I love Dave Chappelle...

When I saw this....


...I immediately thought of this...


BTW, congratulations to President Obama. He ran a pretty impressive campaign and even though there are many things I disagree with him on, it's a testament to the strength of our republic that there weren't tanks in the streets. Although, it would have been nice if they had kept some bridges open...

Platinum Canoodling

Life lessons via Youtube.

Personaly, I'd say beware of the final, errr, nuclear, option. Having an angry lady friend and a permanent crick in your neck is not worth an arm without pins and needles.

This also reminded me of a Facebook group a friend of mine started called, "A Spoon is for Eating." The title referred to her complete disinterest in spooning due to the body heat issue. While that may make sense in the summer, what about when it's 12 degrees?

Platinum Choices for Minnesota Parents

One thing that's always hard to articulate is the idea that I just don't know. I don't know what's best for other people, therefore I try not to assume I do. This article really nails it home for me. It's tempting to think that every immigrant's greatest dream is to see their kids go to really nice suburban public schools with lots of resources and kids from middle class backgrounds. Turns out, maybe not. Maybe their dream sounds more like, “I want them to keep the good things we used to have back home — respecting their parents, helping each other, respecting their elders.”

While I'm a proponent of schools like KIPP and Uncommon Schools, it would be a mistake to think that I'm in favor of every school turning into them. That kind of school environment works well(so far) for a very specific group of students AND parents that want that kind of education. It's obvious when reading this article that many parents have very different ideas about what constitutes the education they want for their kids.

A key idea behind the school choice movement is the notion that there is just simply no way for school boards that manage 40,000 student school districts to know what every parent wants for their child. The goal to standardize education from on high (the Washington, State, or district levels) seems rather perplexing for this very reason. Of course, you don't meet many people willing to say on the campaign trail, "I don't know what we should do to solve education inequality. I'm putting the responsibility on you to decide what is best for your child." Despite this, somehow a really cool experiment is taking place to test that hypothesis in a bunch of cities.

It's the incentives not the people... the people are platinum.

Hey guys sorry about being dorment in the from platinum appreciation. Times have been tough and to prove it I wrote an unusuially pessamistic piece on how DC works. grumble grumble grumble...

The problem with sites like these is that it doesn’t tell you why they voted one way or another. Too many times we hear crap like “you voted against labor on… fill-in-the-blank bill.” When in reality the letter of legislation is complex and contains many factors that are impossible to boil down to a single initiative like “the environment,” “job creation” or “labor.” A lot of the time politicians don’t vote for a policy because they didn’t get to put their pork in it, they didn’t get bought out. A perfect example of this is the difference between the first financial bailout that didn’t pass and the second one that passed with more tag-on’s and earmarks.

DC is a game of incentives. Phony moral high ground and righteousness poorly mask a “Why should I actually vote for it?” mentality and the greatest thing is people buy it and the system keeps churning! So much fluff you could stuff a mattress with it. (sorry, I’m getting a little pessimistic, maybe I need more sleep)

Platinum Politics in the Workplace

I came across this article on workplace discussion of politics. I found it interesting to the extent that it really says that it's a not a particularly good idea. Essentially, talking about politics, like any sensitive subject (see your mom jokes), has the potential to disrupt the true work of the office. Therefore, if talking about politics cannot be done in a civil way(see example below), there may need to be directives stating what kind of discourse will be allowed.


To me, this all makes sense. I have tremendous difficulty being civil when discussing politics, even with people I agree with (I hate the messenger, but not the message). The most interesting line of the article is when an expert said the following:
It's also important to provide a channel for people to voice concerns, Pratt said. "The trick is to let people approach things with maturity."

Doing some quick research, I turned up two articles(here and here). Reading to the end of the first will give you a special treat. Note that the second article seems to contradict the one at the top.

My question is this, is there any truly platinum way to talk about politics at work? Anyone seen one? From what I see in the articles, unless you work at a place that has politics as part of it's mission like the DNC or RNC, it seems practically impossible, mainly because most people simply don't know how to have a civil debate. Politics is personal(as it should be) and I'm not sure people(including myself) are mature enough to have a debate without a full-on moderator.

Is Outing People Platinum?

It's interesting to see how labels affect the ability of individuals to engage in real discourse (HT Natalie G). Personally, I'm very comfortable with not announcing my political beliefs. My experiences have told me that as soon as someone gets labeled, the entire conversation proceeds in a very adversarial way where someone needs to be convinced that their identity or beliefs are:
A) Wrong and Stupid
B) Misguided or naive
C) Evil
D) All of the Above

Although I originally was thinking about some dinner conversation I saw last night regarding an acquaintance's alcohol preferences, I noticed that I've seen that same set of events happen over and over again. I remember multiple situations where I've done it and where it's been done (that sounds way too harsh) to me.

