Boston SlutWalk. Photo: Josh Reynolds/AP

A couple of quick points on the recent Slutwalk epidemic.

As I pointed out in Sex Offenders – Part I, I don’t think most guys are any more or less likely to rape someone or try to coax them in to sex based on what they’re wearing. Guys do a very good job of getting themselves worked up regardless. Burqa or Bikini makes little difference.

HOWEVER, what these women are being short-sighted on is that they don’t have any idea, of all of the guys out there, which ones are likely sex offenders and which are not. They don’t know which may not have the self control or understanding to not get the wrong message based on what she is wearing.

When I’m driving I should be able to count on every other car always obeying the laws. That’s a grossly unreal expectation. Most do obey the laws, but occasionally one doesn’t. So, we have to drive defensively, whether we like it or not. It’s the worst 2% of drivers that we have to watch out for. Or we could pay with our life or some other harm.

Likewise, it’s the worst 12% or so of guys that women have to watch out for. Or they could pay with their life or being raped or other sexual assault. The perp should get his due, regardless of how the woman was dressed or not dressed, and hopefully he will. That will not, in any way, undo her having been killed or raped or assaulted though.

What these women are asking for is a change in guys sexual nature.  Good luck.

Note: I have turned comments back on.  Hopefully the new spam widget works this time.

Obama and other liberals (or progressives or whatever they want to be called this week) keep wanting to pour more money in to the economy to stimulate it and they want to meddle with every aspect of the economy.

'Spender of Last Resort'

Robert Reich wins the ridiculous award with his statement that the US Government is the ‘spender of last resort’ and that what we need more than anything is for the US Government to spend.

Obama has just rolled out $500 billion Stimulus III.

The problem is that all of this simply drops in to an effective black hole.

Our economy is stagnated. It’s a machine that’s in neutral. Pouring more stimulus money in to this economy is like pouring wheat in to a thresher that’s not running. It’ll go in, but nothing will happen.

We don’t need government stimulus or meddling. We need to get the economy running again. We need consumers, both individual and corporate, to start doing things, we need companies to start expanding and investing in the future and hiring employees.

Companies aren’t expanding or hiring because they’re scared of the future. They don’t know what the government will do to them next. They don’t know what new regulations are coming. They don’t know what new taxes are coming. They’re concerned about increased unionization. They’re concerned about how Obamacare will impact them. They look at the government raid on Gibson Guitars or the government telling Boeing they can’t operate a plant in a right-to-work state and they’re scared to death.

The entire business sector is pretty much in a holding pattern – from the small three person company to the largest mega corporations.

Individual consumers are in a similar boat. Most of those who make over $250k per year are holding back because of their fear of increased taxes. Most people who are invested in the stock market, from the wealthiest to the admin assistant who gets some profit sharing stock every month, are holding back because their stock value has tanked, and that gives them a huge sense of poorness. All of these folks aren’t eating out as much and they’re not buying boats or electronics or furniture or other stuff.

All of these consumers, from a single gal to GE, aren’t spending, they’re hoarding. Any stimulus money poured in to this anemic economy doesn’t go anywhere, it just gets hoarded. You can pour all the money you want in to this economy and nothing will change.

And this is the way things will stay until everyone feels comfortable again. This is the way it will be until we get rid of onerous government regulations, meddling, and high taxes and do so in a way that sends a message that these changes will be permanent and that people can depend on this environment for a long time and that they no longer need to fear investing in their futures.

Sex offender.  The term sends chills up the spine of most of us.

I’ve known a number of sex offenders, including several pastors and church leaders who have been convicted of sex with minors.  I’ve also known many victims.  You very likely know some perpetrators and victims as well, you just may not know it as most don’t exactly advertise this part of their lives.  Sadly, there’s fair chance that you are a victim yourself.

I’ve recently been touched by this yet again and again know both the perpetrator and victims.  I’ve lost a lot of sleep the past few weeks struggling with it and trying to understand it.  These posts are as much for my own quest in trying to sort through it as to communicate anything.

—–

To understand sex offenders, it’s important to first understand guys in general.  In Summary:

Guys crave sex often with a variety of cute young girls.

