gossip
Title: gossip from SLATE's survey of major US newspapers: >The [Washington] Post's Lloyd Grove picks up on an important interview neo-lefty [?!?!?] polemicist Christopher Hitchens gave Doublethink, a conservative magazine. Among the apparent revelations Hitchens makes: 1) His former Oxford buddy, Bill Clinton, was a CIA snitch. "I think he was a double," Hitchens says. "Somebody was giving information to [the CIA] about the anti-war draft resisters." 2) More importantly, "Clinton and I had a girlfriend in common--I didn't know then--who's since become a very famous radical lesbian."< Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Brekky table gossip
Jim Devine wrote, >and why do these financial whizzes care about a statistic for only one >quarter, one that will likely be revised within the next year or so? (See >Dean Baker's comment on these stats, how revisions make the "New Economy" >look more paltry.) They deserve their fate if they are so superficial. The revision was for the 1996-2000 period. Your comment on superficiality still holds, though. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
Re: Re: Brekky table gossip
Tom Walket writes: >... Featured with the Greenspan rumour is Friday's Dresdner bank >"forecast" of a 1.5% productivity revision. The productivity revision is >out and it's 2.5%. So much for the Apocalyse. ... and why do these financial whizzes care about a statistic for only one quarter, one that will likely be revised within the next year or so? (See Dean Baker's comment on these stats, how revisions make the "New Economy" look more paltry.) They deserve their fate if they are so superficial. Of courser, they don't really care about productivity growth at all. Instead, they care about what it's reported to be relative to what it was predicted to be. As JMK pointed out, it's like a beauty contest, with everyone betting on who everyone else _thinks_ is the most beautiful contestant. is "Brekky" the same as breakfast? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Brekky table gossip
Looks like a silly right-wing site. Featured with the Greenspan rumour is Friday's Dresdner bank "forecast" of a 1.5% productivity revision. The productivity revision is out and it's 2.5%. So much for the Apocalyse. Maybe some folks went on a shorting binge and are hoping to start a stampede before they get trampled going the other way? >"A site called newsmax.com is running a story titled "Greenspan Reportedly To >Quit" which claims that administration sources have said that Greenspan will >retire by year-end. Briefing.com has never heard of newsmax.com and, needless >to say, this is an unlikely place to find such a scoop." Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
Brekky table gossip?
http://finance.yahoo.com/mo "A site called newsmax.com is running a story titled "Greenspan Reportedly To Quit" which claims that administration sources have said that Greenspan will retire by year-end. Briefing.com has never heard of newsmax.com and, needless to say, this is an unlikely place to find such a scoop."
Re: MR gossip?
Jim Devine wrote: >Does anyone know why Ellen Meiksins Wood is no longer a co-editor of >MONTHLY REVIEW? Political differences? No, mostly personality conflicts. Doug
MR gossip?
