on another "race".

I fundamentally agree that most dreads on white people look terrible. You need really curly hair to pull off nice dreads, but some of us of non-African descent do actually have this.

And Liz:

Dreadlocks are a historical and current way of maintaining and styling hair for people of color (POC), and they were doing it for centuries before us dirty Europeans even started using soap or shampoo on ours. POC, especially women, have been discriminated against in social and professional circles for having dreadlocks for decades. Then there are the white people who dread their hair—this is cultural appropriation to the max. Who dreads their hair aside from POC? Basically, white people who think it’s “natural” and “earthy” and every other hegemonic, ignorant, and privileged adjective based on this centuries-old notion we have of POC being, well, “natural” and “closer to the earth,” etc. While it’s pretty easy to conclude that “dreadlocks are dirty” in an area that... the only dreads you see are on a bunch of privileged middle-class kids who think it’s cool to emanate poverty, please don’t forget the racial roots of the style. While it seems like a small thing, doing so just reinforces the notions we have of POC and perpetuates inequality.

These are two valid points that I didn't think about while being hyperbolic about the hairstyle. A smarter joke would have been to not call for mocking everyone who has dreadlocks, but mocking the kind of dreadlocks that the suspected abuser sports—ratty, greasy dreads that make it impossible to tell where the hair stops and the beard begins. That style of dreads has so overwhelmed the image of "dreadlocks" for me that when I see someone whose dreadlocks actually look good, it's a shock. This is maybe a Portland-specific problem of having a negative view of dreadlocks. Or, more acutely, a Southeast Portland problem, especially in the summer near Colonel Summers Park.

Here's my conclusion from all this: It's fine to make fun of dreadlocks that are inarguably gross. But dismissing dreadlocks as a hairstyle categorically is unfair, because it lets a hairstyle that people of color have worn for generations be overshadowed by a mimicking crop of people who use dreadlocks as a symbol of earthy identity, often with aesthetically displeasing results.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Big Question: Is Immortality Worth It?

Alex Falcone — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:29:39 -0800

[Fake editor's note: Alex is required by law to philosophize at least once a month or he'll have his bachelor of arts taken away. In this series, he thinks about something just enough to meet that requirement and get the commenters mad. -Still just Alex, but in italics so it seems important]

Some jellyfish can live forever. They're called Turritopsis Dohrnii, or more often The Benjamin Button Jellyfish. I'm not making this up. When they get old or sick or injured, they reverse the aging process back to their infantile stage. Their tentacle things fall off, they curl up in a ball, then bam! they're baby jellyfish. They start aging all over again. These jellyfish are laughing in your stupid YOLOing faces, Ke$ha.

This is not how we normally ponder immortality. I want my body to be in its late 20s forever while my brain keeps getting smarter. It'd be a crappy genie who told me I'd have to turn back into a baby every 70 years and start breastfeeding again. If my brain reverted too, what would be the point? If I stayed smart, that would be awkward for the owner of the breasts, having to constantly feed one of those babies from the eTrade commercials. I will pass on this kind of immortality.

What if you could live forever but you had to be a jellyfish? I'd live forever as a dolphin, sure. They have sex for pleasure. Or a whale, they sing beautiful songs and hang out in pods. Or king crabs, they scurry along the bottom of the ocean and have very tasty legs. But what do jellyfish do? They eat and poop out of the same hole. That's what jellyfish do. I will pass on that kind of immortality too.

The Benjamin Button Jellyfish has another major problem. They don't die of natural causes, but they have no bodily defenses at all so they're murdered by the millions... BY SEA SLUGS. Do you know how weak you have to be to be killed by a sea slug? If the French army had a baby with Screech from Saved by the Bell and the baby had Greg Oden's knees, that child would still be able to kick a sea slug's ass.

If a mad scientist offered you eternal life with the caveat that sea slugs would be able to kill you, don't take that either. You're lying in bed and you hear a slurping sound at the door. You panic. "They're here. I don't know how they found me but they did." You try to run but you trip over a roller skate in the hallway and before you can get up you feel something wet on your leg. It's just too terrifying, really. I'll take my chances with normal death.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

I Am Morally Obligated to Make Sure Everyone Has Access to This Image of Werner Herzog as the Villainous Character Named "The Zec" in Jack Reacher

Erik Henriksen — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:42:02 -0800

Our review of Jack Reacher—which will be written by my father, who is an expert in all things related to Jack Reacher—will be posted later this week.

