Other than the time factor, though, I also find that I no longer have any desire to participate in recent online slagfests and bust-ups. I could have said a lot of things about the strange vitriol Rebecca Watson has been receiving after she politely suggested that men not corner women in an elevator alone, at night, in a foreign country because it’s creepy (particularly the latest inexplicable heap on the Skepticblog post about the 24 hour SGU episode calling for her resignation) or about any number of bickering incidents that seems to happen now on a regular basis (particularly when either involving women or women’s issues) mostly instigated by a singular loud group with an apparently limitless amount of free time, but why would I bother? What would it add?

Commenters might show up to either agree (and though that feels good, no offense, but so what?) or vehemently disagree while calling me a femenazi, accusing me of having a secret feminist agenda, or some otherwise depressing bullshit keeping me from wanting to even bother with this anymore. People tend to come out of these things even more entrenched in their view than they were at the start and there are hundreds of other places they can go to do that. My commenting on the issue wouldn’t resolve anything and might even make it worse by providing yet another target for the loudest and most obnoxious assholes out there.

Also (this will seem like an aside, but I have a point, I promise) weirding me out a bit was that I blog under a different name elsewhere where a commenter, who also comments here, apparently despised everything I ever wrote on that blog at the same time as praising me on this blog. I am the same person with the same opinions and essentially the same writing style. Surreal.

But I realize this commenter did show me how easy it is for people to get a fixed view of bloggers or other skeptical personalities and then squeeze everything they do into their predetermined narrative. I think that is what is happening to people like Rebecca. Some skeptics are apparently incapable of considering a person as a sum of their actions and expressions, agreeing with some things they do and not other things (for example, though I thought Rebecca’s reaction to Dawkins non sequitur was appropriate, saying she was done buying his books etc just exemplified the thing I’m currently complaining about!). I am guilty of this, too. I met a certain someone at TAM7 who seemed like a complete douche, later confirmed by other issues, and have not been able to listen to their podcast since. Though lately I have been better able to disagree with certain people on some key issues yet support them on others (for example Rebecca and Dawkins) and that’s fine for me, mostly due to becoming aware of the issue in the first place, for some reason I can’t seem to get past my emotional aversion to this particular person. So I’m not trying to be all superior here, I just think that the skeptic propensity to act like a 4chan message board while at the same time acting we’re above such things doesn’t contribute to meaningful discussion.

So though I’m done here, I will continue to participate in the skeptical movement in my other projects and from now on I have no opinion about the latest childish nonsense that’s got everyone in a snit and I have no interest in people who are going to reduce me to my vagina. Those people I just feel sorry for. And while I’m sure at least one person reading this (if he does read it, and because I’ve seen him do this elsewhere) will admonish me for not sticking around and trying to educate, particularly on feminist issues, I shouldn’t have to point out that it isn’t my job to make sure that supposedly critical-thinking grown adults in the year 2011 are not racist, sexist, or any other bigotous -ist. Either they won’t listen or, like I said, there are hundreds of other places where they can find that out.

This all maybe came out sounding a big high and mighty, which was not my intent so with this last bit I will hopefully clarify. I am moving from a level of discourse, in which I feel I was participating in unproductive way, to one that is more skeptically active in the real world, in my professional life, and in my government. I hope that we can, as a movement for those who choose to call it that, move from this distasteful adolescence of useless bickering online and try to give each other the common courtesy of assuming that everyone here is a human being deserving of understanding and patience rather than vitriol and, in rare but highly publicized cases, what basically amounts to hateful propaganda. Yes, I have opinions, but that doesn’t mean have to publish every one of them online, inviting assholes to come piss me off. I just don’t have room for it in my life anymore.

I didn’t intend to leave on such a negative note, but the positive is that I will have more time to participate in real-life activism — without the bother of anonymously being called a whore, bitch, or other asshole nonsense — and I will be happier doing it.

