Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
When Did the Left Turn into Rick Santorum?
Seemingly everyone on Earth watched in astonishment as humanity landed a research probe on a small comet speeding 84,000 miles per hour towards the sun. Well, everyone on Earth except Ms. Rose Eveleth of Brooklyn, N.Y.
The acting technology editor for The Atlantic couldn’t pay attention to the history being made right in front of her eyes. She was too busy screen-capping and zooming-in on a scientist’s shirt to see if it offended her. And, boy, did it ever.
No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt. https://t.co/r88QRzsqAm pic.twitter.com/XmhHKrNaq5
— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014
“The dude” is Rosetta Project astrophysicist Matt Taylor, who wore an intentionally kitschy bowling shirt covered with cartoons of ’80s-era pin-up girls holding sci-fi guns. It’s basically a parody of the tacky artwork that adorned everything from Duran Duran cassette covers to Trans Am hoods. Taylor is also covered shoulder-to-ankle in garish tattoos, has the requisite ironic hipster beard and holds international press conferences in surf shorts, purple socks and skater shoes.
Granted, I prefer my rocket scientists with crewcuts, skinny black ties and thick-rimmed glasses, but culture has devolved in the decades since the Mercury missions. That being said, what kind of a buzzkill would deny a brilliant physicist a silly, celebratory wardrobe on the greatest day of his professional life?
Oh I’m going to be on camera talking about the comet? I’ll to wear a shirt half naked women on it! http://t.co/4X1E4oz39F h/t @edyong209
— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014
Several miserable harpies joined Ms. Eveleth on the public shaming, turning a staggering scientific achievement into a colloquy on restoring Victorian dress codes. For the record, the shirt was made by a woman named Elly Prizeman as a fun gift for her physicist friend. No doubt, she shall be placed in the village stockade for her grievous sin of consorting with a male and having her cartoon ladies show too much ankle. Her repentance will only be accepted when she covers them up in burkas.
Mr. Taylor then made the bad situation worse. Instead of telling these progressive puritans to go pound silicon dioxide, he issued a sobbing public confession straight out of a Maoist show trial. This guy just dropped a dishwasher on an ice cube 300 million miles from home and he’s groveling to a coven of D-list bloggers?
For years the left has characterized conservatives as joyless scolds forcing their morality on a resentful public. But they’ve upended this paradigm by becoming far more judgmental and censorious than so-called social conservatives like Rick Santorum ever conceived of being. The left is demanding so many recantations, the ghost of Torquemada is rolling his eyes and muttering awk-wrrrd.
Following the successful inquisition of the heretical scientist, the shirt’s creator shared a final thought on Facebook:
As long as people keep caving to the progressive puritans, the cruelty will only get worse.
Published in General
You could have done that without taking a swipe at Santorum. Just like I made my point without writing a comment that reads: “When did Jon Gabriel turn into Rachel Maddow?”
It’s funny because it is so confusing. Conservatives are supposed to be, well, conservative. Remember Ms. Gore (Al Gore) wanting to ban lyrics or put R ratings on CDs and arguing with Twisted Sister on TV? Fat lot of good it did for her and Al Gore – her husband did not keep the sanctity of their marriage relationship when he got a rub ‘n tug from his message lady.
Women are thinking they can rewrite the male libido. These same girls are the ones who are so proud to do slut walks which I really do not understand. To me that is giving the cow for free. Why are they then upset when a man has pictures of women who could be participating in a slut walk? Oh…I get it. Only if a woman has given permission? Turns out a women made the shirt for him. Is that more acceptable, sisters? I give up. Makes for funny comments though. What an outfit that scientist was wearing though.
A better conclusion to the apology: “And to all those whom I have so grievously offended, I’d just like to say…<sob>… bite me.”
Then drop the mike and stalk off.
Poor Rosie would be beside herself with righteous fury, but as that is her default state anyway, who cares?
