“Also: ha!  I hope that Blanche’s single Rod Stewart album keeps her occupied after the voters of Louisiana send her packing.”

Err….. Arkansas?

Arkansas, Louisiana—minor southern state.

Seriously, I’d guess that not knowing rock musicians might be a selling point to the conservative culture-warrior voters of Arkansiana.

Okay, pedants.  I’m glad I could make you so exquisitely happy.  It’s fixed now.  Go clean yourselves up.

For what it’s worth, Rod Stewart had the reputation as the New Satan in my sexuality class at the University for his videos, degrading and predatory come to mind as primary descriptions.

Not exactly a rock musician to idolize.  I don’t think his music has aged very well, very rarely if at all do I get the impulse to play it.

Okay, pedants.  I’m glad I could make you so exquisitely happy.  It’s fixed now.  Go clean yourselves up.

Marcotte admits “mistakes were made”.  Trolls everywhere squee in their pants.

Well, she’s obviously wrong on this point and out of touch generally but really, if you’re so invested in politics and academia from that early age you’re bound to be out of touch with any semblance of popular culture to any serious extent. At least thaat’s been my experience, knowing various people at various ages who fit that bill.

Also paradox, early Rod Stewart, when he was in the Faces, is awesome. The first four albums are all great, much like Black Sabbath. But if you had to pick one, Every Picture Tells A Story is the one to go for.

It was also a particularly lame excuse. Being a Senator just has to be the freakin’ easiest job in the whole world. Look at the people who do it.

“Marcotte admits “mistakes were made”.  Trolls everywhere squee in their pants.”

...Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif) is getting ready to issue subpoenas in preparation for a motion to impeach Ms. Marcotte from the ultra-leftist, radical-feminist webblog called “Pandagon”, and then turn the ‘blog over to Bill Donohue, to become new ‘blog called “Daily Catholic”, which will focus exclusively on conservative Catholic issues such as the controversy over Galileo’s theory of heliocentrism and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and whether belief in those ideas is a mortal sin…

Mr Ess wrote:

..Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif) is getting ready to issue subpoenas in preparation for a motion to impeach Ms. Marcotte from the ultra-leftist, radical-feminist webblog called “Pandagon”, and then turn the ‘blog over to Bill Donohue, to become new ‘blog called “Daily Catholic”, which will focus exclusively on conservative Catholic issues such as the controversy over Galileo’s theory of heliocentrism and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and whether belief in those ideas is a mortal sin…

Oh, cool!  I wonder if I can be a co-blogger on the Daily Catholic.

Actually, The Daily Catholic already exists, but it seems to have been abandoned, with the last entry on July 8, 2009.

Okay, pedants.  I’m glad I could make you so exquisitely happy.  It’s fixed now.  Go clean yourselves up.

My apologies if I offended.

I do stand by “I’d guess that not knowing rock musicians might be a selling point to the conservative culture-warrior voters…”

I’d guess that not knowing rock musicians might be a selling point to the conservative culture-warrior voters

This must be some new definition of the word “daily” with which I was not previously familiar.

I had no idea that Blanche Lincoln is Mary Lambert’s sister until I read this post and Googled for Blanche’s sister.  I wonder if Mary offered her a part in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.

I’m not offended.  I just think it’s hilarious that I make a small mistake and within seconds, I have three comments and an email.  I haven’t seen that much enthusiasm when you toss a steak bone into a pack of hungry dogs.  People should hang out at Matt Y.‘s place.  He’s like the king of typos.  Also, here.  But to get your error hunting itches scratched.

Well, she’s obviously wrong on this point and out of touch generally but really, if you’re so invested in politics and academia from that early age you’re bound to be out of touch with any semblance of popular culture to any serious extent. At least thaat’s been my experience, knowing various people at various ages who fit that bill.

Not only that, but being out of touch with popular culture is considered a virtue in some academic circles, especially in STEM fields as that shows “dedication” to the academics as one has not been “tainted” by wasting one’s time on “frivolous” pursuits such as keeping up with pop culture trends*. 