Good day.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Big Question: How Should We Treat Anti-Geniuses?

Alex Falcone — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 09:59:58 -0800

[Fake editor's note: Alex has a B.A. in philosophy which qualifies him to be a couple things: a Subway sandwich Artist and pedantic. In this series, he uses the latter power to ponder some of today's most troubling moral questions. -Nobody]

Every story about a genius involves disproving doubters. Eight publishers passed on Harry Potter. Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team. The princess wasn't in the first 23 castles Mario jumped onto.

But some people aren't geniuses, and they also face rejection. Numerous publishers refused to publish Rich Shapero's book Wild Animus; it's the worst book ever written. Like Michael, I didn't make my high school basketball team; I still can't hit a three pointer to save my life. Mario's cousin Sorryo has never saved a single princess; when you play as him, you just run headfirst into battle with a dinosaur that murders you [citation needed].

Are we, as a society, morally culpable for the continued misery that anti-geniuses like Rich Shapero, my jump shot, and Sorryo face for our near constant rejection? Haters are, by definition, gonna hate. But that doesn't mean they're always wrong. By telling people to ignore hateful feedback, are we only putting off their inevitable realization that they suck and by doing so, making that realization much more painful?

Personally, I think the larger hazard is in losing great works from geniuses that quit too soon, so we should continue to encourage people to ignore negative feedback. But once they reach the Gladwellian threshold of 10,000 hours, they should be forced to quit. Perhaps we can form an anti-genius parole board that monitors repeat failures and makes sure they don't put pen to paper, hand to ball, or frog suit to video game character again.

In exchange, we could promise to reign in haters and make sure failures receive no further negativity. But as soon as they're caught near a self-publishing website, the haters are called back in.

That's just one genius's opinion. What's yours?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Spanking Kids: Apparently This is STILL a Thing

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:41:47 -0700

So I was listening to 95.5 today on my way to work—I KNOW, I KNOW, but I have this weird fascination/revulsion thing going on with Taylor Swift's new song—and the morning show hosts "Cabana Boy and Nikki" (I KNOW, I KNOW) were asking listeners to sound off on how they felt about spanking children... WHICH I DIDN'T THINK WAS EVEN A THING ANYMORE.

But apparently it is a thing, because in the segment I listened to, the most terrible people in the world called in saying that spanking is the ONLY thing that works in disciplining children, and that they can't understand why some parents choose to "talk" to their kids instead. Of the three people that called in, two were insanely gross and the only contrasting opinion was that of a mewler who said, "I was whipped with a switch when I was a kid, so I tried it on my five-year-old... and I cried."

Naturally, Cabana Boy and Nikki didn't say a single word in objection to any these horrible people—because who's going to listen to anybody named Cabana Boy and Nikki, right? I shut it off after that, so I have no idea if someone with an actual brain in their head came on later to say something logical like, "UMMM... when you hit kids, it teaches them to hit."

However, in the spirit of due diligence, I'll do a quick Google search of studies to see if what I just said is true. Hmmm... here's the first search result from the American Psychological Association quoting psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, PhD, of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University:

The more often or more harshly a child was hit, the more likely they are to be aggressive or to have mental health problems.

And this:

For one, corporal punishment on its own does not teach children right from wrong. Secondly, although it makes children afraid to disobey when parents are present, when parents are not present to administer the punishment those same children will misbehave.

However in a dissenting opinion in the same report, researcher Diana Baumrind, PhD (Univ. of CA at Berkeley) and others note that not all kids who get spanked on occasion turn out to be serial murderers. (At least I haven't started serial murdering yet.) And because of this, the previous argument "does not justify a blanket injunction against mild to moderate disciplinary spanking." Or to put a finer point on it:

"The fact that some parents punish excessively and unwisely is not an argument, however, for counseling all parents not to punish at all."

OKAY. So I realize there's a LOT more to unpack here (corporal punishment that results in domestic violence, etc) and I also realize that you guys know absolutely nothing about children, or parenting... but that's never stopped you from offering an uninformed opinion before, right? Sooooo... poll time! (And feel free to agree or disagree in the comments, of course.)

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

It's Happening Tonight!

