March 2007 – Page 9 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Guns & grammar

I’m willing to bet that at least some of the reading audience did not know that firearms have generated several turns-of-phrase that still of relative common use in today’s lexicon. We’re going to go over a couple of the ones you might have heard, and what their origins are.

One phrase I’m guessing everyone has heard, especially if you watch war movies is “lock and load”; which has graduated to the general lexicon. It’s current usage means “get or be ready” for whatever action may happen. With the M1 Garand, we wouldn’t have this handy phrase for overzealous business majors to use in class. The phrase was originally “load and lock”, which referred to inserting a clip (I don’t get to say that much…clip clip clip clip) into the M1 Garand, and locking the bolt forward. An alternate interpretation suggest that the phrase was originally “lock and load” and referred to locking the bolt in the rearward position prior to inserting the clip into the rifle.

No matter the origin, the phrase was immortalized by John Wayne in the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima; and was also uses later in both Platoon, and one of the Star Trek movies.

The next phrase is “flash in the pan”, which is currently used to describe bands, actors, or artists that have one hit and then disappear. Its usage is similar to “shooting star”, and “one hit wonder”.

This phrase has its genesis in the days of flintlock weapons. Back then, loose powder was carried in “the pan” of your weapon; which would in theory ignite the main powder charge. However, as flinters were and are notoriously unreliable, a “flash in the pan” would sometimes occur, where the powder in the pan would burn but not ignite the main charge. The result would be a pretty lightshow, and a very unhappy soldier.

That concludes today’s “gun induced grammar” lesson; feel free to add your own in the comments section!

Unarmed and useless

My industry is a perfect example of one of the real problems with guns. The wrong people have them and the right people don’t. There have been several strip club shootings in the news recently, the most recent occurring less than a week ago in Texas. Before that there was a high-profile incident in Las Vegas involving multiple celebrities.

Working around drunk people in any capacity can be pretty scary. Most of the clubs I’ve worked at either have metal detectors or (more commonly) “wand” patrons as they come in. At the ones that only wand people, I’ve only seen it done on the weekends and evenings. I understand the logic (basically it’s profiling) but it seems to me that a preventative measure that takes 15-20 seconds should be performed every time if it’s going to be used at all.

The real problem, though, is that bouncers are never armed. In most places security is a joke. A lot of dancers refer to them as “door guys,” because we can’t bring ourselves to say “bouncers” or “security” without an accompanying eye-roll. I would love it if every club had armed bouncers. The problem is that clubs don’t want to deal with the hassle of having every bouncer licensed, trained and background-checked. Not for a position that pays minimum wage plus tips. Most bouncers don’t stay in the industry very long, either, so it would be time-consuming and costly to jump through the hoops to arm each bouncer, only to have to do it again a few months later. Additionally, a lot of clubs are skittish of having too much visible security. According to this line of thinking, metal detectors and armed bouncers make a club look dangerous and scare away the “right” type of customer.

Before I started dancing in clubs I worked at a peep show. This was the only time I ever worked with an armed bouncer. The peep show was in a porn shop, and the bouncer was also a clerk. He was definitely a “gun guy” who always had his weapon on him, including at work. He carried it unconcealed. I never had a single problem with customers there when he was on shift. It didn’t seem to affect my money or the shop’s business. However, he carried his weapon because it was part of his lifestyle, not as part of the job. I guess the only conclusion I can reach from these musings is that if I were to ever open a club of any sort I’d want to hire “gun guys” for security. Opening a club is not in my ten-year plan, so for now I’ll just continue to work at places with metal detectors and avoid NFL players.

Pitt-for-Brains

The Pittsburgh Penguins have become the latest sports franchise to hold the state of PA hostage so they wouldn’t have to get their own financing for a new arena. Today, Gov. Ed Rendell announced a deal that would keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. The Penguins had threatened to leave to Kansas City, MO if they could not secure a new arena when their lease with the 40 year old Melon Center expires at the end of this hockey season. In this new deal, the Penguins will get help from PA slot parlor revenue.

A Pennsylvania law signed last year allowed for a certain number of slot parlors to be built in the state. A percentage of the revenue from the slot machines will go towards reducing property taxes. Another portion of the revenue is slated for other economic stimulus projects. However, there is absolutely no evidence that a stadium provides any sort of economic boost. In fact, studies have shown that, on average, they reduce workers’ incomes by $47 per year. Further more, a 2004 study showed that teams never need help in financing the stadiums. The stadium generate enough revenue to cover construction costs and more.