Does anyone know why Ellen Meiksins Wood is no longer a co-editor of MONTHLY REVIEW? Political differences? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
[PEN-L:7276] US election gossip
Well, for those of you care... Late afternoon media gossip, based on exit polls, is that Clinton is ahead by 7 points. Dems will pick up some seats in both House & Senate, but won't take control. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
[PEN-L:4368] Re: gossip/sports
Speaking of hunks, buns, muscles and sports - have you seen the ad (for what I do not remember) where these stunning twenty-somethings are playing sand volleyball with all the grim competitive determination of a stock market trader. California noire. --Laurie
[PEN-L:4367] Re: gossip/sports
Jim D. notes that women would be more interested in sports for two reasons: 1. if women's sports got more air time, more women would watch 2. Women should realize there are hunks playing men's sports. I'm not really sure the first is true, and 'we' (women) all already know the second is true -- but, let's face it, cute buns only go just so far. Since it's all look/talk and no action, there is nothing to keep the mind or, anything else, engaged. Personally, I always liked watching women's tennis for exactly the same reason -- love them muscles. And that brings me to my next point, how many men are watching the game, and how many are watching the hunks?? maggie
[PEN-L:4365] "gossip"
Re: film, go... From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: film, go... Patrick Mason correctly points out my glaring ommission of SPORTS, SPORTS, SPORTS for male gossip (though I know a number of men who would be highly insulted if I termed their Monday morning quarter-backing 'gossip'). There is no female equivalent I can think of -- does anyone have a suggestion. --- There are some parallels with talk of shopping / fashion / makeup. This shows if you are in the "game" of keeping up with the latest tournament / style / top team / colors. It is competitive in terms of showing off who got the best deal / play-analysis / prediction / hair-do. It is a medium for one-up-person-ship [however friendly] and an excuse to socialize, a way to get to know each other within some socially defined framework. Or something like that. Lisa
[PEN-L:4363] Re: Gossip; Maggie's list
I wish I had worked in Jerry Levy's old workplace where the check pool could be worth thousands of dollars. Ours were penny ante stuff. I knew one guy who was completely obsessed with the lottery. He was convinced there was a system for pickcing the numbers for the big money pots. He would send his daughter to the library to look up past numbers in the newspaper and try to find patterns. He's black, something of a player. He and his wife had some kind of don't ask\don't tell arrangement concerning extra marital activity. But he was really involved with his kids, knew what they were up to, bragged on them all the time, made sure they went to church and stayed in school. Last time I went back to visit he was right there in Building 1 second shift, main washer line, the pit of GE hell. (Now upgraded, so I hear -GE's word for putting automation in. One of life's little ironies -ergonomically speaking, where the robots are, life is good.) The categories we are fond of using to explain things play out in people's lives in complicated ways. -Laurie
[PEN-L:4362] Re: Gossip; Maggie's list
To Terry McDonough, Thanks for the appreciative remarks. Your comment: >... It reminds me of my earlier participation in a certain >1970's tendency, in the American left which was heavily "industrialized" >... it would be interesting and useful to evaluate the positive lessons >that might be learned from this experience. is on the mark. In the early 70s I was a member of a small "independent Marxixst Leninist" collective that hoped to "organize the working class". There were 4 men and 3 women. Although we all put in applications at factories all over Louisville, somehow the guys all ended up at Phillip Morris and the women at GE. My ex is still at PM. He has been active in the union - shop steward, rep to the Central Labor Council and a labor rep on the city\county Human Rights Commission. One woman went to work at one of Louisville's two Ford plants during a layoff from GE and then worked at Ford for years. (This plant lucked out, producing light pick-ups trucks and sport vehicles just when they became all the rage.) The last I heard, she had an internship on the UAW newspaper & wanted to go to work for the international rather than go back in the factory. I was in and out of GE from 1974 to 1991, laid off several times. The collective was short lived, and the other people dropped out of blue collar jobs. One became a lawyer, one a social worker; two had serious bouts with mental illness. I got very burned out on the left (more from an ideological brawl in another organization I was involved in than the collective directly, but my marriage and association with the collective were casualties of that mess). After a while, GE just became the best job I could get, given my oddball work history, fairly useless English lit degree, and the state of the Louisville labor market which saw tremendous deindustrialization: losing 2 cigarette factories, a Harvester plant, and an American Standard plant. We're talking places with 2000-7000 employees. GE steadily shed jobs for two decades