Alison Hallett — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:44:11 -0700

SEVEN—Akira Kurosawa's phenomenal Seven Samurai has been respected, studied, ripped off, remade, and—most importantly—enjoyed for 58 years. This weekend, you can see this classic as you were meant to, on 35mm, at the Hollywood Theatre! EH
Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, Sat-Mon, see Movie Times for showtimes, $5-7

GENTLE REMINDER—It's been nine long years since the Jealous Sound released their last album, but the Los Angeles group dropped A Gentle Reminder this year, which sees them back in form. With echoes of Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigk and Death Cab, they're going to make Bunk's sandwiches a bit difficult to swallow past that lump in your throat. CF
w/Daytrader; Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water, 9 pm, $10-12

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

This Ad on TVGuide.com Might Be In Poor Taste

Erik Henriksen — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:59:34 -0700

So all I'm trying to do is figure out when America's Next Top Model is on (answer: it is always on) and then WAIT WHAT

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

A Serious Mercury Conundrum Re: Adam Sandler's Latest Film

Erik Henriksen — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:58:15 -0700

Ned Lannamann and I just had a surprisingly nuanced conversation about whether we should put one of those "we recommend it" stars next to his review of Adam Sandler's new film, That's My Boy. That's My Boy costars Andy Samberg and Vanilla Ice.

For those of you curious about what it's like to be a working professional in the hyper-competitive newspaper industry, here's a rare glimpse—a small excerpt from the aforementioned conversation. I am the pug wearing 3D glasses. Ned is the kitty wearing a sombrero.

That reminds me, I have to check my mail, I'm expecting a very important package today.

P.S. Ned would also like me to inform you that he reviewed "an artsy fartsy Czech film series" this week; he also pointed out that he's got "range."

UPDATE 4:35 PM: MACGRUBER BLU-RAY HAS ARRIVED

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

It's Happening Tonight!

Alison Hallett — Wed, 30 May 2012 13:29:00 -0700

LADY TOONS—Saturday morning TV isn't just for mornings anymore. Or for boys. Hollywood's ReRun Theater hosts a girly retro cartoon extravaganza, featuring Jem and the Holograms, Josie and the Pussycats, and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. The era-spanning show welcomes go-go booted, spandexed fans of all genders, especially the ladies. AZ
Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, 7:30 pm, $5

MOGWAI—Post-rock music is mostly about being a closet stoner and kissing, so Scottish eternals Mogwai seem to have escaped the perils that befall most bands. Nearly 20 years into their career they still have all their original fingers/toes and continue to offer opulent soundscapes to feel cosmic about. SS
w/Chad VanGaalen; Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell, 9 pm, $22-25, all ages

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father

Dan Savage — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:59:00 -0700

They seem terribly concerned for the health and safety of their child—but only after the washing machine starts. (Via The New Civil Rights Movement.)

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Campaign Targets Defense of Marriage Act

Alex Zielinski — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:44:37 -0700

A new campaign, "Freedom to Serve, Freedom to Marry," released its first (emotional) video against the Defense of Marriage Act—a federal law that doesn't recognize same-sex marriages and ultimately denies military personnel's same-sex spouses the privileges that "traditional" spouses have (ie: access to military bases, legal counseling). In this video specifically, a woman's request to contact her possibly-endangered deployed wife is neglected by military officials due to their "unlawful" relationship.

Says Evan Wolfson, the founder of Freedom to Marry, in a press release: "Many people assume that, with the repeal of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,' gay men and lesbians serving our country are now being treated fairly and equally, but that’s not the case. We ended the ban on open military service for gay and lesbian Americans, but there is still federal ban on treating married service members as what they are: married."

Here's the clip:

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Got Herpes?

Dan Savage — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:59:50 -0700

You need to read this piece.

I took a breath, let it out. I hate this part, I said to myself, possibly aloud. And then, definitely aloud: “I have herpes.”

Silence. The word had to be chased with something.

“But before you freak out,” I said as casually as I could, “let me tell you about it.”

“The transmission risks are tiny,” I started, and they are: about 2-4 percent from woman to man, depending on condom use. My risks are likely even lower; I got genital herpes from oral sex, and HSV-1 is even harder to transmit to a partner’s genital region. “And one in four or five people have it, even though most people don’t know since a standard STI test doesn’t test for it,” I said.

Silence. Wasn’t this dirty talk?

“It’s much harder for a woman to give it to a man, and to my knowledge, I’ve never given it to anyone,” I finished.