This is reinforced among many academic achievers by their being taunted as “Nerds”, “Geeks”, and “eggheads” in school which creates a feedback loop of their associating pop culture with the “Jocks/popular people” who taunted them in high school so they, in turn, will disdain and make fun of those who obsess…or even maintain some awareness of pop culture.  One great manifestation of this on many college Profs’ doors/campuses…..disdain for those who love TV as epitomized by “Kill Your Television” stickers….....

Though Blanche Lincoln ultimately went into politics, she was a bio major and thought about pursuing a nursing career according to the wikipedia entry. 

* This attitude is also a reason why many academics and students who strongly identify with them in the STEM fields or more quantitatively oriented social science fields are dismissive of the more qualitative humanities and social science fields which encourages studies about pop culture.  Such studies and fields are dismissed by such folks as “fluff studies”.

Not only that, but being out of touch with popular culture is considered a virtue in some academic circles, especially in STEM fields as that shows “dedication” to the academics as one has not been “tainted” by wasting one’s time on “frivolous” pursuits such as keeping up with pop culture trends*.

I thought I was a big dork, all ready to take umbrage at the scurrilous “correlation” being drawn between unhipness and rightwing assholery, but I then had to look up “STEM.”

Never mind.

Isn’t this pretty much par for the course for the sorts of people who go into politics, on either side of the aisle?

I have a few acquaintances who are in much lower stages of holding office, or who aspire to same.  They’re nice people and all, but they are conventional to a fault (and total wonks, as Stubborn Sort Of Fellow says).  And often totally clueless about any aspect of culture that isn’t 100% fully and totally vanilla mainstream.  I mean, people who think they’re edgy because they watch Glee.

While the Who had their heyday in the 60s, they had a #1 hit with “Eminence Front” in the 80s.  Plus they began their endless “final tours”.  Plus they had that concert where those kids were tramped to death (luckily my big brother was not among the dead).  Also, too.

Just sayin’...The Who were actually actively famous in the 80s, which makes Blanche even more out of touch.

Well, she’s obviously wrong on this point and out of touch generally but really, if you’re so invested in politics and academia from that early age you’re bound to be out of touch with any semblance of popular culture to any serious extent. At least thaat’s been my experience, knowing various people at various ages who fit that bill….

Comment #7: Stubborn Kind of Fellow on 09/22 at 08:57 PM

Even though you IME’d, way to spread false and hasty generalizations about academics in general. But how does one explain the proliferation of pop culture IN liberal arts classes then, various publications. articles, books dedicated to the Literature of (Insert pop culture topic here)  the Philosophy of (insert pop culture topic here) the sociology of (insert pop culture topic here.  And IME, the ultimate trivial pursuit/name that tune music/pop culture players are “egghead academics.”

If it’s a STEM/Lhumanities divide be more specific in your hasty generalizations from the start;-)

@3 - Doesn’t matter.  Lincoln can be as big an ignorant homophobe as she pleases.  She can kiss all the corporate ass she can get in range of.  She can take a giant stinking crap on a homeless guy on the 50 yardline of the Razorbacks’ homecoming game.  It won’t matter to the culture warriors, because they will never in a million years vote for her as long as she’s got a D by her name.  Her potential winning coalition doesn’t include those sorts of people, so despite her best efforts to pander to them, she’s going to be out a job after this election.

Though Blanche Lincoln ultimately went into politics, she was a bio major and thought about pursuing a nursing career according to the wikipedia entry.

Yes, we all know that nothing says “science nerd” like being a nurse. Really, exholt, do you know any nurses? They’re about as big eggheaded STEM nerds as social workers and high school geometry teachers. Which is not a knock on their intelligence, just that they basically fall smack-dab in the center of “middle class conventional,” which makes her perfect for politics, since it is highly conformist.

Contrary to your claims, academic science does not so much have conformist demands of your pop culture interests as much as a complete uncaring apathy about what they are, as long as you publish lots of papers and spend long hours in the lab. While the field doesn’t actively select in favor of eccentricity, the system basically doesn’t care, giving most people’s personalities free reign to go wherever they want. Also, people who live in the bad-personality-stereotype glass house of IT shouldn’t be throwing stones at scientists.

Did a bunch of biochem and math PhD students steal your lunch money in college or something?

Well, it cares insomuch as any effort to know about popular culture will be time away from being selected for the next work or higher grade on your work.