to automation, sourcing and internal redeployment of work. The last time I got laid off, my kids were pretty well grown, I had started back to school and wanted to go to grad school, and I had had enough of jumping to GE's tune. I knew I'd never up & quit while I was working, the money & benefits were too good, but once I got laid off that last time, even though I knew there was a good chance this time it would be short, I moved back to my home state of Massachusetts and am now a grad student in Public Policy at UMass\Boston. I would be very interested in exploring the lessons of the "industrialized left" if anyone else is. I agree with Jim Craven that gossip can be petty and even vicious, but it also can remind us that we are human. The ability to frame reality in a particular fashion does not convey immunity to its effects. Gossip also forms connections, builds a web of common knowledge, interpretations, and assumptions about each other, about shared experience, about whatever else is out there. It also is a way of shaping and enforcing value structures, albeit often cruelly and with intolerance of those who don't conform. My point was that to a great extent the left is not in a position to influence that knowledge, those assumptions, interpretations and values. This is for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the capitalist class is very powerful and dedicated to discrediting the left, and very good at it. (I once worked in a section with a solitary little man who would always read John Birch Society literature during breaks. A woman in the section warned me to watch out for him because he was a communist.) But it is also because we are not, by and large, part of those connections. Because Maggie's there, hanging out in the break room, co-workers know she's been going to school and interested in feminism. Mostly, they probably think it's a little weird and wonder why she doesn't get a job in an office or a university somewhere. But when they wonder why their wives don't make enough so they can retire, there is a context for a conversation about women's issues and wages and inequality that you can't achieve no matter how many policy briefs you write or leaflets you hand out at the plant gate. Even when we are there, it's difficult to connect. (I know it was for me. I observed and listened a whole lot more than I ever organized or influenced anybody.) One reason it is hard is that we do like to think about ideas. I don't think this is a matter of intelligence or greatness of mind, but of education and socialization to particular ways of conceptualizing and making sense of things. When I worked at GE, I was always reading. I wouldn't stay on a job if I couldn't cop some
[PEN-L:4360] gossip & sports
maggie coleman can't think of a topic that is as important to women as sports is to men in day-to-day conversation (or the equivalent of sports in women's gossip). I think the fact that women don't talk much about sports may be an artifact of the under-investment of resources in women's sports. Of course, one reason for this under-investment has been women's lack of interest in sports, so it's a vicious circle (or virtuous cirle, depending on your point of view). Due to title 9 (I think that's its number) in the US, the government has had to equalize spending on boys' and girls' sports, so that spending on the latter has been increasing. So maybe women's interest in sports will rise (if my theory is right). I don't know anything about sports (and am glad that advancement in academia isn't dependent on one's ability to use sports metaphors) so I'll shut up. BTW, on the issue of "was the old USSR 'socialist'"? Remember that in THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, old Karl and Fred used the word "socialist" to refer to more than one viewpoint that they disliked. So we might call the old USSR "socialist" while seeing it as a vicious class society. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., 7900 Loyola Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
[PEN-L:4359] gossip/sports
maggie coleman can't think of a topic that is the equivalent in importance to women as sports is to men. I think women would be more interested in sports if women's sports got more resources dedicated to their promotion. (Of course, more resources would go to women's sports if more women were interested; it's a vicious circle, or a virtuous one, depending on your perspective.) Over the last couple of decades, more and more resources have been dedicated to women's sports in the US (due to title 9, I believe). So we have a "natural experiment" which should (if my theory works) encourage women to become more interested in sports. Of course, women might become more interested in sports if they realized that a lot of male athletes are "hunks." I know nothing of either sports or hunks, so I'll stop. (Luckily, I'm in academia, where one's ability to employ sports metaphors is not correlated with advancement possibilities.) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., 7900 Loyola Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Thank god we finally had us a war it was what we'd been spending our tax dollars for; the rivers of gore we can wave the flag o'er sparking the stock market rally soaring as high as the casualty tally" -- Roy Zimmerman
[PEN-L:4354] Re: Gossip; Maggie's list