For my part, I remember situations where I'm trying to explain the sexual orientation or political orientation of friends. Since I travel in what I would call a relatively eclectic political group, much of the outing I end up doing is to avoid what I believe to be unnecessary political sniping. I say sniping because while I don't enjoy arguing until I'm blue in the face, I don't have any problem defending my political beliefs when someone asks me about them in a serious way. At the same time, I don't think starting off a conversation with the off-hand comment that "Socialists are idiots" is particularly good. Not a really conducive way to start dialogue in my mind. To me, some good questions to ask before outing someone include, but are not limited to:

• Does the outing act as a pejorative or informational clarification?
• Have you talked to the outee about being outed beforehand?
• If the tables were turned, would you be happy about being outed in front of that person's friends(always good to throw a golden rule in there)?

If you can answer those questions honestly and come out on the other side clean, then you're in good shape as far as outing is concerned. If not, maybe it's time to rethink your outing ways. Then again, maybe I'm just being an hyper-conscious ass for thinking so much about this.

Therefore, with the season of reflection and togetherness in mind, I'd hope that everyone when interacting with loved ones, friends, and the randoms you inevitably see when you go home, tries to think twice about "outing" someone. I don't think it's wrong as a concept. But I do think context means something. In my experiences, in an outing situation, where Person A is getting outed, Person B is doing the outing, and Person C is the third party party learning about Person A's outable quality, Person A often doesn't mind talking to Person C about the outed issue, but they definitely aren't always so happy with Person B.

Have a good after-Christmas talk, everyone.

Unbelievable Dinner...

I think... I would give this sketch 4 platinum stars.

The Post Office is SOOOO not platinum...

So I went to the post office two days ago to mail something. No biggie, right? Wrong. Despite the fact that 1) Christmas has been going on for quite a while and 2) the U.S. Postal Service has a pretty good idea that this means a few more packages going out, the post office near me has the same two individuals working behind the counter. No extra help. No rearranging of schedules to increase workers. No anything. Just two incredibly slow and surly individuals who do not seem to be interested in working very hard.

For my accompanying friend and I, we each had relatively simply goals. We each needed to get stamps and mail some letters. Unfortunately, we needed the stamps so that we could mail our letters. When we walked in, the line to deal with the aforementioned super pleasant civil servants (Ironic Titles R Us called and wanted to give props to whoever came up with that one) stretched out the building. Looking to avoid the line, we went straight for the machines that dispensed the stamps. Wouldn't you know it, both machines were out of stamps/broken. Perfect.

My buddy and I stood in line, talking trash about the entire experience for the next 25 minutes. When we finally got to the front, my friend went up and asked for stamps. The lady, in her "I'm doing you a favor telling you this, even though I don't really need to" voice said, "We only have one kind left." She handed it to him, and he looked at me and chuckled. I walked up and asked for the same thing. She repeated the line and gave me the stamps. I quickly understood why he was chuckling.


Yes, that is the Virgin Mary and baby. How ironic that at this time of year, that's the one stamp they still have extras of. I mentioned to my friend how unamused my Jewish mother from New York would be if the same thing had happened to her (or if I sent her a card with one of those on the envelope). I couldn't help but laugh. The experience of witnessing, of all places, the Post Office, run low on stamps reminded me of when Milton Friedman said, "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

platinum insults.

Abase yo self! This time around the thesaurus helped me with some rank insults. Boy I'm getting to be a sharp kid. With these bullies are sure to leave you alone on the playground. (The assumption of that last sentence is that readers of this blog get picked-on at the playground. I realize this is a complete fallacy and that I am projecting a bit of myself on to y'all. As such, these are still pretty cool, even if you yourself are doing the picking on)

You troglodyte! (yea get him you troglodyte. or you lift like a troglodyte. or it's so easy even a troglodyte could do it. or you're mother was a traglodyte)

or

YOu're a Palooka!! Look it's a palooka, lets trip him! and for the festive reference... Palooka's arn't platinum...

just a few. (words are cool)

Token bailout post/Wayne's World reference...

Here’s another scary link from the New York Times RSS feed on the Auto bailout.

It's a copy of each of the actual documents/”plans" submitted by the big 3.

Mixed into all the pure huffle-puff-hodgepodge-claptrap they show how they are going to be better now, and that they used to be bad, that now everybody's going to love them. and as they say in Wayne's World... Yea and monkeys'll fly out of my butt!!