Guys – This is just about every male over the age of about 5.  Not men, not boys, not males, but guys.  Rich and poor, black and white, short, tall, fat, skinny, Republican, Democrat, bald, Libertarian, Christian, Jewish, Agnostic, Hindu, and Muslim.  But age 5?  Really?  Do you remember how quickly the girls lost interest in playing doctor but the guys didn’t?  There are a lot of 11-year-old guys who have an extremely strong interest in exploring something other than the local fishing hole.

Crave – I could almost have substituted the word need here.  Almost.  Guys desire, their craving of sex, can be extremely strong.  It is second only to breathing, drinking water (when near death of dehydration), and eating (when near death of starvation).

Sex – In some ways this ranges from checking out a cute girl in class to intercourse.  For the most part though, post puberty anyway, it’s stimulation and orgasm – preferably with a variety of cute young girls (or second best, nude pictures of them).  Love and affection are not a part of this.  Guys just want sex.

Often – For younger guys, sex in the afternoon may be just a prelude for that night.  For older folk, often might be next year.  Hopefully.

With – An image in his mind, a picture, or best of all, the real thing.

Variety – Guys like variety.  A lot of variety.  This is what drives Hugh Grant to seek out prostitutes when he has Elizabeth Hurley at home or why Peter Cook was having an affair with 18-year-old Diana Bianchi while he was happily married to Christie Brinkley (the happiness ended when Brinkley found out).  I could go on and on with similar examples.  Every time this happens with someone famous you’ll hear commentators on TV wondering why fill-in-the-blank went out for sex when he had so and so at home.  The answer is variety.

Cute – In the eyes of the beholder, but critical.  Sometimes.

Young – Girls start to become sexually attractive to guys at puberty.  This is by God’s design so don’t shoot the messenger.  There’s a reason so many models are between 14 and 17 – sex sells and these are the most sexually appealing (Michael Kors gets credit for recently refusing to use anyone under 16, a statement that caused some ripples in the industry). Recently on Foxnews.com, the stories that garnered the highest number of clicks, by a significant margin, were those about high school cheerleader skirts being too short.

Depending on what study you read, the peak of her attractiveness is anywhere from 15 to 22. Combining data from several studies gives us something like this for the age of girls that guys are most attracted to and the age of guys that girls are most attracted to:

It’s important here to distinguish between a guy’s ‘animal sexual nature’ and that within a loving context. A guy in love with his 40 or 70 or whatever-year-old wife will find her just as sexually attractive, or more so, than any other women of any age.  AND, most guys are not as shallow as their sexual nature might make them out to be – they can still have a very deep abiding love regardless of sexual attraction.

Now, let’s distinguish between what is psychologically normal and what is legal.  Attraction to a pre-pubescent, by someone more than about five years older, pedophilia, is generally considered abnormal, while attraction to a post-pubescent, ephebophilia or teliophilia, is normal.  A thirty something guy attracted to a 10-year-old pre-pubescent girl is a pedophile while a thirty something guy attracted to a 14-year-old post-pubescent girl is normal[1].

Legally though we draw the line for acting on this attraction at somewhere between 13 and 18, depending on the state or country.  In the US most states are between 16 and 18,  Europe ranges from 13 to 16, Asia is 13 or 14 for those countries that have an age of consent.  In Islamic countries it’s usually either puberty or 9 (though slightly more complicated under Sharia).

So, while it’s normal for a 30-something guy to be sexually attracted to a 14-year-old girl, it’s not legal for them to do anything about it.

For those gasping at that last statement I’ll offer two thoughts:

I can go out today and pick 10 girls, one of each age from 12 to 21.  If I line them up in random order and ask people to tell me their ages, knowing that there is one of each age, the younger girls will receive numerous votes of being over 18 and the older, numerous for being under 18.  If, for example, the majority believe the 14-year-old to be over 18, how then can we say that it is abnormal for a guy to be sexually attracted to her?  Or for him to be sexually attracted to the 21-year-old who looks 15?

Second, consider this, Song of Solomon is an erotic sonnet written by a 40-something guy about his likely 13-year-old bride.  Should we rip it out of our Bibles?