Re Laurie's list: One large and continuous subject for "shop talk" that I remember (while working on assembly lines at Ford and GM in NJ) was *gambling*. This most frequently took the form of discussing "lotto" and what workers would do _when_ they won $1 million. Every other form of gambling as well was discussed ad infinitum. Many, especially, were into the "ponies." The discussion of organized sports (which Laurie did mention) was also practically tied to the question of gambling. Not only was gambling discussed at length, it was also done heavily in the plant with different workers having alternative gambling franchises for different types of gambling activities. For instance, if you were in the Chasis Department and wanted to bet on a football game, there was a designated person who would take your money and pay you any winnings. The same for other types of gambling, including lotto and check pools (where one could win several thousand $/week). If you can't understand why these workers spent so much time discussing and doing gambling, you have never had a job like working on an assembly line. Most workers wanted to do something else with their lives. Hardly anyone said: I _want_ to work on an auto assembly line. But they start working, and before they realized it, they had some seniority to protect and basically accepted, on a logical level, the idea that they will work there until they are old and retire. Yet, this is a difficult and harsh reality to completely accept so they must create a dream world where they can escape and do something else -- more -- with their lives. For many this means gambling. For others, it's drugs, booze, or sex. Anything to keep your mind off of the drudgery of work and to create a fantasy that would allow you to live your life as you wish. Jerry
[PEN-L:4351] Re: Gossip; Maggie's list
I can't say how impressed I am with Laurie Dougherty's post. It reminds me of my earlier participation in a certain 1970's tendency on the American left which was heavily "industrialized." While this tendency has I think diappeared without even a remnant (and probably deservedly so), it would be interesting and useful to evaluate the positive lessons that might be learned from this experience. Terry McDonough
[PEN-L:4346] Re: Gossip; ...
> Date sent: Sun, 19 May 1996 14:17:54 -0700 > Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject:[PEN-L:4344] Re: Gossip; ... > Laurie's descriptive passages about work at GE in Appliance Park is > excellent--it certainly captures the essence of gossip where I work as well. > Not to add to (that would be difficult, and my adding would only be more of > the same), but comment on only three points: > 1. Gossip is important because the job does not take enough intellectual > energy and people have to be themselves.[often gossip takes even less intellectual energy or even interferes with intellectual energy] > 2. Gossip is a way of getting to know [and sometimes demonize and therefore fail to know] people. > 3. The right wing is central to people's lives in the working class in a way > the left is [sometimes] not. [e.g. feeding on petty resentments, ad hominems, racism, sexism, xenophobia, scandal, rumor-mongering etc through among other media, gossip] My mother used to say: "Small minds talk about other people; medium- sized minds talk about things; and big minds discuss ideas." One rarely finds exchanges of ideas characterized as "gossip". Jim Craven *---** * James Craven * "All things have inner meaning and * * Dept of Economics* form and power." (Hopi) * * Clark College* "In this world the unseen has power." * * 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. * (Apache) * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 * "Be satisfied with needs instead of * * (360) 992-2283 * wants." (Tenton Lakota) * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * "The Great Spirit is always angry * * * with men who shed innocent blood."* * * (Iowa)* * * "It is no longer good enough to cry * * * peace, we must act peace, live peace, * * * and live in peace."(Shenandoah) * * * "A people without a history is like * * the wind over buffalo grass."(Lakota) * ** * "There are many paths to a meaningful sense of the natural world." * * (Blackfeet); "A shady lane breeds mud." (Hopi); * * "Strive to be a person who is never absent from an important act." * * (Osage); "Men in search of a myth will usually find one."(Pueblo) * * "Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way." * * (Blackfeet); "Some are smart but they are not wise."(Shoshone); * * "The one who tells the stories rules the world." (Hopi); * * "Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance." (Lakota); * * "The only things that need the protection of men are the things of * * men, not the things of the spirit." (Crow); "When the legends* * die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness."( Shawnee ); * * "I love a people who do not live for the love of money."(Dwamish) * * "Stolen food never satisfies hunger." (Omaha); "Man's law changes * * with his understanding of man. Only the laws of the spirit always * * remain the same." (Crow); "It takes a whole village to raise a* * child." (Omaha); "Everything the Power does, it does in a circle."* * (Lakota); "Man has responsibility, not power."(Tuscarora) * * "With all things and in all things, we are relatives." (Lakota) * * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
[PEN-L:4344] Re: Gossip; ...