Marcotte admits “mistakes were made”.  Trolls everywhere squee in their pants.

That really is more or less the internet as a whole’s jab at their betters.  “Least I can spell better and/or not make a slight mistake that doesn’t take away from the argument!” 

As for the STEM remark, I find it ironic because pop culture dictated the identity.  Most engineers I knew before I blew my gasket and left in undergrad were fairly unhip but certainly didn’t hate pop culture, they just didn’t have time for it.  I can think of colleagues now who subject themselves to classical when they think somebody in the department is around but if I catch a ride to my car from one of them the radio is usually set to Top 40 or NPR.  STEM fields just demand an obscene amount of a human being’s time to become proficient and to maintain that proficiency.  This in turn developed an ideal that they hated normal pop culture and wanted to stay in that bubble and as time went on the stereotype grew to become true.  Sort of an argument of art imitating life imitating art. 

Totally unrelated but why do we need to argue social wedge issues like they matter?  Are Arkansas voters really that worried about homosexuals having a certificate allowing them to have visitation rights in the hospital and passing property along with pensions on?  I can’t help but realize this is all true but I sometimes question how a state of people can become so mixed up with an unimportant issue so as to lose sight of reality.  To let the rich dictate the future to them and to make them a debt peonage class.

In fairness, I know many a socially adept hedonist jock who doesn’t know much at all about pop culture. Enjoy it? Sure. But recognize a famous artist in a crowd? Likely no.

Oh, cool! I wonder if I can be a co-blogger on the Daily Catholic.

You see that animal at the top?  That’s a panda.

When it gets replaced by a weasel, you’ll be the first person we think of.

You know, it wasn’t a spelling error or a wayward Oxford Comma, it was the wrong state for a frickin’ US Senator!  There’s only two to a State at any time, so they’re kind of prominent people.  Try writing that Bill Clinton is from Louisiana, regardless of the focus of the post, and see what happens.

Relevant to the argument or not, IMHO that’s information that shouldn’t be considered arcane (though truthfully, it might be relevant to the post that the only two Democratic Senators to side with the Republicans on this issue were both from Arkansas).

And since when is a post who’s entire body reads “Err….. Arkansas?” considered trolling?  If there’s any beratement in the subtext of that message, I’m not seeing it.

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Blanche Lincoln is going to be unemployed at the beginning of January, and there are very Democratic Senators that I could care less about losing their seats.

What Arkansas Democrats made her the party nominee is beyond me, because the day after the election, all polling indicated that she was going to get decimated in November.  I don’t know if Bill Halter could have saved that seat for the Democrats, but the second she won the primary, the Republicans automatically gained at least one seat.

She probably won’t be missed by… anybody.

Seriously, I’d guess that not knowing rock musicians might be a selling point to the conservative culture-warrior voters of Arkansiana.

Absolutely… but given the choice between a fake Democrat and a real Republican, wingnuts will always choose the real Republican. Blanche Lincoln is nominally a Democrat. Her opponent, the soon-to-be Senator-elect John Boozman, is a Republican. While I’m sure Boozman will probably be even worse for the constituents of Arkansas than Lincoln has been, the one thing about the midterms that I’ll take a little joy in is seeing one of the most useless Democrats in the Senate getting defeated. Gonna have to wait until 2012 to fire Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman.

libdevil wrote:

It won’t matter to the culture warriors, because they will never in a million years vote for her as long as she’s got a D by her name.  Her potential winning coalition doesn’t include those sorts of people, so despite her best efforts to pander to them, she’s going to be out a job after this election.

Probably, but considering that Senator Lincoln has won Senate elections twice, by 55% and 56%, after twice having won elections to the House of Representatives (70% and 53%), and that Arkansas’ other senator is also a Democrat, and that the Senate seat Mrs Lincoln holds has been held by a Democrat for about a century, that “D” alone isn’t enough to defeat her.  Senator Lincoln won re-election in 2004 with 56% of the vote, in the same election in which President Bush defeated Senator Kerry by 55% of the vote in Arkansas.