Sex Drive

Guys crave sex often with a variety of cute young girls.

The title of Steven Arterburn’s book Every Man’s Battle sums it up well – sexual temptation is a battle for just about every guy every day.  Dealing with sexual temptation is probably the number one topic in Christian men’s groups, yet few men actually live up to the ideals set forth in these discussions.

In Christianity, and to some extent in society, we are taught that there should be no sex outside of a monogamous marriage and that masturbation and porn are sins.  The problem is that this is quite contrary to guy’s, often extremely strong, sexual nature.

I cannot stress enough how minute the difference in crave and need can be and how critical a role often and variety can play.  It’s called a sex drive because it drives.  And often doesn’t take directions very well[2].

There are two things, other than ED, that keep guys sex drives in line, that keep them from having sex twice a day, every day, with a variety of cute young girls; beliefs, and self-control.  Our sex-drive says one thing, our beliefs, Christian, legal, or other, say something else, and self-control bridges the gap.

Self-Control

Some guys have almost zero sex drive and others have an enormous over-powering sex drive.  Some have the same drive throughout most of their life, others have significant peaks and valleys.  On an imaginary scale of 0 to 10 most are about an 8 much of their life.

Self-control, seemingly anyway, also varies across a continuum and it is self-control and guys efforts to exercise it, that keeps their sex drives in reasonable check.  But what is self-control?  How much can be taught and how much is genetic?  Is there an upper limit for each of us beyond which we have no control?  If we don’t learn it early in life, can we still learn it later in life?

There is far more that we don’t know about self-control than that we do know.  I completely failed in every attempt at any kind of relatively brief discussion of it for this post, much less how it relates to controlling our sex drive.  So I’ll leave a more in-depth discussion for later.  What we do know is that there does appear to be a strong genetic component, but this is only a starter and self-control can often be taught and learned.  We also know that there is a significant and direct correlation between a person’s level of self-control, genetic or learned, and their success in life[3].

If we were to plot the sex-drives and self-control of 33 average guys we’d likely get something like this (a hugely simplistic view, but good enough for discussion):

Each dot above represents approximately 3% of the guy population.

The three dark green dots represent the approx 9% of the guy population who are able to fully control their sex drive.  These are the guys who never look at porn and never have an affair.  Note that these are not all people with extreme self control or with low sex drives, but guys who posses enough self control relative to their sex drive to keep things in check.

The dark red dot represents the perhaps 3% of the guy population who have an extremely difficult or impossible time controlling their sexual urges.  This is where you will find the perpetrators of stranger rape or the guys who’ll visit enslaved or trafficked prostitutes.

The four light red represent the estimated 12% who find it very difficult to control their sexual desires.  They will nominally violate others to satisfy their sexual urges.  These are the guys who commit date-rape with their drunk date or do something with folks who are underage.  This is the teacher who coaxes a 15-year-old girl in to bed with him and, after her, plans his next.  These acts are nominally consensual – but they’re not.

In between these extremes lay the majority of the guy population, the 77% who have relative control over their sex drive and keep their activities within relatively appropriate boundaries – they aren’t purely monogamous, but they don’t take advantage of others.  The light green are the 9% or so of guys who look at porn, but nothing else.  The chartreuse (greenish yellow) are those who might slip up once or twice with a visit to a prostitute or perhaps with someone they work with.  The yellow are the majority – they look at porn, visit consenting adult prostitutes, and may have an affair.  The orange are those on the edge of relative acceptability who often have numerous affairs and will have affairs with married women (for most guys there is an unwritten rule that you never hook up with another guys wife.)

This is, approximately, reality.  Any random group of 33 guys, from the corner bar or local Baptist church will look something like this.  A random group of 33 Evangelical pastors will look like this as will a random group of 33 union auto workers or 33 attorneys.  A random group of cops, that former Minneapolis police chief Tony Bouza describes as “a bunch of libidous type-A’s”, will likely have a few more reds and oranges.

If you plot all of the Presidents of the United States from the 20^th century, Teddy Roosevelt through Bill Clinton, based on what we know of their sex lives, we’d get this (each dot represents one specific president):

Monogamy is not a trait of our leaders.