Laurie's descriptive passages about work at GE in Appliance Park is excellent--it certainly captures the essence of gossip where I work as well. Not to add to (that would be difficult, and my adding would only be more of the same), but comment on only three points: 1. Gossip is important because the job does not take enough intellectual energy and people have to be themselves. 2. Gossip is a way of getting to know people. 3. The right wing is central to people's lives in the working class in a way the left is not. Points one and two are important because I think the importance of gossip is underestimated as an organizing tool. All assembly and wage jobs do their best to de-individuate the wage worker -- gossip is a way of hanging onto your own personal culture and beliefs in the face of a well funded, strong arm campaign to demean the individual. For instance, in their 'Codes we work by' NYNEX starts off their warnings of discipline by talking about the corporation having the same values as the worker, and how everyone is one big happy family. Everyone knows this is horse shit and that the intro is a way of soft pedalling the threats being made to employees should they break the rules. Getting to know someone through gossip has probably done more to reduce workfloor antagonisms on gender and race lines than any other single thing. You can fight a million court cases and write a million laws, but sitting together in the locker room and have coffee in the morning while everyone reads the Daily News does more to resolve antagonistic issues around gender, race, unionism, etc. than anything in the court. Re: point three, I think the left was more a part of people's lives during the sixties than it is today, and that is a shame. Personally, I have no answers on how to change the trend. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4341] Re: Gossip; Maggie's list
Expanding on Maggie Coleman's list of gossip topics by gender, the following is based on years of working (when I wasn't laid off) on General Electric assembly lines in Louisville, KY. In this particular variant gender balance, on the the assembly lines anyway, was roughly equal. (Skilled trades were overwhelmingly male and white.) Many people who worked there lived in or came from rural areas, contributing a distinct flavor to many conversations, let alone the ones about butchering hogs or taking a personal day to forage for wild ginseng to sell to the Japanese, (reduction in the trade deficit of unknown magnitude.) Both men and women talked about what was in Ann Landers or Dear Abby, in the National Enquirer, crime news in the daily paper (the more bizarre the better), TV shows. On second shift both men and women talked about soap operas (stories); and Oprah & Phil, et al. Marital and extra-marital affairs. Who did what with whom in a van in the parking lot or an empty boxcar on the railroad siding. (According to legend, one couple got caught when the train pulled out.) D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Remarriage. Step: children, parents grandchildren, cousins. Kin of all kinds and their in-laws and neighbors and exes. The trip to Las Vegas, the vacation at Disney World or Opryland. Getting done early: how to get everybody to get it together to get done early it; how to get a job where you get done early; how much you could get away with once you got done early given the foreman, the ambient level of disciplinary vigor, and your own nerve, disciplinary status and access to a vehicle. Rumors: "My stepmother's neighbor works in the warehouse and told her it's getting full." "The secretary in Relations (i.e. Human Relations) goes to my church and she said they might call some people back by the end of the year." "GE's going to sell us off to the Japanese." Hey, maybe we'll be better off. Farming and gardening, (even people who lived in the city had vegetable gardens in the back yard.) Many people who didn't own land in the country wanted it, dreamed about it, saved for it, retired to it. They leased, borrowed and shared it. In the days before Jack Welch wrote the book on proactive downsizing, and winning hearts and minds to the company line through sheer fear - back in those days, Appliance Park was famous for its quickie wildcat strikes. We looked for them to happen in good weather in spring and fall when the old boys needed a couple days off to set and cut tobacco. (I have no doubt that the big tobacco companies are powerful, but another reason why tobacco is so hard to lick is that the growing of it is so widely distributed. Everybody and his or her brother-in-law has a tobacco allotment. Even some guys who lived in the city would spend a couple weekends in the fall helping a buddy get his tobacco in.) In Building 2, every day at high noon, some guy in incoming inspection would hook a radio to the loudspeaker and play the