Go read the whole thing. Trust me. Right now. Everyone with herpes, everyone without it, and everyone with it who doesn't know it—everyone—needs to go read this piece. The concluding paragraph—and my thoughts about it—after the jump. (Via Sullivan.)

The piece ends with this:

In a world full of infinite partner choices, herpes had narrowed mine to the understanding, the open minded, the risk takers. I am now confined to partners who think my awesomeness eclipses my cellular flaw — so instead of killing my love life, herpes has weirdly deepened it.

I've said this for years to my friends with HIV: When you disclose your HIV status you're telling the dude one thing he needs to know about you—and the way the dude reacts tells you everything you need to know about him. Disclosing an STI can help a person find good, kind, considerate and thoughtful partners in a pile that includes so many unkind, paranoid, irrational and phobic assholes. It's a superpower.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Putting Coffee Cups on Urinals: CONDEMN OR ALLOW?

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:14:09 -0700

Here is a urinal in my building.

Do you see that? I said, "DO YOU SEE IT??" Do you see those coffee cup rings on the top of the urinal? In fact, multiple coffee cup rings? (There are more on the other side, too!) This means that people are putting their (gag) coffee cups there while urinating—possibly knowing full well that "splashing" could easily occur. Sure, I occasionally put a beer on top of a urinal in a rock club—but only because there's no other choice! What's wrong with putting their coffee on the sink, or... oh, I don't know... leaving it in their office? THIS IS GROSS. And obviously, "I CONDEMN THEE!!!" But what do you think?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

"Guinan" at ECCC: Is This OK?

Mary Traverse — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:59:24 -0700

This Caucasian girl used brown make-up to complete her Guinan costume during this weekend's Emerald City Comic Con. Sorry, but I think we need to vote on this:

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Foxconn, Apple, and Daisey: A Beautiful Lie?

Goldy — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:44:21 -0700

Foxconn, the Chinese electronics manufacturing behemoth, has promised to sharply curtail working hours and increase worker pay, after an investigation by the Fair Labor Association found numerous examples of the company violating Chinese law and industry codes of conduct. The investigation came at the behest of Apple, after the iPhone maker came under intense criticism for working conditions at plants operated by Foxconn and other contract suppliers.

Criticism of Apple and Foxconn (which also happens to assemble products for Dell, Amazon, and other major brands) had been slowly building for years, but came to a head recently following the success of local monologuist Mike Daisey's The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, which, much to Daisey's shame, was recently revealed to be largely fictionalized. His questionable methodology aside, without Daisey's effective storytelling, Apple might never have joined the Fair Labor Association and requested the investigation, or at the very least, might have waited much longer to do so.

So... do the ends justify the means? If, hypothetically, Daisey's beautifully constructed lie ultimately served to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Foxconn workers, was it worth it? Or must we always meticulously stick to the facts, even when it gets in the way of communicating a larger truth?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

One More Blasted Thing About Mike Daisey

Marjorie Skinner — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:44:00 -0700

I am juuuust about ready to quit following the story of the Mike Daisey/Think Out Loud quagmire, but I could not resist delving into the transcript of Daisey's first public talk after the blow-up—at Georgetown University, which booked him long before any of this went down to speak about "Art and the Human Voice in the Global Labor Struggle." Naturally, it's all about the scandal, which no doubt was not his Plan A, but certainly fits the bill.

It's pretty long (there's audio, too), a little (characteristically) circuitous, and some of it feels bullshitty (he lays a lot of blame on journalists, both for their interviews with him and their lack of reporting on Foxconn), but some of it feels honest, if not exactly noble. I'd been walking around feeling sorry that Daisey, who I've seen perform four or five times, had ruined his career, so I'm fascinated to see the escape hatch he's going for, and moreover, will be interested to see if it works out for him. If you have any real investment in all this it's going to be worth following the whole thing, but a couple sections that jumped out to me as particularly relevant are posted here and beyond the cut.