President John F. Kennedy, the only dark red dot, was willing to risk his marriage, political career, and the security of our nation to have a variety of cute young girls.  By some estimates he had sex with as many as ten different girls each week during his campaign.  When asked what he’d likely do after his second term in office, his wife Jackie once replied “He’ll probably take a job as the headmaster of an exclusive, all-girls prep school.”

How do you think a random selection of 33 movie stars would look?  How about NFL, NBA, or MLB players?  Congress critters?  How about Biblical patriarchs?

My wife sums this all up: “Guys can be such jerks!”

Conclusion to Part I

A very common phrase uttered by women when they find out about some guy’s sexual affairs is “but he was such a good husband and father”, as if these are mutually exclusive.

They are not mutually exclusive.  If you marry a guy, and I do highly recommend it, his sex drive is part of the package.  And it’s intentional.  And by God’s design.  These very same guys, most anyway, from greens to reds, are also very caring and loving husbands and fathers (and cops and auto workers and pastors and engineers.)

I’ve vetted this with a number of pastors; Baptist, AG, and non-denominational.  The general response is somewhat begrudging agreement.  Begrudging because this goes so drastically against what the Christian church has taught in recent years.  Agreement because it is the reality that they see in their churches.

One pastor, who has counseled hundreds of engaged couples and followed most through their marriages, commented that he “doesn’t want to let guys off this easy.”  Then agreed that it may not be a question of letting guys off easy, but recognizing reality vs a fairytale.

With a tremendous amount of effort guys may be able to move up one-level on our self-control scale; from orange to yellow for example.  Is green a realistic choice for every guy? In solitary confinement maybe. In the real world I’m not so sure.

None of this is to say that it is in any way OK for guys to look at porn, visit prostitutes, or have affairs. It is simply a look at the reality that we all share.

This morning I was in my favorite café happily working away. As sometimes happens a fly was buzzing around my cappuccino and I’d swat him (or her?) away. This was a cunning fly. On her final attempt she (I know now, because as I said, she’s cunning – he’s simply aren’t that cunning) buzzed high for a bit and then swooped down low ready for me to swat her away.

Just as I began my move she smiled and dive bombed in to my cappuccino. Intent on getting her I adjusted my aim. Bad mistake. Very bad mistake.

If you haven’t pictured it already, my cappuccino went flying – all over the guy next to me. One of the more embarrassing moments in my life. I was horrified. I began apologizing and grabbing napkins as fast as I could.

This guy was extremely gracious. Amazingly gracious. He said he recognized me and not to worry about it – stuff like this happens sometimes. Wow. I fear I would have been giving me the evil stare if not calling me a buffoon.

We ended up talking for a bit and had a few things in common like both being Christians. He’d graduated from the same high school as my son, his sister went to university in the same country, Scotland, as my son, we’d crossed paths at a couple of churches, and a few other things.

I learned that he’d recently graduated from Regent University and wants to produce films. Funny, I just so happen to have a contact or two in the film industry for him.

And I continue to hope he’ll forgive me for so stupidly spraying my cappuccino all over he and his laptop.

There’s an interesting conundrum with café etiquette in the US.

In most US cafes, those I’ve been in anyway, the protocol is that you stand in line, order your drink, then find a table. This generally works well, is fair to everyone, and makes the most use of the available tables.

A problem comes with people who violate this bit of café etiquette. Who, in effect, break in line.

I wrote about the family hogging a table at Ess-A-Bagel in NYC. That was an amazingly egregious violation. A somewhat similar, though far less egregious violation happened to me yesterday morning.

The Story

I’d been standing in line about three or four minutes when a guy came in, looked around and then sat at an open table. Didn’t order anything, just sat there. A few minutes later I ordered my cappuccino and then looked around for a place to sit. With a dead laptop battery I needed a place with power which is limited to about a third of the tables in this café and rarely a problem. None were available and this guy was still sitting at one of them, doing nothing and without having ordered anything.