Thank you for reading and commenting to every genuine contributor to adult, sane discourse in the comments. I will see you elsewhere on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

I think what I don’t like about ads (and what subtle product-placement successfully avoids) is that they have usually 30-90 seconds to convince me to buy a product. This same 30-90 seconds will air several times a day to attempt to establish a permanency in my mind so that when I go to the store, I will think about their product. And whether I like it or not, advertising works.

However, it’s unfortunate that because of this short medium, messages tend to be given in short stereotyped ways. They are trying to drive their point home, and an easy stereotype can be an effective way to do that. But there are several examples of this that are just plain silly – most notably in gender categories. Products are gendered in a way that are generally unnecessary and then, after the “gendering” process, some are sold in almost the most sexist way possible. Ads tell us not only what we want, but who should want it.

There are thousands of essentially indistinguishable products vying for our attention. Advertising agents simplify things by splitting some products along certain categories, which makes some sense – for example, many products in the “family” category don’t appeal to me, as I don’t yet have a family. Women get household contraptions, cosmetics, scented house products (Febreeze etc), food (chocolate, yogurt, etc). Men get fast food, steak, cars, beer, video games, etc. There are exceptions, of course, but there are obvious trends.

Men: Doofy or Douchey

Men have beer commercials assuming that they will be attracted to the product if the ad portrays men as brash, drunken, irresponsible, slut-bags. There’s home product commercials treating men like bumbling idiots who can barely tie their shoelaces without their wives’ help. And don’t get me started on power tools, which apparently men are obsessed with and women never use – have you ever seen a power saw commercial with a woman in it? That is, one where she was using the tool and not bringing her manly saw-using husband some ice cold lemonade…

What’s amusing is that many of these ads aren’t advertising directly to men, they are advertising through women – consider the recent Old Spice commercials. In the case of the hapless bumbling idiot husbands, is that what advertisers really think men identify with? I doubt it. So apparently these ads imply that women identify with having doofy, useless husbands. He knows how to use a power saw, but he’ll probably cut his own arm off, amirite?

Given the era and the broadening of people’s preferences (for example, it is now perfectly acceptable for men to buy cosmetics and they now have their own brands) why is gender such a salient factor in advertising? Why is it that for products that have breached the gender gap we have commercials even more so reinforcing stereotyped gender roles. In the case of cosmetics for men, commercials often still focus on how that makes men more “manly” and are even sometimes advertised towards women, not the men themselves (who would be using the product, but are either apparently incapable of making such decisions or rely entirely on gifts to smell a certain way).

Women: Pretty as Posies…and Thin

Women have the same issues, though with different stereotypes. Take food, for example. On one side, we’ve got “Big Food” trying to sell us chocolate and appropriate meals to feed to our husbands and children (because we have those and men can’t or won’t cook) and on the other, we’ve got “Big Diet” telling us that their product will make us thin again. According to television, men have never tasted yogurt.

Given within-group (consumer groups) saturation, there is now some interesting word use to sell products to women. The cosmetics industry in particular has tapped into this trend.  Check out Sarah Haskins’ Target Women and Skeptically Speaking’s episode “The Cosmetics Cop” for more. The latter discusses the use of Big Science Words in cosmetics advertising.

In watching daytime television in preparation for this article, I heard the following Big Science Words: Deep micro-clean, smooth round micro-scrubbers, the prefixes “bio” “nutri” and “pro”, the suffixes “derm” and “otic”, vitamins, extracts, proteins, elastins, collagen, hypoallergenic, and meaningless science ingredients with several syllables that will make you younger-looking (corollary: if they are going for the “natural” angle, these scary science words are replaced with natural fruit, vegetable, or wheat extracts and words like “gentle” and “clean”).

It’s odd. Companies try to convince us poor, non-sciency women (because women aren’t interested in such things, but are easily impressed by them) that their product is worth buying by making it sound as nonsensically impressive as possible. But at the same time, they want us to believe that their product is natural and without “toxins”. I wish I could by my facial foundation without having to support an industry that thinks I’m a scientifically-illiterate moron.