A better conclusion to the apology: “And to all those whom I have so grievously offended, I’d just like to say…<sob>… bite me.”
WOW!
100 years of the women’s movement undone by one shirt in just a few minutes. Guess they have to start all over. Can they still vote?
How dare he not wear socks, too! Unprofessional!
Then that’s what Jon should have said, instead of engaging in too-subtle satire. (But then again, I don’t get poetry either, so maybe don’t go by me.)
If the chick who gave this shirt to him makes it available, I will buy one for every male in my family.
To steal a line from Mollie Hemingway on twitter, “When I first saw this shirt, I disapproved of it. Now it just looks like freedom.”
Then he should have said that.
I think the thing we need to bring us all together is to see Rick Santorum wearing that shirt.
Randy Weivoda: “This was the golden day when a ten+ year project reached fruition. ”
—
All that time, and nobody thought to dress for TV? What are these, children, that the can’t think for one minute in ten years that they should be professional when the big day comes? Screw this guy and his agenda. He wants to make a show of come-as-you-are disco fever? Disco is dead, and he’s just finding that out. He sullied this with his personal preferences and his poor judgement. The math is simple: no boob shirt, no traction for the feminist. He could have stood his ground and recovered the situation. But no, he bumbled into it and then fell bumbling to his death, taking a lot of hard work with him.
He could have shown up as Zardoz for all I care, and those making excuses would call it ironic, and perhaps somebody would say he had become Ronald Reagan, and it would still come down to his inappropriate choice of clothing for a press appearance.
I don’t care about the boobs per se. Why was this guy let out of the house looking like the exact opposite of a decade of hard work?
Who in their right mind is going to interrupt the team when there’s perfectly good spokesmen who are paid to talk to reporters?
Now the guys who managed an amazing technical feat are supposed to mind-read what stupid stuff the PR people will do? (And yes, turning reporters loose when you haven’t done a walk-through to make sure everything and everyone is the image you want to present is firing level failure to do your job.)
He looks pretty much exactly like what ten years of hard work in this kind of technical field looks like. Check out all the people who work with technicians of this level– there’s no shortage of people who’ve spoken up, elsewhere, to point out that there’s a reason you don’t turn reporters loose on technicians.
Good grief, reminds me of the officers who were shocked that the ship’s technicians dressed in comic book costumes for a con. You can have people who are good at manipulating people– “Social Intelligence”– or you can have ones that are good at manipulating data. They’re different jobs.
Had an epic friendship-ending conversation one day about a man just over there in a suit with a ponytail. I scoffed. I hold that the way you represent yourself is a conscious choice about the way you want the world to understand you. Ponytail and suit? You’re not serious. You have issues. Tattoos and a loud Hawaiian shirt? You;re not serious.
I realize not everybody sees things my way. They don’t have to — and by God I don’t have to see it theirs either.
Mind you, I’m a bit (quite a bit) more tolerant then you on this topic, BDB. I mean, I see a ponytail and 99 times out of 100 it’s a male menopause thing. I feel sympathy, not disgust. And not to digress, but . . . can someone please explain the giant hole-in-my-ear-lobe thing? Not a hoop earring–a large grommet inserted in one’s ear(!). Sorry, I just can’t help but have my jaw go slack and feel queasy when I see this. It’s the bearded lady at a freak show reaction. I know, I know . . . “it’s my body.” Got that. But for the love of humanity, why do you want wind whistling through your ear lobe? Even the crazy Tats seem somehow more explainable than that freaking grommet.
If a man has long hair and it’s in a braid is it OK for him to wear a suit? How about if it’s loose? Is it just the band in the hair making it a pony tail that marks someone as having issues, or is it long hair in general? Because if it’s just the long hair, you can’t really expect someone to cut it off just because they’re going to be wearing a suit.
Just curious, why did you feel taking a stand about someone else’s fashion choices was worth destroying a friendship?
