Missing the point

[vityokr]

Two seemingly disparate articles that share one thing in common - they are both missing the elephant in the room despite being penned by seemingly intelligent individuals.

1. WSJ gadget reviewer Walt Mossberg on Amazon Kindle DX. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467271645603777.htmlHe glazes over the fact that the screen is 2.5 times bigger than

Comments

[izsandiego]

I got a different impression from the second article. It is not about difficulty of finding a job by a black man with a criminal record. It is about the fact that they are much more discriminated against than white men in a similar situations. In competetion for a low paying jobs white men with criminal records have about as much succes as black men without such record. Why wouldn't this be a bad thing?

[vityokr]

it may have to do with recidivism argument. how often do black men who've been in prison go back vs white men? employers may be using race as a proxy for that.
then of course it may be a case of racism - a white employers may be more comfortable giving the job to a white guys. that is racism no question about it.

[stregoicax]

I agree with you on comparing variables such as college education and simple qualifications, but

[vityokr]

dina - half of black men (5m) have either been to prison or are in prison. drugs are about 13% - 100k out of 800k. what about the other 87%? take a walk down to seagate and tell me it's the system's fault.

one more thing

[stregoicax]

About your last paragraph- don't confuse cause and effect and blame visual culture for creating a social problem. Such problems shape the culture, not the other way around. People love finding scapegoats- sex on TV leads to promiscuity, violence in video games to mass murder.. Blaming symptoms is always so much easier then actually going to the root of the issue.
The idea that there's a generation out there that would consider it an honor to go to prison because they saw it in an MTV video is absurd. Rather, if you do end up there it becomes an outlet and a coping mechanism.

Re: one more thing

[vityokr]

it's a chicken and egg problem - artists create an image that they expect to sell. but it's also a vicious circle - lack of role models, etc. i think their culture is more responsible for this than anything else.
see kristoff's editorial about performance of west indians in the us - they are just as black but are performing much better because of a different culture. so racism has much less to do with it than endogenous cultural factors.

Re: one more thing

[vityokr]

it's a chicken and egg problem - artists create an image that they expect to sell. but it's also a vicious circle - lack of role models, etc. i think their culture is more responsible for this than anything else.
see kristoff's editorial about performance of west indians in the us - they are just as black but are performing much better because of a different culture. so racism has much less to do with it than endogenous cultural factors.

Re: one more thing

[dobriifin]

c'mon Dina, lets be real

[oleg106]

Having to buy longer shorts is my biggest pet peeve.

Re:

[vityokr]

come to think of it, i've never seen you in short shorts

[puh]

меня тут товарищи недавно вот этот опус читать заставили, типа о том, какие ужасные финансовые компании
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html

Там дофигища текста, и неудобный е-ридер на странице, но если вдруг будешь читать, скажи что думаешь. А то я шумно ругался, интересно насколько оправдано :)
Новой инфы там не то чтобы много для 12 страниц.