hog price report for somebody too far into the building to pick up AM radio. (FM we could get, & whether to play rock or country and how loud was hotly contested terrain. The only soul music station was AM and we couldn't pick it up inside the buildings.) So this gets into some of the subcultures. Farmers are one. Guys talked about planting and plowing and women talked about canning. (Once my sister and I were driving through the upper midwest. We passed vast fields that were clearly under cultivation, but empty of people. She kept wondering why no one was toiling in the fields. Finally it hit me - they were all at work.) For men there are large subcultures built around sports, as has been noted by someone else, and gambling on sports. Both men and women get into University of Louisville or University of Kentucky basketball (one or the other; we're talking serious sectarianism here) bowling and softball leagues. Then there's hunting, fishing, and going to the lake. Guns. Drugs. Gambling on anything (the old check pool, using paycheck #s as a poker hand). Guns. Building and fixing things around the house. The car, van, motorcycle, or pick-up truck of choice. These are mainly guy things to talk about, although some women carried guns in their purses and some did drugs and gambled - bingo at the parish hall and on chartered bus trips to South Carolina for $1000 games. But the guys built little social and business networks around drugs, their bookies and handicapping the horses.) Women are more likely to talk about church activities: pot luck suppers, picnics and services as semi-social events; but both men and women might be born again Christians who preach incessantly, have visions and backslide, only to be born again. One guy had been raised an atheist army brat on bases all over the world. He undertook a serious study of the world's r
[PEN-L:4336] Re: film, gossip
Consider Maggie Coleman's gender comparison of gossip topics: MEN TALK FEMALE EQUIVALENT Weight lifting diets kids kids sexual prowess dating women's bodies diets union complaints union complaints wiveshusbands each other each other management management unfair treatment sexual harrassment movies movies money money Sorry, Maggie, but only a woman would put together a list of favorite male gossip topics and omit SPORTS, SPORTS, and more SPORTS. :):):):):) pigs of the past would have argued that if the men in your shop don't talk How about those Detroit Redwingspat mason
[PEN-L:4331] Re: film, gossip
One my good days I am magnanimous and think that both men and women gossip about the same, but about different things. On my bad days, I think men gossip more. Do I have any proof? Almost 18 years working in a primarily male work environment has taught me that men gossip just as much as women. Sitting in the break room, what do they talk about: MEN TALK FEMALE EQUIVALENT Weight lifting diets kids kids sexual prowess dating women's bodies diets union complaints union complaints wiveshusbands each other each other management management unfair treatment sexual harrassment movies movies money money maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4329] Re: film, gossip
While we're talking about films I just wanted to record what a high I'm on having just watched the last 45 minutes of Grapes of Wrath which was on cable tonight. The bad landowners and thugs, the prophets of revolt of the common man, the illustration of a collective capacity to build community as seen in the government-sponsored communal camp, the conviction that the "people" will go on and on, and of course simply the reminder that not 60 years ago such conditions existed has there ever been a better left-wing film from Hollywood? Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives Washington, DC
[PEN-L:4324] film, gossip
The name of the movie was Logan's Run. In Logan's Run everyone over 30 was dead. In The Long Run we are all dead. Terry McDonough Lisa sez: Peter York played Logan. Farah Fawcett's first screen role was the short-lived woman who helped him escape. > WOW! I didn't know men could gossip like this about the > intricacies of family relationships. I always had a sneaking > suspicion that men were better gossips than women! > Susan Fleck Terry commented: I don't think this is true, because women are generally more aware of their social surroundings than men, at least in Western cultures. Lisa adds: Maybe it depends on what you mean by social surroundings. All work relations, details about people who could affect your income or reputation, things that others expect you to know about people, anything that may help you to predict behavior, all of this is "social". I expect people to be more aware or pay more attention to things that more directly affect them, and those things vary with sex, age, occupation, etc. Everybody gossips, but maybe about different things.
