Archive for August 1, 2007
IQ Gaps and pre-school
The average IQ in New Zealand is 103 from what I could google around 100 for the USA
Additionally, as two papers I have delicioused recently show, pre-school matters with IQ. More New Zealanders go to pre-school and while it’s far from proven after all the noise between cause and effect is rather large it does seem to matter. Hence, you could nip part of America’s IQ gap not only with other nations, but with in it itself simply by subdizing early education and providing for free for those under the poverty belt.
technorati tags:intelligence, iq
On Homosexuality, gender, the gaze
Loving someone of the same sex is easy. You understand them. They understand you. The whole thing begins to seem mundane, the sex is easy, the relationships fairly easy. Its a valid relationship and I do believe that genetics and a good ol elektra complex can occur in men or oedipal in women, and for anyone the love you share is amazing, but in the end, as Woody Allen put it, relationships are like sharks. They have to keep moving to stay alive. Someone too similar to you will kill your love. You experience your compassion as mundane, as something anyone could have, like the little trinkets pulled from a store shelf. The mystery is squished by familarity. To love someone of a different culture, race, or gender is a different deal entirely. It requires passion, but also it requires space, and each day you explore them a little more. In the end women might be objectified as sexual objects do to the male gaze but also with out even being aware of a need to counterbalance the ease with which men can fuck men and love them and vice versa. It is the enigma of gender that keeps the patterns in our heads spinning, who is this person? why do I love them? In the end, it is our differences that comprise relationships each person a story that unfolds beneath tongues and breasts, cultures and interests, and finally that pivotal moment where you agree I’m not exploring anymore. It is here that we decide on our mates, here that we find that balance between the known and unknown, here where gender not only defines us, but provides us with a fiction that justifies its own existence. p.s. this is being posted almost 12 hours later and don’t feel the same way anymore.
links for 2007-08-01
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site that e-mails small chunks of books to you each day.
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archeture from expos
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wayne and wax on rastafarians trying to keep new dancehall artists from “degrading” rasta symbols
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surprisingly while a 1000 niche markets are supposed to be the future of music, in reality 84% of the revenues of concerts are taken by less than 5% of those touring, is this true of CD sales? is the long tail not quite working?
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it’s another one of those things were the US turns out the worst higher poverty than the compared countries etc.
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via boingboing