People Are Insane

But what about those commercials in which everyone is acting like a complete douchebag or the product itself causes harm. Consider fast food commercials in which everyone in an office dives for an unattended Wendy’s [?] burger. Or where some inconsiderate kid takes a bite out of his pizza pocket only to coat his entire school’s hallway with pizza sauce. I suppose the idea is to make the product as memorable as possible using any tactic necessary (the “any press is good press” philosophy ), and in this case it’s a tactic of presenting a ridiculous situation that poses no real risk. So what if what I’m thinking is “I am disgusted by this imagery”?

Conclusion

So there’s bitching/discussing and then there’s actually doing something. Ads seem a bit like one way communication, but in reality these ads are from a company trying to convince us of something. We have the power. We are the consumers of these products and if we see an ad we don’t like, especially from a company that we otherwise enjoy, we should write (politely) and tell them so.

I propose we be specific and point out exactly what was objectionable in the commercial and why. If appropriate, provide examples of other ads that were more effective or explain to them what better reflects reality and would still be effective in getting us to buy their crap (that is after all, their main concern). If more people do it, and if they are receiving constant feedback on the same issue, maybe something will change and husbands will no longer be the glorified adopted children of yogurt-eating, science-derpy moms.

Well, that was a fit of optimism that didn’t pan out. But I think I know why I will never like the end of BSG. Warning, there are some mild spoilers ahead (but seriously it started 7 frakking years ago, just watch it already).

The finale has a lot of character-driven story that is very moving (for example, Laura, Helo et al, Apollo’s self-actualization, etc), but they failed by making the only plot a philosophical message. In doing that, they ensured that they would displease anyone who didn’t agree with their post-modern, anti-technology drivel. Almost the entire story arc before the last 2 minutes was fine (save the needless determinism and some minor points about how the humans arranged themselves at the end, but those are other cans of worms).

They could have gone with a neutral character-driven (like they intended – assuming they were telling the truth in their obnoxiously self-serving, navel gazing “Last Frakkin’ Special”) ending and probably not pissed anyone off. I mean, of course you can’t please everyone, but when you get preachy you’re taking a huge risk with a potentially lifelong loyal fan base. Though judging from that special, they practically thought they were as gods. Seriously. Watch it. It’s just ridiculous.

Holy shit, I just figured out the ending. The divine force controlling the universe is the writers!

Seriously though, the one thing that kills me every single time is Six saying the phrase “technology run amok” and then cut to that frakking montage. The writers don’t defend that position at all. They imply that technology is bad, that humans are inherently irresponsible, and that the cycle of destruction might begin again – oh but they’re hopeful that it won’t. Except that “hope” is just the writers going “See what we did there? If you do, then you won’t own robots or something, I guess.”

No, I lied. The other thing that kills me is the mitochondrial Eve pseudoscience they perplexingly tacked on with an almost throw-away line. A simple phone call to an evolutionary scientist may have resulted in a much more plausible way to quickly get across the same idea that the entire 4th season was already sledgehammering into our faces.

Well, there’s no sense whining about it now I suppose, it’s not like we go back and change it. Though perhaps a fan edit with the bullshit philosophy edited out would elicit some nerdy squees. I guess if I watch it again I’ll either stop at episode 11 or so (if I’m feeling bleak), or just don’t watch the last 2 minutes (if I’m feeling less bleak and able to ignore “all technology is bad” nonsense).

I only hope that one day science fiction and fantasy programming can break the cycle of sucky, preachy endings (sigh, Lost).

All of this has happened before, and will happen again…

I knew it would work because it’s ancient and Korean. We all know that they are consistently a people of reason and would never hold an utterly bizarre and completely unsupported belief that has no basis in reality. Unlike every other society in the world, they got their shit right the first time.