People can try to spin this, saying that it’s slot machine money and not taxes that will go towards financing the arena. I contend that with Pennsylvanians looking down the barrell of a 1% increase in the state sales tax and other ills such as our crumbling transportation infrastructure and our awful inner city crime rate, the slot machine revenue could be put to better use than helping to keep hockey, a second-rate sport, in Pittsburgh. I also contend that slot machines are just another tax, one that disproportionately affects the poor – you don’t see people with a lot of money habitually gambling at slot parlors.

Lastly, Mario Lemieux completely disrespected the people who paid money to watch him play for the Penguins during his career. The Penguins have some of the best attendance figures in hockey, and it’s a sham that he would even consider giving up standing room only crowds 17,000 strong to play rent free in front of 7,000 “fans”.

Southern Mud

We’ve been having some spotty rain here in Jayton, TX. It hasn’t stopped the shooting activities though. Yesterday we were doing small bore shooting, and a little clay shooting. They have an old WW II era jeep that I got to drive around in the mud a good bit, and I had a giant shit eating grin on my face the whole time. I’m still getting used to driving a vehicle that has to be double clutched, but it’s a lot of fun. We went spotlighting for wildlife (just observing) in the jeep after dark. It was a lot of fun.

Check in later maybe.

At Least There’s the NIT

Normally, I don’t like to go on “We wuz robbed!” rants about something silly like the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. But since Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim has gone on a two-day rant about how his team isn’t in the field of 64 this year, I think that I can take a few paragraphs to say this: Syracuse wasn’t robbed, Drexel was.

Drexel beat Syracuse. They also beat tournament invitees Villanova and Creighton. They beat major Philadelphia basketball programs at Temple and St. Joseph’s, too. They did all of this away from their home court, as no program of any significance is going to agree to play Drexel at the bingo hall that is the Daskalakis Athletic Center. Yes, Drexel does play in a middle-tier athletic conference, and their in-conference record was decent. However, small programs like Drexel have to schedule games on the road at big-time basketball powerhouses in order to make a case for an invite, and this year, they played great.

If there’s one thing that George Mason University showed us last year, it’s that middle-tier schools are worthy of getting invites to the tournament even if they don’t win their conference. Last year, teams from minor conferences got 8 of the 34 invites available. This year, they got six. The number of invites from minor conferences has gone down every year for the last 4 years. The NCAA Selection Committee is showing elitism and favoritism towards big schools at power conferences.

This is complete folly. There’s a reason why there’s a 13 seed upsetting a 4 seed every year: a good team from an OK conference is better than an OK team from a good conference. Do we really need to see Boston College lose to North Carolina again? No, let’s give a team like Drexel a chance to play UNC. I bet they’d at least make it interesting.

In the interest of disclosure, I am a Drexel alumnus.

The Pink Pistols

If you’ve not heard of them, the Pink Pistols are a firearms advocacy group that also advocates gay rights. If you go to their website, the front page says “Armed Gays don’t get bashed” a phrase which makes me giggle incessantly whenever I see it.

I really like groups like the Pink Pistols, not just because they advocate for the 2nd Amendment, but because they give the radical lefties serious mental fits. They can’t comprehend how someone that “should” be “on their side” is advocating for a dirty “Republican” concept like RKBA. One of the biggest reasons that I like the Pink Pistols is because we need more groups like them. We need gun owners and 2nd Amendment advocates that don’t just break the media’s stereotype of gun owners, they smash it.

The biggest reason that I support the Pink Pistols (and any group that exposes the cognitive dissonance inherent in the radical left) is because they also display the deep seated hypocrisy in the “social progressive” movement. Think about this for just a minute: the ~~marxists~~ social progressives are constantly trying to “help the little guy” (generally with your money); however if they were successful in helping the poor not be poor, or minorities be treated equal, they would lose their mandate and by losing their mandate they would lose their power.

It is imperative to those in power (your Nancy Pelosi’s, Ted Kennedy’s, and Dianne Feinsteins) that the poor and disadvantaged remain poor and disadvantaged. Of course, they will make a big show of “helping” the little guy, but their help is little more than free handouts at the expense of the taxpayer – handouts that do nothing to actually help the poor and disadvantaged.

I sometimes feel that the Big Left has forgotten the simple proverb “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”

Time for Louis Gosset, Jr?

West Philadelphia High gets evacuated again. I expect that Mayor Street will finally cave to Paul Vallas’ wishes to have police patrol the school.