Not only that, but being out of touch with popular culture is considered a virtue in some academic circles, especially in STEM fields as that shows “dedication” to the academics as one has not been “tainted” by wasting one’s time on “frivolous” pursuits such as keeping up with pop culture trends

Knowing about folks like The Who and Eric Clapton in the ‘80s is not “keeping up with pop culture trends”. While it’s true that very few of the folks in my physics class were on top of pop culture, many of them did have extensive collections of classic rock and blues. (On vinyl, naturally.) It was the physics geeks who set up the campus radio station.

Next you’ll be telling me that most STEM types have no idea who Captain Kirk is.

As a STEM type myself, while I’ll cop to being pretty ignorant of a lot of pop culture, it’s more about selectivity than anything. Things that I enjoy I enjoy; things that I find boring, I just pass on (and I find the overwhelming majority of the pop culture stereotypically associated with scientists, like Star Trek, etc. to be pretty dull).

But yeah, Blanche Lincoln sucks, what else is new?

Swift pedantry isn’t concern trolling.  But the eagerness with which it’s executed is nonetheless amusing as fuck and puts one in mind of a kid in a candy store, a dog offered a steak bone, or me at a craps table.

Amanda wrote:

puts one in mind of a kid in a candy store, a dog offered a steak bone, or me at a craps table.

OK, we need more details here! 

Lincoln sounds like most religious people that have been raised in a alternate universe, known as Christian pop culture

Here’s an idea, Dana: go fuck yourself.

Knowing about folks like The Who and Eric Clapton in the ‘80s is not “keeping up with pop culture trends”. While it’s true that very few of the folks in my physics class were on top of pop culture, many of them did have extensive collections of classic rock and blues. (On vinyl, naturally.) It was the physics geeks who set up the campus radio station.

Was bringing my experience attending a public magnet high school full of kids who were and did become hardcore STEM majors, especially in engineering, CS, various stereotypical pre-med majors like bio, etc.  A side-effect of that and the heavier than college-workloads we had…especially those taking APs or actual college courses was that knowledge of pop culture…or even culture not mostly derived from our parents/grandparents generations was sadly lacking or even non-existent. 

A reason why there were so many classmates who were completely clueless about pop/music culture period and/or only knew classical and Jazz/Big-Band composers/performers…and the latter were bigtime snobs about it.  It got much better in college….though that has as much to do with the undergrad I went to as well as students being more free to explore and experiment once they graduated high school. 

In my experiences with CS/engineering graduate colleagues in the workplace or visited the STEM departments younger friends were studying in at various universities in the Boston/NYC areas….saw a slightly toned down version of the phenomenon I saw in high school….except the disdain for popular culture sometimes even extended to classical music/jazz as “music for the overly pretentious “braindead MBA holding “suits”“.

Yes, we all know that nothing says “science nerd” like being a nurse. Really, exholt, do you know any nurses? They’re about as big eggheaded STEM nerds as social workers and high school geometry teachers. Which is not a knock on their intelligence, just that they basically fall smack-dab in the center of “middle class conventional,” which makes her perfect for politics, since it is highly conformist.

Nursing at certain schools was a popular fallback for pre-med majors who suddenly found themselves lacking in finances/time to attend medical school as was the case with my high school friend’s spouse and/or failed to achieve the high grades/MCAT scores for Med school admission according to dozens of pre-med high school classmates who later became doctors.

being out of touch with popular culture is considered a virtue in some academic circles, especially in STEM fields as that shows “dedication” to the academics as one has not been “tainted” by wasting one’s time on “frivolous” pursuits

This was absolutely not my experience when I was an STEM student.  While my awareness of pop culture did diminish when I was a college student—since after 8 hours of studying, I’m not going to choose reading Oh No They Didn’t over sleep—it was never a particular point of pride.  In fact, the people who teased me most for my general pop culture cluelessness were fellow STEM students.  Everyone’s goal was to become a scientist/engineer/mathematician without turning into a boring, clueless, STEM-bot. 

Maybe this phenomenon varies by institution, but what you’ve described sounds more like a stereotype of the STEM academic than what people are actually like.

Amanda, Christine O’Donnell says that I can’t do that.