Now when my husband and I have sex, I can proudly show off my newly-steamed vagina and he can say “Um, why did you do that?” and I can say “I don’t know.”

What a wonderful time to be alive. It’s like an autoclave in there. $330 well spent.

Anyway, Jenny McCarthy thinks there’s a need and she’s got the solution.

It’s one thing to advertise as “green”, it’s another to use scare buzzwords like “non-toxic”.

Happy holidays, suckas!

The latest round of atheist billboards don’t impress me any more than they did last year. Not because I care about offending anyone, but because I find it pointless to go out of the way to give Christians the finger rather than promoting a positive message about atheism. These ads don’t tell anyone what atheists are about, but they do give a solid impression that atheists are obsessed with Christianity in particular – for some reason.

Or did I just not catch the Hanukkah sign that makes fun of the Jewish? ‘Cause we all KNOW that oil lamp thing is a Myth, right?

Next year, could we maybe try to make a name for ourselves for fostering a sense of community and charity rather than going out of our way to use expensive billboard space to remind everyone that Christianity exists?

There’s a time and a place for more aggressive tactics, but a promotional billboard is not either. And if not promotional, what is the billboard for? It’s not supportive either. It seems like some atheist orgs need to think harder about what message they are trying to get across and choose their forums more wisely.

We’ll see you next Christmas… sigh.

On the way to Illinois

I arrive at the Halifax airport for my original flight leaving at 1:50 pm. All is well, everything is carefully scheduled and planned in naive spirit. Oops – all flights to where I’m going are canceled because of storms. I have to be in Illinois by 8 am the next day for a certification-based training course. I’ve never been in this situation before: what do I do?

I try to get another flight, they can’t get me there before noon the next day and with all the shuttles etc to get where I’m going, I’d miss the first day of training entirely. I try to call my boss, she’s not available. But how formal is this course? Can I still do it if I miss the first day? Should I still go? I really don’t want to leave just to get stranded somewhere else. Etc.

Finally my boss has a chance to call me back while I’m at the gate, figuring things out. She can’t get a hold of the course organizers but tells me to go anyway even it I can only get there in the afternoon and she’ll beg them to let me attend. That sounds…pretty sketchy. But in the meantime, this became moot because the intrepid American Airlines people found me a flight with Air Canada that can get me to Chicago by 9 pm if I go through Boston instead of NY – 5 hours delayed from my original plans, but at least that same evening. Yay! Problem solved. Phew.

Oh, Kimbo, don’t be silly.

We boarded at 4:40 pm, at which point I unfortunately find out that trying to take off a sweater on a plane without punching a stranger in the head is an exercise in futility. Once we’re on the plane, they tell us we’re delayed until 6 pm. Eff. My connection in Boston is probably not going to work out and the entire point of figuring that out before I left was to avoid getting stranded in some foreign city overnight.

We arrive in Boston late enough that I think I missed my connection. It’s leaving (supposedly) 20 minutes after we land and I have to switch terminals and go through security again and bolt to the gate if I’m going to even barely make it. I try anyway and, when I get there, there’s no plane and no employee (I’m also in such a hurry that I forgot my sweater in the x-ray machine and some lovely citizen managed to find me and bring it to me – though at this point my panic attack was past the point of caring, but thank you to that random person). So I assume that despite my Herculean sprint, I did in fact miss my connection.

At this point I did what any rational person should do in a situation of relatively minor inconvenience – I burst into tears of absolute frustration and try to ask another AA employee for help in what must have been a pathetic display of blubbering nonsense, when she informs me that the plane is merely delayed (contrary to every single goddamn arrival/departure schedule that I bolted past on the way to get there, running down various wrong corridors, telling me that it was still on time). I then go to the bathroom, because crying in an airport bathroom is slightly more dignified than doing it in public.

