8 PARADOXES OF CREATIVITY.
Posted at 10:29 am by Ann Althouse
WHY DO FEMINISTS HATE FEMALE FLAG FOOTBALL?
Posted at 10:03 am by Ann Althouse
Extra credit for comments that combine all 3 topics.
IS ORGANIC FOOD BETTER? Wild birds say “no.”
Posted at 9:25 am by Ann Althouse
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28 comments:
The Paradoxes of Hypocrisy: Southern Appeal had this gem today about the original Mohammed cartoons(via Mark Steyn at the Corner):
By the way, Mark Steyn mentioned something astounding in his Corner post today. Three of the most controversial cartoons in the original flap (including the infamous pig cartoon) were not drawn by the Danish cartoonists; they were creations of the same Scandinavian imams looking to drive the protests.
My philosophy is: don't buy the organic or "non-organic" (inorganic?) food - buy the good food. Plumpest, freshest, juiciest, tastiest. How they get there doesn't matter to me.
Those damn law professors need to think outside the box and let people play flag football if they want to play flag football, just like some people like organic bird seed and some people don't. So I give the bird to those law professors who have no creative insight whatsoever. I throw the flag on their attempt to impose their top-down rigid ideology on the free form bird mess we call life. Now I'm going to take the rest of the day off.
Chicks are never satisfied. Bring back the old days, when girls could be athletic without all that ugly competitiveness that is so unladylike:
http://mckinleygoldbugs.com/GAA.htm
Imagine wanting to invest your time and effort into something that would pay off in later life. All gals really need to learn is how to apply makeup and fix their hair.
former law student. Yeah. Organic makeup.
The Feminists created Title IX, which isn't as good as the man made version.
(Any credit for brevity?)
Speaking of women's equality in sports -- here's a picture of girls peeing al fresco during the Bay to Breakers festivities:
http://sfist.com/2010/05/17/bay_to_breakers_runners_use_tehama.php?gallery0Pic=3#gallery
Oh boy, look out conlaw students. The Professor has finals ready.
@edutcher Finals are so 2 weeks ago ... for the students at least.
Ann, when I started reading your guest posts on Instapundit the other day it brought to mind (which I had forgotten in the meantime) one of the most singular moments in Instapundit history - the day during a previous guest-hosting stint where you used your temporary, but all-encompassing, powers to open comments on an Instapundit thread. That was a freaky time. Do you remember a TV show called "The Day the Universe Changed"? It felt like that.
I see now you are referring posts back to here for comments. Whatever became of that Instapundit experiment? Did you catch any grief and did you feel like a rebel doing it? I guess it's not likely to happen again, huh?
@kcom I didn't get in trouble, but I'm not inclined to do it again over there. I proved my point/had my fun. I prefer doing the comments here.
I think the biggest paradox of creativity is that it's better inspired by limitations and resource shortages than unlimited opportunities and tools.
People start thinking truly creatively when they run out of the usual options.
kcom, that was a freaky day over at Instapundit. It reminds me of the time my parents left town when I was in high school, so I had a party. I got caught (although the cops did not come). It did not ever do it again, but it was a lot of fun.
It looks like the real driving purpose of TIX, rather than being participation in athletics by women, is creating paths to "success" which are open only to women. A program which promotes the former, but not the latter, is considered harmful.
WV: sourr. As in grapes? Or the facial expressions of the femcrits?
Imagine wanting to invest your time and effort into something that would pay off in later life. All gals really need to learn is how to apply makeup and fix their hair.
Or maybe some people actually like playing flag football? It's not like women's football is a recognized NCAA sport either, so are girls who think it's fun to toss a football around just supposed to be out of luck?
We had a Powder Puff football game once a year at my high school but it wasn't a regular team. And the point about large schools not having enough room for all the girls to play sports is well taken (although it's the same for boys). What I think they need in high school is more intramural sports, just for fun, for people who aren't really all that talented and have no chance of scholarhsip money, because there are a lot more of them than the good athletes.
A program which promotes the former, but not the latter, is considered harmful.