“While the Who had their heyday in the 60s, they had a #1 hit with “Eminence Front” in the 80s.  Plus they began their endless “final tours”.  Plus they had that concert where those kids were tramped to death (luckily my big brother was not among the dead).”

Plus, well…they are the fucking Who!

I do not mean this as any kind of insult towards pre-med students, but does anybody consider pre-med students “science nerds”?  Pre-med is, by definition, not all-consuming, and medicine is basically the least nerdy thing you can do with a science education.

I’m not offended.  I just think it’s hilarious that I make a small mistake and within seconds, I have three comments and an email.  I haven’t seen that much enthusiasm when you toss a steak bone into a pack of hungry dogs.  People should hang out at Matt Y.’s place.  He’s like the king of typos.  Also, here.  But to get your error hunting itches scratched.

Actually, think of it as a tribute—your proofreading is usually good enough that when those small mistakes (I call them brainos, since they’re not really typing errors, and, alas, I make them all the time:  See my comment 12, where I copied the wrong quote, which made my comment nonsensical.  I was referring to the “Daily Catholic” not publishing daily…) happen, they’re noticeable. 

When they become frequent, they don’t stand out as much.

Right now Ms. Lincoln is probably angling at getting a good job with some conservative company or think thank.  Or lobbying company.

I do not mean this as any kind of insult towards pre-med students, but does anybody consider pre-med students “science nerds”?  Pre-med is, by definition, not all-consuming, and medicine is basically the least nerdy thing you can do with a science education.

Not all-consuming?? That’s going to be news to nearly every pre-med major/med school graduate I’ve known or encountered from high school friends, college classmates, and undergrads in the greater Boston/NYC areas. 

Granted, they’re not necessarily “science nerds” in the intellectual sense…....but they are all pulling long-study hours in the lab and libraries to ensure that no grade slips below an -A….especially in key pre-med core courses like organic chem.  Especially if they have pre-med advisors/science Profs like the ones I’ve met who kept up the mantra that if they receive any B+s or below…especially in the core courses…they should forget about med school. 

Though they may have sounded harsh….their words have been borne out by the experiences of many friends and a relative who were rejected 3-5 years in a row before gaining med school admission despite having 3.7+/4.0 GPAs in STEM fields from places like Cornell, Berkeley, NYU, Columbia/Barnard, and SUNY Buffalo/Stonybrook and stellar MCAT scores…with some hitting the 40s/45.

exholt, I just meant that pre-med isn’t (usually?) a major.  If you’re a philosophy student who is planning on going to medical school, sure, your pre-med requirements might take up a ton of your time, but it’s not really possible for you to devote all of your intellectual energy to them, since you have other classes that you need to take. 

Again, I never said that pre-med students aren’t hard working, just that I have never considered them “science nerds” in the stereotypical sense.  When people say “nerd” they mean somebody who focuses on one topic at the expense of all else, usually including social skills, and I never thought that was a stereotype of pre-med students.

Although now that I think about it, it is definitely a stereotype of med students (focusing on med school at the expense of all else, including or especially socializing).  So maybe I just didn’t know very many premeds when I was in undergrad.

Although now that I think about it, it is definitely a stereotype of med students (focusing on med school at the expense of all else, including or especially socializing).  So maybe I just didn’t know very many premeds when I was in undergrad.

It is a stereotype with much basis in truth if the experience of dozens of high school classmates/relative who ended up doing pre-med in college, younger friends who were pre-meds, and 3 roommates who were medical residents at the time were any indication. 

Nearly everyone said that what I heard from that pre-med advisor I met was what they heard….maintain a minimum of an -A in all subjects….especially the pre-med core or forget about med school because the competition to get in was so keen. 

Didn’t see this mentality at my undergrad…though that’s mainly because our science departments mainly produce students who go onto science PhD programs to be research scientists…not medical doctors.  In fact..come to think about it…I only knew one pre-med student at my undergrad during my entire time there….and even he admitted that our school wasn’t exactly a “pre-med factory”.

When Michael Jackson died, there was one particular person on a science fiction usenet group that I participated in, who had absolutely no idea who Michael Jackson was and why so many people were upset about his death. Most people on the group were fine with this but I wanted to hold my hands up in frustration because of the general lack of awareness. I’m not particularly into most pop culture but its really showing a lack of social awareness and grance, not to be aware of who the hell Michael Jackson was.