Normal people would not have this reaction, but normal people generally don’t have panic attacks to entertain themselves. So I calm myself down (“flip out later, this isn’t helping, you made the plane, let’s just do this”) and go sit at the gate to wait for my plane whenever the hell it decides to arrive (which was another hour later). Here’s where I went a bit mad, finding this all a bit hilarious, and got the giggles, which I’m sure just make me look at least as insane as my sweaty running and crying from earlier which has made my face all blotchy and red and my eyes all puffy.

Finally I land in Chicago and catch a break – the sketchy shuttle bus, which is the only bus to where I’m going and only leaves every couple of hours, just happened to be there. If I had been even 10 minutes later I would have had to wait that time until the next one. He was also nice enough to let me on even though I missed my reservation due to the now 5-hour delay.

16 hours after I began, I arrive at my destination. Average time to travel by plane from NS to IL: about 8 hours. Fail. The moral of this day: Things eventually work out for me, but only after chance takes a dump on my chest.

The next morning – An aside

I go down to the hotel lobby for breakfast at about 7 am and there’s someone on the phone at the counter who is apparently a person from my course. She’s trying to call a cab because the hotel employee told her that she couldn’t take the bus. That’s odd, I say, because I printed off the schedule before I left and the route goes to about a block away from where we have to go. “Oh well I didn’t think you’d want to walk.” So strong was this assumption, apparently, that chasing down cabs (that don’t run before 8 am) and rental cars (9:30 am) seemed like more viable options than just walking a single block. Finally my meticulous planning pays off.

So we decide to take the bus and the hotel employee goes “There’s a bus stop out here by the hotel, which I use, but it’s probably easier if you get on by the mall because it’s clearly marked.” Apparently she was also about ready to get off her shift (this is relevant in a minute). So we walk over to the mall – which was just across the street, so not too far – wait around in the crisp morning air, catch the bus, ride around for about 15 minutes in a big circle, and end up at…the hotel…where the hotel lady then got on. At the bus stop right outside. Fail.

Foraging – Another aside

The rest of my time in Illinois was rather boring – go to course, arrange drives with people there with cars, come back and sleep. But on the last day, I went to get some supper before trying to sleep for the next day’s odd travel hours. I walk to the mall and opt for fast food. I get my burger at A&W to go all the way back to the hotel, bite in and – it’s raw. Normal on the outside, so raw on the inside that it’s bled onto the bun (I thought maybe he just hadn’t shaken the ketchup and it was ketchup juice – no dice).

Now, keep in mind this is a fast food joint. Their burgers are pretty regimented. They are all paper thin and cooked for the same length of time at the same temperature, specifically to prevent this from ever happening – no variation in fast food, everything the same. So I was almost equally as impressed that this was even possible as I was frustrated that I just wasted about 6 bucks and was still hungry. But I ordered it, said irrational brain, so of course it was shite. Usually I would just absorb this and give up and go to sleep, but feeling the need for a victory no matter how small I called, went back, and got a refund.

Because this is America. And in America, when something sucks, you get your money back – Stan Marsh.

On the way home

My shuttle left infrequently in large time increments so to get my 7 am plane on time, I had to take the 1:15 am shuttle which got me to the airport around 3:30 am. I tried to sleep a bit before leaving, but it was Saturday night and apparently some people decided to party on my floor – yelling, slamming doors, etc. They did eventually all go to one room – right next to mine.

So I’m on about a cumulative hour’s sleep at O’Hare. After a couple of hours waiting for security to open, I go through and catch my plane – nothing interesting there to report other than something went smoothly for once. I thought “maybe this will be an indication of the day – that this trip will be better than on the way here”.

Again, silly me.

I get to my next destination, La Guardia in NY – a garbage dump full of rude assholes masquerading as an airport. We board the plane, but there’s a problem. The fuel people over-fueled the plane by 1000 frakking pounds, making us a few hundred pounds too overweight to take off.

At this point I almost felt I should apologize to my fellow passengers. I mean, why should this relatively unusual event happen to our plane of all the planes taking off and landing without issue? Because I’m on it. Sorry, folks.