Depressing summary:
Going to report on a huge scientific experiment, avoiding the spokesmen, the female head and any other official talk-to-reporters person, picking a random technician and making it all about his clothing: professional.
Wearing a shirt you’ve worn before without issue, when you’re going to work on a day that is make-it or break-it, when you are a team member: unprofessional, because someone might decide to seek you out and throw a fit about your clothing not looking like NASA promotional videos from the moon race.
If it is the case that this scientist was interviewed by a reporter bypassing all the PR and management folks, I would reduce my comments about his unprofessionalism a little bit. However, as I commented on the Shirtstorm thread, when I interned in Congress in college, it came with the miniscule chance that at some point I might appear on camera in the background. I would not be talking to reporters, I would just be walking in the halls or working in the office and a camera might pan across me.
A condition of my employment was that I had to cut my hair (when I cut it I had a 17 inch ponytail) and wear a suit because otherwise it would reflect badly on the office for which I worked. The people in the office all laughed -“man, having a Republican walking around with chest-length hair would cause the media to have fits, and it’d be cool” but the Chief of Staff and my immediate supervisor thought that appearances were important. I realize that Congressmen are not scientists -and in the grand scheme of things I agree with basically all the gripes against the left in this thread, but this stuff does matter.
You? Had a 17-inch ponytail? Hahahahah!
I would have never suspected.
Then your issue is with the management, not the guy who got picked by a known fact challenged reporter so she could bully him about his fashion sense.
Most likely, there are departments that hold that “what you look like is priority” standard.
They’re not on TV because they’re not managing history-making feats. Same reason every successful tech group has at least one guy that you check to make sure he remembered a shirt, even when the outfits are issued.
Yes, I do hold the management responsible. That doesn’t obviate the responsibility of the scientist to know “on this day, we’re doing important things -that alone is reason to dress for the occasion. Furthermore, there will likely be cameras. How I look on this day reflects not only on me, but my team, my organization, and my country. This one day, and this one day only, I should probably wear a tie and not the Hawaiian shirt.” When I work in my office, I wear a T-shirt. When I teach students, I wear a collared shirt. When I talk to outsiders -be they civic groups or elected officials -I wear a suit unless I am wearing my official university shirt. This is basic decorum.
This always surprises people. I have to show them the family photo on my desk to make them believe it… 5 years earlier I completely shaved my head to make wearing a football helmet more comfortable -having experienced the, erm, long and the short of it, I actually rather like having long hair pulled back in a ponytail. It’s comfortable, keeps it out of my eyes, and I look like John Adams. The discomfort necessary to get there, though, and I’m not completely immune to the professional obligations for appearance though academics can get away with non-traditional style a little, prevent me from doing it again.
No, it’s not.
All the people who think that a “depends on results” job is the same as a “depends on opinion” job insisting otherwise doesn’t change that fact. All the assert-the-conclusion you’d like to apply doesn’t work.
You are applying the qualifications for quality apples to a batch of oranges; it’s like those who are shocked that blue collar workers, while working, don’t look like their managers at a meeting, and start firing them for bad appearance.
Had an XO like that, and have had friends who lost their jobs when the company went out of business because a similar manager came in and started “fixing” things. But the office looked so professional! Shame they didn’t actually, y’know, get results.
Professionals should look professional. I’m not going to trust a salesman or technician that looks, talks, and acts like Spiccoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont high.
Why are you assuming ending the friendship was his call? What kind of friendship is it when an opinion on work dress can make the other guy go “I’m not friends with that guy anymore”? Better off without such “friends”.
I won’t argue over whether “professionals should look professional” because I tend to prefer more conservative dress codes just like you, although we should admit this is a matter of taste and tradition rather than efficacy.
But whether you “trust” him should depend on whether his data and analyses are correct, rather than on his looks, shouldn’t it?
It all depends how it went down. Which is why I asked, out of curiosity.
Those who geek for a living aren’t always the snazziest or thoughtful dressers. In fact, technical ability and fashion sense are negatively correlated.