At my University, the default major for pre-med was Biology, because you take all the classes required for med school as part of the major, and being another science major(like Physics, Chemistry) meant you had to take some Biology classes which didn’t help your distribution requirement and meant more hard work as a result compared to a Biology major, which also didn’t have the math requirements for Physics and the like.

The only exception to the above was a college roommate who was a pre-med Chemistry major, but his father was a doctor who would ‘consult’ his son on cases from a young age, so he had a better background to understand biology than the son of a lawyer or school administrator.

The pre-meds were infamous for being grinds.  When I TA’ed Human Physiology in my last semester as a senior, I had one student who would hand in tests for regrades all the time, and I asked around about him and was told that “If he gets a 91, he’ll ask for a regrade to get it to 96.”.

He was so fanatical and a pest that when he asked the professor who taught HP for a letter of recommendation, because of what I had reported the student got a letter recommending he not be admitted into med school, and it should be noted this was a prof from the Medical School who came to teach undergraduates in HP.

Trying to bring this back from this STEM distraction, it’s my experience that people completely out of touch with pop culture got that way because they were socially isolated, sometimes willfully isolated by their parents. I know that I didn’t have the time or inclination to keep up with what was going on in music, but I still had access to a radio and I still had friends who would loan me tapes and CDs. You have some cases of evangelical or immigrant parents who were paranoid about their children being corrupted by the outside world, and they grow up without any exposure to what people are listening to or doing for fun. I really don’t know how Blanche Lincoln grew up or what her family life was like, but I can make a guess given the pattern.

The pre-meds were infamous for being grinds.  When I TA’ed Human Physiology in my last semester as a senior, I had one student who would hand in tests for regrades all the time, and I asked around about him and was told that “If he gets a 91, he’ll ask for a regrade to get it to 96.”.

He was so fanatical and a pest that when he asked the professor who taught HP for a letter of recommendation, because of what I had reported the student got a letter recommending he not be admitted into med school, and it should be noted this was a prof from the Medical School who came to teach undergraduates in HP.

That was what I observed when visiting high school friends on Boston area campuses well known for being “pre-med factories” and what I hear every college classmate who had to TA classes with pre-med students rant about. 

As for asking for regrades….that behavior would have earned him instant ostracism and ridicule by the rest of the student body and disappointment from the Professors that you’re not interested in the intellectual process.  Being competitive or even openly concerned about grades beyond worrying about actually failing a course was considered uncool.  At best, you’d be regarded as an anti-intellectual tool not really interested in academic learning…or learning period.  At worst, you’d be regarded as a tool/pawn/brainwashed cog in the evil corporate capitalist machine…especially by the sizable campus Marxist/Maoist populations. 

As for sheltering….while much of it is influenced by parental/family influences, there are also plenty of students/adults who deliberately isolate themselves from pop culture and its influences for various personal closed-minded reasons as well.  Many colleagues, younger friends, and even some post-college classmates have proven to be great examples of the latter type phenomenon.

As for asking for regrades….that behavior would have earned him instant ostracism and ridicule by the rest of the student body and disappointment from the Professors that you’re not interested in the intellectual process.

The regrade process was a right anyone had in any class, it probably is an old-fashioned tradition that has been lost in the mists of time from the Universities and Colleges that originated it in the first place.

There was a case in my General Genetics class where the Prof photocopied the Blue Books before handing them back. When some of them were returned for regrades he could tell there had been changes made, and announced in class that those people would have to come and see him in his office where they would be given a zero for the grade, and of course their behavior would reported to the Administration.

The punch line is about twice as many students appeared at his office door than he expected to be there.

I had mostly fun talking to the students when they asked for help, the gentleman I mentioned was the exception to the rule.

OTOH, the art students(illustration and graphic design, not art history majors) had the crits, or critique
process where the instructor judges their assigned projects, somewhat akin to being called to the Tower of London not knowing whether one was to be feted or imprisoned.  This process couldn’t be regraded, and because there was often a lot of last-minute effort before the crit, and led to the following graffiti:

“For six days God rested, and on the seventh, he pulled an all-nighter.”