That might be a good short-term solution just to make it through the rest of the school year. In the long term though, instead of thinking large-scale about systems, they’ll just shove a “Crazy Joe” Clark principal into West Philadelphia High and hope that the rest will fall in line.

Thoughtcrime

One of the websites I frequent is The Martialist, and it’s attendant forums. The owner/author of the Martialist is Phil Elmore, who is a figure of some controversy in the self-defense world.

I don’t always agree with him, but no matter what my stance on his various opinions is, he is an excellent writer who both turns a phrase well; as well as takes a thoughtful approach to his topics.

His latest piece is on “Thoughtcrime”, and while it’s rather long; it’s also an excellent read. I may not always agree with him, but in this case I’m in absolute agreement. The whole post can be found here.

Thoughtcrime in contemporary society began as “political correctness” and “multiculturalism.” These are cultural movements that hold as their central tenets the notions that some terms, phrases, and lines of thought are intrinsically offensive and inappropriate for public discourse, and that history has traditionally been the exclusive domain of dead white European males whose injustices to all other cultures have been whitewashed (while the historical contributions of other cultures have been simultaneously omitted from the record), respectively. The scions of political correctness and multiculturalism took root in our schools and in our government, teaching our children and pushing through legislation that made it thoughtcrime to adhere to the old ways of the culturally insensitive, ethnocentric Anglos whose evil designs on power the movements were designed to foil. As these movements gained in influence and in converts, it became a cultural crime — punishable by social censure — to engage in politically incorrect language or ethnocentric attitudes. Thus, kicking and screaming, would those who adhered to traditional values be dragged into the brave new world advocated by political leftists (who are at the forefront of the establishment of thoughtcrime).

I have seen the above example first hand, where the positive actions of my ancestors are dismissed out of hand because simply because there were rich Anglos. I now celebrate my heritage with a certain amount of guilt, simply because even I have been indoctrinated to the point where I feel as though I should be remorseful for the actions of people long dead.

Legally, the first of the “hate crime” legislation gave political correctness and multiculturalism the force of law. Now, the government is not merely supposed to concern itself for punishing you for what you’ve done. No, now we presume that it is possible to know what you were thinking when you committed a crime, and to punish you more severely for thinking incorrect thoughts while engaged in your crime. It is not enough to prosecute you for assault or vandalism, for example; now we must further punish you if your victim was one of a number of protected socio-political and/or ethnic pressure groups (and thus a member of a specially protected class). While prosecution under “hate crime” legislation is notably rare (if not absent entirely) for crimes committed by ethnic minorities whose victims are white, any and all crime commited by white men and women against persons of color or those who are members of other pressure groups (such as homosexuals) usually becomes national news and prompts calls for further indoctrination — excuse me, sensitivity and anger-management training — in our government and educational institutions.

I am a huge opponent of “hate crime” legislation, as it does in fact created a protected class. All crime against another person is a hate crime; regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, or religion. By making it worse to commit a crime against a person because of the color of their skin, you actually feed racism instead of curtailing its spread.

The entire article is excellent, and well written. You should go check it out.

Welcome to The Jungle

This Sunday Inquirer piece sums up what’s been a bad year and a bad week for Philadelphia teachers. Teachers and aides have been attacked, assaulted, and threatened by students. Things got so bad at West Philadelphia High school that the principal was removed earlier this week. And then things got even worse by last Friday, so the school district decided to split the school up four ways to reduce the number of students.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is pointing the finger at the school district for under-reporting the incidences. Also, even though incidences may get reported, violent students may just get shuffled around to different schools. Most of the time, the student stays at their current school: according to one study, 19 out of 100 of the worst cases of assault (called Level-2) result in the student getting moved. While the Philadelphia Schools CEO Paul Vallas said that students who assault teachers will get an immediate 10 day suspension and possibly get sent to an “Alternative School”, he is facing a surprise $36 million deficit. It is this hole in the budget which forced the district to cut back on hall monitors.

While the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ head Ted Kirsch can clamor for the district to “Put money in the schools,” he is failing to mention that two years ago, he had nearly twice the number of hall monitors than this year, and there were still 897 reported cases of students assaulting teachers. There were 791 reported incidents last year. This school year, to date, there have been 409.