I asked if he was just waiting on someone, he was, and if I could get this table since I needed the power and he could get another table when one became available after his friend arrived and they’d ordered. He refused. His friend arrived 14 minutes later, they stood in line for 4 minutes, ordered, then sat down and he got out his laptop (He hadn’t gotten it out earlier because he thought she might want to sit outside if a table was available, which one was not). Overall he consumed this table for about 21 minutes that he didn’t really need it, didn’t use it except to hold it until his friend arrived and they ordered, and others could have used it. I ended up sharing a table with someone else which was fine (I actually do that fairly often in cafés) so not big deal.

While he was waiting in line another gal came by his now empty table looking for a place to sit and when she started to sit down someone told her that someone else was sitting there.

The Consequences

If everyone hogged a table before ordering, the available tablespace would be reduced, on average, by about 14%. If everyone did what the folks in Ess-A-Bagel did, tablespace would be reduced by over 50% and if everyone did what this guy did yesterday, space would be reduced by about 40%. Go in to a café with 30 tables and take out 5 to 15 of them – that is the impact of table hoggers.

We don’t need a table while we’re waiting in line (or while we’re twiddling our thumbs waiting on someone). It provides zero benefit to us but does remove a benefit from others.

If there are 10 tables in a café that is open for 10 hours, that makes 6,000 minutes of table time available. If the average person sits at a table for 60 minutes after ordering their drink that means the café can serve 100 people. Assuming a profit of $1 per person, that’s $100 in profit for the day.

Now, assume that people grab a table as soon as they come in, instead of waiting until after they’ve ordered. With a six minute wait we’ve now reduced the number of people the café can serve to 90 and reduced profits to $90, or 10% less than previous. Given the margins of a business like this that could be the difference in staying in business and not staying in business.

10% in our example or 14% in reality may not seem like much, but it is.

If you’re a customer, you’ve lost the use of the facilities the owner of the café has paid to make available to you.

If you’re the owner, you’ve lost revenue and profits from the facilities you’ve made available to your customers. And it’s not cheap for the owner to provide these facilities. The per square foot cost of space, heating/cooling for the space, insurance costs for the extra space, and employee time to clean up behind those who don’t clean up behind themselves all add up. Each two-person table costs the café owner about 90 cents per hour they are open for business. Doesn’t seem like much, but it is when you add up all of the tables and multiply that by 365 days in a year.

To serve that same 100 people in our example if people DO hog tables then the owner needs 10% more space. In real terms the owner will need 14% more space which in this case will be about $2,520 more. So in real terms table hoggers effectively cost the café owner $2,520. That’s not chump change.

Etiquette

Most of us, out of consideration for others, order our food and drinks and then find a table. Someone who arrived before us may grab a table we’d wanted (but they did get there before us after all), but usually another table will open up by the time we’re done ordering.

Fortunately it’s only a small minority who hog tables.

The Conundrum

Unfortunately, people like this guy yesterday make me want to forego consideration for others and plop my bag down at a table before I get in line.  I won’t though.

Newsweek recently published The John Next Door, based on the study Comparing Sex Buyers with Men Who Don’t Buy Sex (PDF here).

The inaccuracies and issues with this study raise serious questions about the objectivity of the project director, Melissa Farley, as well as others who worked on it.  It also raises questions about Newsweek and what level of vetting they do or do not do of studies they publish.

When it comes down to it, this actually isn’t a study at all, but an agenda driven manuscript – propaganda.  Farley and her collaborator’s goal is not to study and learn, but to support their agenda.  Agenda’s should be driven by what we learn, not the other way around.

Historically, Farley’s stated goal in articles, speeches, and elsewhere, is the elimination of human trafficking, a very worthwhile goal.  Her actual goal though appears to be the elimination of prostitution, and attempting to equate all forms of prostitution with human trafficking is her vehicle to accomplish her goal.  Despite Farley’s desire, these two are not synonymous.  Further, efforts to prohibit prostitution actually appear to increase human trafficking rather than reduce it.  Prohibitions of such popular activities only drive them underground.  European countries, with legal prostitution, appear to have much lower incidences of human trafficking than the US.