We either have to defuel or have a few people deplane and get new flights. The adorably optimistic staff figure it’ll be easier/faster to convince a few frustrated travelers to give up their tickets, find their luggage, and take a new flights than to drain the few extra hundred pounds of fuel. An hour after our scheduled departure, we take off.

I had about 10 minutes after our scheduled landing before my next flight was to begin boarding, so I’m sitting there thinking I’m not going to get home that day because I’m going to miss my flight and how many flights are there to Halifax from Philadelphia anyway and it’s me and the way this trip is going even if I make it we’ll crash and I’ll be responsible for killing dozens of people omgdie.

Sense has no place in catastrophizing.

We land and I have 5 minutes to get to my flight before its scheduled departure. Maybe I can make it! My gate is only like 10 feet away, if only I can get off, get my bag and go go go go go. Hurry hurry hurry. Stupid ramp taking for ever to get to the door, don’t you realize I have a plane to catch?! “Will passengers with connections to X, Y, and Halifax please see the staff at Gate 1 for new boarding passes?” Eff. It’s over. I missed it. I’m filled with a sense of exhaustion. I just want to be home. Or at least in Canada. I’ll take a flight to Toronto at this point. I don’t care.

“Hi, I was told to report to you. Going to Halifax.”

“Oh the plane’s been delayed. You’re lucky. Gate 5.”

I’m lucky?! I see what she meant, but two delayed planes is not luck. Having your first plane delayed by juuuuuuuuust enough so that you could, if only things were about 5 minutes sooner, have still made it – giving yourself a heart attack in despair and being overwhelmed by a feeling of general wretchedness only to have that all been for nothing (because you can’t predict the future) because your second plane is also frakked out of its gourd is not very “lucky”, imho.

Again I feel like apologizing to my fellow passengers for even existing because the plane delay drags on forever, while we get halfhearted “updates” that the mechanics are looking at something. At one point everyone stands up and starts walking away. What the? There was no announcement. A few of us ask what’s going on and someone says “apparently we’re moving to gate 32″.

Shit. Do I go or not? On the one hand, everyone else has moved. On the other, there was no announcement and the way things have been going… We still don’t know how much time we have before boarding. But the flight attendant comes out and we ask her. Yes, we are in fact moving to gate 32. Apparently the problem with the plane was severe enough that the repair was going to be a significant delay (well, more so) so we had to change planes entirely. I’m like a magnet for unusual and annoying events. There was never any announcement of this. I hope everyone made the plane.

So I’m finally on my flight home. We land safely on the ground. I’m actually amazed. I go through customs and answer his inane questions about where I was and why, trying to contain my catharsis. If he’d said “welcome home” like they always do, the dam would have burst. But he didn’t. My awesome husband greets me with a sign with my last name on it, some pizza, and Advil. I try not to blubber too much as he escorts me to the car. “You must be so relieved”, he says.

Understatement.

Epilogue

Air travel can be inherently frustrating. Especially multiple issues on the same weekend-long trip when professional reputation and qualifications are on the line. But I know there are worse things to happen than delays and cancellations. These happen all the time. It’s still frustrating and stressful to go through. My husband and I are going to Europe in a few weeks, too, and given that I’ll be there and there’s a terror alert for US travelers to Europe, I’m pretty confident that we will explode.

Have a horrible travel story of your own? Share in the comments.

I am thankful that I get to eat turkey at least once a year to celebrate the end of the harvest, which where I live (lots of farming here) is a big hairy deal. And it’s delicious.

I am thankful to my husband who helped me peel all of the root veggies for the feast.

I am thankful for the sharing of recipes and the existence of summer savory.

I am thankful for all of my family, friends, and coworkers.

I am thankful that the skeptical community does what it does to try to help people every single day.

I’m also an atheist, which apparently perplexes some people on Thanksgiving. I don’t need a diety, I have lots to be thankful for right here.