When dealing with problems in a system, you isolate the component that’s causing the problems, fix it, and the system works like it’s supposed to. This is true if you’re fixing cars or writing computer software, but it’s different when it comes to the social fabric. Change one part of the social fabric, and every other component reacts, changes, and possibly disrupts other parts. The struggle in Philadelphia schools may actually have nothing to do with the amount of funding it receives, whoever is principal at West Philadelphia High, or how many bouncers you have roaming the halls.

Philadelphia is a hostile business environment with its wage tax on those working in the city regardless of where they live and those who live in the city, regardless of where they work. There also exists a business privilege tax. Philadelphia is the second most heavily taxed city in the country. Over the past 30 years, Philadelphia has hemorrhaged population and business have gone with them. So even if these students settle down and get a modicum of education, where are they going to work?

David Simon, who wrote the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and is a producer and writer for HBO’s The Wire, summed this up perfectly in an interview with Reason Magazine.

For 35 years, you’ve systematically deindustrialized these cities. You’ve rendered them inhospitable to the working class, economically. You have marginalized a certain percentage of your population, most of them minority, and placed them in a situation where the only viable economic engine in their hypersegregated neighborhoods is the drug trade. Then you’ve alienated them further by fighting this draconian war in their neighborhoods…The solution is to undo the last 35 years, brick by brick. How long is that going to take? I don’t know, but until you start it’s only going to get worse.

While Philadelphia can’t and won’t just up-and-end the war on drugs, which is a good chunk of Mr. Simon’s solution, they can do something about the business climate in Philadelphia. And by demolishing the wage tax and the business privilege tax, they will experience some truly delightful un-intended consequences when the students actually start giving a damn.

Rich Stripper, Poor Stripper

I got into stripping because I like money. This is one of the few stripper stereotypes that actually applies to me. I really, really like money. I don’t just like having it; I like reading about it, thinking about it, studying modern and historical economics, and discovering how other people think about and handle it. I don’t even mind losing it that much because I learn more about it that way.

I started my first business when I was thirteen (it wasn’t exactly a lemonade stand, either. I made more running that business than I did when I was eighteen and finally got my first “real” job as a loan processor). At fifteen I had an E*Trade account and various DRIPs. At sixteen I was an eBay Powerseller. I’ve never been highly creative or skilled in any specific area. The one thing I’ve always considered myself really good at is finding ways of turning some money into more money. The only thing missing for me was a decent source of income in the first place. That’s why I started stripping.

Very, very few strippers do this job for the sheer love of it. A few do. They tend to be frustrated burlesque performers or ex-ballerinas who never quite made it to the big leagues. The vast majority of us do it for the money. The attitudes towards the money is what differentiates us from each other. I classify dancers into five categories:

The Subsistence Stripper

In most clubs, dancers set their own schedules. In some places this means signing up for shifts a week or a month in advance. Where I am this means that whenever I feel like working I show up at one of the several clubs I am hired at and say I’m working that night. A Subsistence Stripper shows up the day before rent is due or the day after her car breaks down. She only works when she needs money. If she needs $400 to pay her rent she will stay at work until she has $450, and then pack her bags and go home, happy that she has an “extra” $50 to buy groceries the next day. These are girls who do this job because they can’t handle a job with schedules and responsibilities. If they were forced to get a “normal” job they would fall into the broader category of “people who can’t hold down a steady job.” Subsistence Strippers don’t generally pay taxes, and may even collect government benefits. Their tax evasion is unlikely to ever be detected since they don’t actually make (or spend) very much on an annual basis. This group is a small minority, but they stand out because the nature of the business allows them to continue their bad habits unchecked. Drug users are most likely to fall into this category.

The Student Stripper

Student strippers fall into two categories: students who strip and strippers who go to school. The superficial difference is which activity a dancer was doing first, but the bigger difference is in her attitude towards stripping. I greatly prefer to work with strippers who go to school. Students who strip have other income sources to fall back on, whether that is parental support or student loans. Some of them just do it for fun – a rebellious lark. Most do it for spending cash or to offset school expenses not covered by loans. Either way, they don’t have a real, pressing need for money and a lot of them don’t take the job seriously. These are the girls who are most likely to treat the job like a big party and get drunk at work or spend their money on drugs.

Strippers who go to school tend to be more serious about work, since the reason they are going to school is because they’ve been stripping awhile and want to get out of it. They are women who support themselves and are paying their tuition with the cash they earn stripping. They’re usually balancing pretty heavy schedules and want to maximize their time at work.

Students who strip can have all sorts of career aspirations, but I’ve noticed that a few professions seem to be very popular among strippers who go to school: nursing, cosmetology, massage therapy, and real estate. This makes sense, as these careers require certifications that can be achieved in much less time than a B.A.