Efforts such as Farley’s divert attention and valuable resources away from reducing enslavement.  We waste resources arresting men and women involved in consensual adult prostitution (not appealing, but far better than enslaved women and rape) rather than focus those resources on helping the women who really need help – those who are not in the industry of their own choice.

Further, the elimination of or even a minor reduction in prostitution isn’t very likely to happen.  For Farley’s plan to work we’d need to eliminate male libido and women’s desire for money.  Good luck with that.

Now, let’s look at some issues with Farley’s document.

Real research studies are extremely careful to use neutral terms and dialog – to make sure that the facts speak for themselves.  Farley uses loaded dialog.  For example, “Men‘s use of women in prostitution”. Note the term ‘use’.  A neutral statement might be “Men’s patronizing of prostitutes”  This is not to say that men don’t ‘use’ women for sex.  A colleagues’ 16-year-old daughter recently gave her virginity to her boyfriend of two years who’d expressed his undying love and devotion to her – only to break up with her a few weeks later.

Elsewhere Farley says “They had little objection if the woman they purchased…”. The customers are not purchasing the woman, they are purchasing a service she offers.  A perhaps less socially appealing service than a massage or haircut, but still just a service.

Next, in the study Farley states:

“The common myth that “any man” might buy sex (i.e., that a sex buyer is a random everyman, an anonymous male who deserves the common name, john) was not supported. Sex buyers shared certain attitudes, life experiences, and behavioral tendencies that distinguish them from their non-buying peers in socially and statistically significant ways.”

However, in the Newsweek article, with regard to finding men for a 100 person control group, she states “We had big, big trouble finding nonusers,”.  The first issue with this problematic 100 is the extent to which she contradicts herself and raises serious questions about her integrity.  Are sex buyers unusual and not a random everyman, or are they so everyman that she had difficulty finding non-buyers?  Are non-buyers really that unusual?  She should have called, I’d have given her a couple of hundred.

The much bigger issue though is that this is the first clue to selection bias in her project.  What demographic of subjects did she target that she had difficulty finding men who didn’t visit prostitutes?  Even a simple random sample of 500 men should yield over 100 who meet her criteria; men who have never been a client of a prostitute nor been to a strip club in the past year.

Farley implies that this project is generally representative of all sex buyers and all non-buyers.  However:

The way Farley obtained interview subjects was by placing ads online and in Newspapers, offering to pay study subjects $45.  This is a good method if you need specific subjects for a pharmaceutical test or for a survey where selection bias would not be an issue.  It’s a poor method for her intended purpose.  (Also, unlike real studies she does not divulge any specifics regarding what newspapers and  websites they used nor the frequency of ad placement.)

One major problem with her method is that the vast majority of U.S. men are extremely protective of their privacy with regard to prostitution (and strip clubs, and porn, and affairs).  They  would not risk possible exposure for a mere $45.

A poster on The Erotic Review discussion forum had this to say about Farley’s project:

….seems way off base to me.  And I wonder if it’s because the men who are more likely to participate in a study like this are more likely to be jerks.

Most of us who “hobby” keep it under the radar, use aliases and fake names, disposable cell phones, etc., etc.  Even if I were assured it was completely anonymous, I don’t know that I would participate in a university study on prostitution.

Maybe the guys willing to talk about it are also the guys who get off talking about it, bragging on their own supposed masculinity, about how they hate women, would rape women if they could get away with it, etc., etc.

The real and reasonable “johns,” meanwhile, stay under the radar and keep our mouths shut.

Is this study a representative sample, or is it skewed towards Farley’s desired outcome?

The racial make-up of her study raises significant concerns.  She includes three times as many blacks in her study as are represented in the U.S. population and are likely represented by all customers of prostitution.  This is a significant problem because there are important differences in sexual attitudes between ethnicities.  Statistically, blacks stand out considerably among other races in becoming sexually active at a much younger age than any other race, by about two years, and they have more sexual partners.  Black teens have a much higher teen pregnancy rate than white teens (by some measures three times as many).  And while most ‘strongly religious’ teens delay sex by about 14 months compared with those who are not religious, there is no such distinction among strongly religious and non-religious blacks.