On giving interviews about his monologue "The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs" and how that's "a different form of storytelling":

And it's a dangerous form, of course, because it's viral. People read the stories, the next people ask questions based on the last story, you can let yourself be swept up by it — not in the way you think. Not out of ego. I never needed to feel like I had met people with n-hexane poisoning. I never wanted to say that, out of some sense that I had. I don't even remember how that happened the first time. But I know it happened in an interview. I know it happened in an interview and I don't even remember. But I know the story of how it ended up in the show, which happened in an interview, and I remember I had a feeling, ohhhh, then I don't know if I said it more than once in an interview, and then, my partner, my director, who, to retain her sanity, does not read all the interviews*, was reading one, and suddenly was like, "You met people with n-hexane poisoning? You met them at that meeting?" Would have been so much wiser, to be open, to say, no, I'm a moron. I'm a moron. People ask me things sometimes and I just fucking tell them things. That's what I should have said. Instead I said, yeah, yeah. I think said something stupid like that. And the next thing you know, my director, who is very good at picking up dramatic details, saw it as a theater problem and was saying, "Well how can that not be in the show? We've been doing the show for forever and it's not in the show. That should be in the show." And then the artistic director of the theater was like, "Yes, that should be in the show." And I thought okayyyy, and I put it in the show*.

On his translator in China:

I also didn't want them to talk to her because I knew my chronology was fucked. I knew that I had taken ... liberties. And so I didn't want them to talk to her for that reason too. So they're both true. So I told my producer that her name wasn't Cathy, that it was Anna. And I said that I had a cell-phone number but it didn't work. And then Ira called me. And Ira talked to me, through it. And he was like, "Really? You really don't have any contact information?" And he said, "Look, I know how things get made, things are complicated*. You can tell me. You can tell me. People are composited." And I said to him, "She's a composite, of three characters."

I did it because I'm suggestible when I feel guilty. So I just said it. In the conversation. That she was composite of three characters. That one of them was named Anna. That I did not have contact information for her. And that was the end of that.

On meeting underage workers:

I also say that I met an underage worker at the gates of Foxconn. We had a conversation. I took a picture of her with my camera, that she had my phone, she rubbed it on her pants, and handed it back to me. Then we talked. I asked her how old she was. She said 13. She had some friends with her. That also indicated to me that they were under-age, I didn't ask what age they were.

I remember all that. I don't know what to do about that. I understand that there are theoretically not many under-age workers at Foxconn. I've read the reports myself. I agree with you. I understand all of that. I also understand that all I have as evidence is that I saw it, I have this memory of it, and I've performed this story over and over again. But it's been in the show since it started; I remember it, and I remember coming back after it happened, and I know that Jean Michele, my partner, that I came to her, and she has a memory of me telling her that there was an under-age worker, she remembers, though, that the under-age worker was 14.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

In AG's Race, WWeek Editor Pens Private Endorsement of His Boss's Wife

Denis C. Theriault — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:44:38 -0800

Yes, officially, Willamette Week is staying out of the race for Oregon attorney general this spring—no surprise since one of the two main candidates, Ellen Rosenblum, is married to the paper's publisher and co-owner, Richard Meeker. But, no, that doesn't mean editor Mark Zusman hasn't been whispering to friends in high places about his boss's wife's candidacy.

Exhibit A: Yesterday, the Oregonian published a glowing email about Rosenblum that Zusman sent to a top ranking official in the influential Service Employees International Union. It reads like a pitch for an endorsement—a little bit of "arm twisting" as Zusman himself notes in the letter's signoff. And that pitch, as the O notes, touched on a controversial topic keenly watched by labor unions: whether and how to reform public pensions for government workers—and whether and how to make individual workers' pension information public.

Zusman says Rosenblum would be way kinder to unions, compared to her main foe, former US Attorney Dwight Holton.

Also: Ellen is in PERS, so she has a vested interest in the matter of greatest importance to [REDACTED] in the previous AG's race. Dwight is currently practicing white collar criminal defense for Lane Powell—hardly a role that makes him a friend to the state's workers or to [REDACTED] membership.

Zusman told the O he really did write the letter and acknowledged that some of what he said in his pitch may run counter to the sunshine-seeking demands for transparency his paper might make. The O, however, didn't note whether he used a personal or professional email account. How he levied the pitch, whether it carried the imprint of his day job, is not a small question. I've left a message for Zusman hoping he'll clarify.

On a related note: Guess who answered the front desk at the WW? Mayoral candidate Max Bauske, who says he's working there now in a non-editorial role. I jokingly asked Bauske if his bosses will now have to recuse themselves from covering the mayor's race. And he jokingly replied: "No comment."

Correction: A previous version of this post said Rosenblum was Zusman's wife. It's been edited to reflect that very dumb error.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]