Either way, The Student Stripper views stripping as her job for the moment – a means to an end – with the end being some sort of professional career.

The Job Stripper

The vast majority of women who strip fall into this category. For that matter, most workers in any industry in any part of the world fall into this category (that is say, the broader category of Job Workers.) The Job Stripper works 4-5 shifts a week, just like she would at any other job. Depending on the particular town and club where she works, and her own skills, she is likely to bring in anywhere from what your average college graduate working in a professional field would make to what your average doctor or lawyer makes. In other words, the Job Stripper makes enough to at least comfortably support herself. Like most people, however, she spends virtually every dollar she earns and then some. Like most people, she has anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars in the bank, but never enough to withstand any real financial hardship. On the plus side, a lot of strippers don’t even bother with credit cards, so she may not have any credit card debt. On the negative side, she’s also unlikely to have bothered with health insurance or even the most basic retirement savings, since Americans are trained to think these things are the responsibility of the employer first, the government second, and the individual last.

A Job Stripper may think that since she makes as much as a doctor does she should live at the same level a doctor does. The flaw in this thinking is that while a doctor can easily practice medicine well into her sixties or later, strippers have a relatively short shelf life. Stripping is incredibly physically demanding work. It takes a definite toll on the body. Even if a woman exercises, eats well, and avoids excessive drinking and smoking, age still shows on the face. The older one gets, the more important it is to have money set aside for plastic surgery, laser treatments, Botox, etc. to keep her looking as good as possible and maximize her earning potential. Even in a best-case scenario, most women have to retire from dancing by the time they hit their mid-forties at the very latest. In all honesty, the Job Stripper who faces retirement isn’t really much worse off than your average American who is downsized and faces a forced career change at midlife. Most Americans are woefully unprepared for retirement and saddled with massive debt to boot. The biggest disadvantage the retiring Job Stripper faces is that she may never have learned how to deal with petty, demanding bosses, boorish, judgmental coworkers with whom she’s expected to cooperate (not compete), get up at 7 AM, AND she’s going to have to take a pay cut and downgrade her lifestyle. This is the eventual unglamorous fate that awaits most strippers.

The Supplemental Stripper

A decent number of women with professional jobs strip one or two nights a week for extra money. Some of them are former Student Strippers. I have encountered women with a variety of day jobs (including multiple women with Masters degrees) who dance for extra money on the side. It’s interesting to note that most strippers who do have day jobs have a job they went to school for. You don’t meet many strippers who also work at McDonald’s because those girls realize very quickly that their day job isn’t worth keeping. Women in professional jobs tend to keep them because it’s hard to explain to your loved ones that after four years of college and another five years of building your resume you’ve decided to quit to take your clothes off full-time, even if it does mean doubling your income. Some keep their day job for the benefits, like health insurance, stock options, 401(k) contribution-matching, etc. Some eventually just quit their day job because it’s kind of depressing to work in a stuffy office all week for what you can make in one or two nights of stripping. Many of those who do find themselves moving to the next category:

The Investor Stripper

This is the category I fall into. We’re a small minority, but more numerous than most people would expect. We work as much as or more than Job Strippers. I work 4-5 days a week. Some very ambitious Investor Strippers work 6-7 days a week. We giggle and flip our hair while telling customers we like to go out to bars dressed in skimpy clothes and pick up hot guys, but we really just go home and read The Street. Investor Strippers treat stripping like a business, not a job or a party. We declare our income on our taxes and take all the deductions we can. We have health insurance, 401(k)s, and a variety of goals. I know one girl who has the goal of having a million dollars in savings and her mortgage paid off by the time she retires. Another has the more modest goal of simply amassing $100,000 and deciding from there what she wants to do with it. I simply plan on dancing until I have enough passive income to replace my income from stripping, or until I find a business that is more interesting and lucrative to me.

In my opinion, dancing as an investment is the best reason to dance, and the only reason for me. Given the social stigma and the judgment I have faced from my own family, I don’t think I would make the choice to dance for just a little extra spending money, nor would I be happy sinking it all into material possessions and a comfortable (but temporary) lifestyle. I have to make sure it pays off for me in a big way. Of course, for someone with a more open-minded family than my own this wouldn’t be as much of a consideration. Still, given the stereotyping and judgment that anyone working in the sex industry in America faces, I think all strippers should take the attitude that “the best revenge is living well.” That’s what I do.