The fair and equal solution would be to make the boys play touch football as well. The reduction in injuries alone would justify the change.
Few hs boys receive college football scholarships, and the important thing is that they get out there and learn to play as a team.
So, just to fan the libertarian flames, what all three examples demonstrate is the failure of central planning. ("Failure" in the same sense as "Market Failure" used to discribe a suboptimal outcome.) When "creativity" becomes an organizational/cultural good in itself, it progressively throws off more and more constraints, in the name of promoting more creativity, while actually inhibiting real creativity. "Piss Christ" was not nearly as creative as an alternative means which lived within the current societal constraints, yet succeeded in delivering the same message. The elevation of "organic" as a good-in-itself (or proxy therefor) can similarly result in the loss of protein in diets, presumabley serious at the margin for some. TIX, a central mandate predicated on expanding athletic opportunity, in addition to unanticipated contractionary effects on men's athletics, now is trying to have a non-expansory effect on women's athletics. If these unintended consequences had been intentionally imposed by others, the proponents of these programs would be outraged.
I almost typed "speecless with rage," but that would be too much to hope for.
The fair and equal solution would be to make the boys play touch football as well
Or the elimination of interscholastic sports. Intramural (low-impact?) sports for the physical education benefits, and club sports (outside the school budget) for those who take it more seriously.
Ann Althouse said...
@edutcher Finals are so 2 weeks ago ... for the students at least.
Touche, Madame. But your head is still there.
A feminist walks across the campus of her old high school to pick up her daughter (now a senior) from varsity soccer practice. Her daughter is quite good and has a decent shot at an athletic scholarship, and she has encouraged her daughter to consider colleges that need more female athletic involvement to comply with Title IX. It's an issue that troubles her.
She passes the time watching the birds at the central campus arboretum while munching on potato chips from a vending machine. She tosses bits of organic sustainably grown bird feed on the ground, from a small hemp bag. To her dismay, the birds seem uninterested.
When she arrives at practice, to her horror, the girls are playing flag football. The idea that her daughter would prefer this non-scholarship sport to the gender-balancing potential of soccer, causes her to drop her bag of potato chips, causing chips to fly about in the wind. And promptly, a flock of birds descends on the prize.
The moral: Sometimes you can solve society's problems by caring less and doing what you want.
The moral of the flag football story is that a professional activist has to bring home the bacon, just like any other professional. Amateur sports don't make anybody any money.
It's a shame that every fun thing has to get professionalized.
An interesting case study where Title IX is pushing professionalization is Triathlon. A few universities are pushing for it to become a varsity sport, largely because it's a sport that has a high rate of female participation. But a lot of teams are reluctant to take that step, since it would result in much smaller teams overall, or else a two-tiered varsity/club sport.
I think that maybe I could get the paradoxes and flag football together and maybe I could get flag football and organic bird food together. And maybe creativity paradoxes and organic bird food. I doubt I could manage all three.
Zach wrote: "The moral of the flag football story is that a professional activist has to bring home the bacon, just like any other professional."
I was thinking the same thing.
Trey
I thought the football story was going to be about the Lingerie Football League. Imagine my disappointment.
Once upon a time, there were Nine Paradoxes. Then, Feminists got all wee-weed up over Female Flag Football, which inevitably closed down the Organic Wild Bird Feed Store that sponsored the mascot for the Wild Women's Flag Football Team.
Nobody lived happily ever after.
Being against female flag football is creative in a really pathetic sense; how did we get to the point that just playing a game for fun is bad?
Ah, feminist lawyers, also a creative construct. The law isn't good enough so we need to create a class of attornies who create a class of victims who cause the creation of laws which suit the needs of the victims at the expense of everyone else.
Many such attornies, almost by definition, are eco-conscious and driven by health concerns which results in an organic diet even wild birds spurn.
The moral is: if wild birds won't eat what your attorney eats, get a new attorney and go play flag football.
AllenS, Brian: Well done, sirs! Just so you know, she loves it when we jump through her hoops.
Meade,
That was a tough assignment from the Professor. I hope that I get a gold star for my efforts.
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