Many prostitutes, including black prostitutes, refuse black clients because they are known throughout the industry to be far more aggressive and violent than other clients.  You need only consider the hip-hop industry and lyrics if you wonder about this.

Blacks are also more likely to frequent street prostitutes rather than off-street, which, as we’ll see later, is very significant.

So, by increasing the participation of blacks over other ethnicities Farley, at the very least, raises questions about the veracity of her work.  A bigger question though is if Farley intentionally included such a massively skewed racial demographic in order to achieve the outcome she wanted (and would likely not have gotten from a correct representation of whites, Hispanics, and Asians.)

Gender makeup is also significantly skewed.  11% of her buyers and 7% of non-buyers are homosexual or bi-sexual while nationally among men in the U.S. this number ranges from 3.2% to 5.1%.  Though this raises suspicions about the accuracy of her data, it may not have contributed to any actual inaccuracy.  However, most reputable statisticians and researchers would want gender orientation to be accurately representative of the population they are studying.

Some other demographic data raise questions as well.  27% of her sex buyers state their career as management, while 15% of non buyers do.  Both of these are high, but 27% is significantly out of bounds.  40% of buyers and 20% of non-buyers state that their work is ‘Community and Social Service Related”.  Both of these are stratospherically high, even given her hugely skewed racial demographics (a much greater percentage of blacks work in social service organizations than any other race).  17% of buyers state a career of ‘Arts’ while 15% of non-buyers do so.  Both also very high.

It stretches incredulity to believe that either of Farley’s groups, buyers or non-buyers, are in any way accurately representative of men in general or of men who visit or do not visit prostitutes.  This is assuming of course that these career responses, and all other responses in this study, are truthful.

More to come…

Hmmm, not sure I’m one to toot my own horn.  But since the boat came out of its bag while I was on vacation…  You saw it here first!  🙂

http://www.nautique.com/Press/index/100-electric-ski-nautique-e-pulls-first-major-event

I’m having a What Would Jesus Do moment.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is calling for a day of prayer.  According to Fox News:

Perry has ordered a day of prayer and fasting on Aug. 6 to “seek God’s guidance and wisdom in addressing the challenges that face our communities, states and nation.”

The rapper ‘Common’ has received more press in the past couple of weeks than he probably has in all of the rest of his life.  In case you haven’t heard, Michelle Obama invited him to the White House to perform for a night of poetry.  Not a few people expressed some concerns; his being a strong and vocal supporter of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, being critical of police and law enforcement, and that he has supported, in his lyrics anyway, two people associated with killing cops.

Now, before anyone gets their panties in a wad, I am not necessarily a supporter of Common, nor do I believe it was appropriate for Obama to invite him to the White House – to perform.  However, I do think it’s important to understand where he’s coming from.

Many blacks[1] are hugely distrustful of law enforcement.  And rightly so.  Most have seen or experienced abuse of power by police.  They know that some (or most?) cops are corrupt and violate as many laws as they uphold.

How many times can you see a bunch of white cops standing around kicking a black guy who’s laying on the ground hand-cuffed, and still have any respect for cops?  When your innocent neighbor’s house is shot up at 2am when the cops had the wrong address for a drug raid, what will you think of our boys in blue?

Your friend is apprehended and thrown on the ground, in an expensive business suit no less, on suspicion of having robbed a bank.  Later you learn that the suspects in the bank robbery were white.  And you’re supposed to respect cops?  Your friend, by the way, is very, very dark and not easily confused for being white.  Then you read an article about Dymond Milburn, a 12-year-old black girl, who was beaten up by three male cops in her own yard in Galveston, TX on suspicion of prostitution.  The cops were looking for three white prostitutes reported to be in the neighborhood.  You’re beginning to understand what cops really mean when they say they’re color-blind.

When you know the extent to which cops visit prostitutes and do drugs themselves, can you hold them in any kind of favorable regard?  They’re supposed to be law enforcers or officers of the peace, not law breakers.

Consider this.  Cops from the local metro gang strike force show up at your door with a search warrant saying you’re a suspected drug dealer.  You’re not, know it, and have nothing to hide so you let them in.  They seize your new TV, computer, car, and other stuff as ‘ill gotten gains’.  They find no drugs or any other evidence of any sort that you are a drug dealer or user and no charges are ever filed.  When you attempt to get your stuff back they delay and delay and delay.

Four years later, articles begin appearing in the paper that the entire metro area gang strike force is being shut down for widespread abuses, including, not surprisingly to you, improperly seizing property from scores of innocent people, and with many cops taking the seized stuff home with them.  People who have had stuff seized are told to come claim their stuff.  When you attempt to do so you’re told that there’s no paperwork so you have to provide proof that the stuff is yours.  How many people really keep receipts for all kinds of stuff for years?  You did have a title for your car though, but it, along with over 40 other illegally seized cars, had been sold, years ago, for half its value, to a used car lot friend of the cops.  You’re told to hire an attorney and file suit to get any compensation for the car.

Well, at least they caught the perps.

Another year passes and you read that no charges will be filed against the cops because they didn’t keep good records of their illegal seizures.  You still haven’t gotten your stuff back, and you’re wondering why you’ve never before heard of thieves having charges dropped for their own lack of record keeping on what they stole from who.

And you’re supposed to trust cops?  And Government?  Really?

I could go on and on for pages and pages just with the abuses that have made the news.  Since the end of slavery blacks have been abused by cops.  From before the Scottsboro Boys until after the breakup of the Minnesota Gang Strike Force.

Is there any wonder so many blacks hate cops?  Why cop killing is such a popular topic in hip-hop and rap?

When you experience this kind of abuse, over and over, for decades upon decades, it takes a huge bit of maturity and self-discipline to remain even moderately calm.  To the extent that I can as a middle-class white guy, I understand where Common is coming from.

And the Obama invite?

The problem with inviting Common to perform at the White House is that it sort of implies a tacit endorsement of Common’s standing up for apparent cop killers[2].  Does it also set him up as a bit of a role model for young blacks?  Is Common the role model they need?  After all, he doesn’t sing the praises of cop killers all the time, only some of the time.

That it was done during ‘cop week’ only makes it worse – a seeming stick in the eye to the cops gathered in DC, primarily to honor fellow cops killed in the line of duty.  Was this some kind of weird retaliation towards cops for Obama having so grossly embarrassed himself when he jumped to a rash and incorrect judgment regarding a Cambridge cop arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr?

Sometimes,  perception is important and there’s a huge difference in the perception of inviting someone to perform and inviting them for a discussion.  Not unlike my and others reactions to Huckabee performing Cat Scratch Fever.  Huck performing that song, or even allowing Nugent to perform it on his show, implies endorsement of the lyrics and to some extent, endorsement of the socio-political positions those performers have touted.  Fine for Huckabee to have Nugent on for a discussion, maybe not so fine for Huck to perform such a sexually explicit song (though I had second thoughts on this one).

Unfortunately the important message was lost in the way Obama went about this.

There are gobs of very real incidents of police abuse of blacks that Obama can talk about.  Obama could have invited Common to the White House for a discussion of these very real problems to the black community.  Maybe include a NJ state trooper.  Beer Summit II perhaps.  This would be appropriate and could result in something good rather than making Obama look like a shallow, over-reactive cop hater who just wants to put a stick in cops eyes rather than work towards a solution.

A couple of days ago, during lunch, I overheard an interesting conversation at the table next to me.  Two girls who are graduating from Notre Dame next month.

The first part of the conversation revolved around their drinking plans during an upcoming vacation.  We’re talking pretty in-depth planning here.  Sadly, I think the primary purpose of their vacation is to drink.

It was the second half of their conversation that interested me the most though.  One of the girls commented that she was getting concerned that she hadn’t found a job yet.  The other replied that she wasn’t too worried.  “I’ll just apply for assistance until something I like comes along.”

The next ten minutes revolved around the various government options available to them, including their disgust that they can’t apply for unemployment (because they’ve yet to be employed in the first place).  “That’s not fair” they said.

And we wonder why so much of our resources go to government entitlement programs.  If two girls graduating from a well regarded university feel so entitled to others money until something they like just comes along, what’s someone with lesser prospects to do?