Category Archives: Sociology

Quick Review: Toy Story 3

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Toy Story 3 is in its second week in theaters. Featuring the same band of characters, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and friends, plus some new toys and humans, Pixar has served up another successful film. My thoughts:

1. Andy is off to college. An interesting plot device as the toys have to switch gears – but also seems connected to a Pixar interest in chronicling life changes. Up contrasted an old man and young boy. Cars looked at changes in a small town. These films are not just about a moment of time but they involve complicated contexts for the current story. These transitional periods, such as a move from childhood to college or from mourning and grumpiness to meaning and joy after the loss of a spouse, have much potential for exploration.

2. There does seem something a little strange about watching a movie about a kid playing with toys. Andy is depicted in his youth running around his house with his cast of toys – no shots of him sitting at a computer, in a movie theater, texting. Older Andy is tied more to his computer. Yet we are paying money to see a sentimental movie about a kid playing with his toys. Does a movie like this inspire kids to be more imaginative with their toys or simply encourage them to watch more movies?

3. Pixar is really good at invoking sentimentalism without being mawkish. Andy eventually reflects on what the toys mean to him – and it is a touching moment. The typical sweeping Hollywood soundtrack is not present (thankfully) and the characters are not overdramatic. Even though Pixar makes animated stories, the key to their success are engaging stories.

4. If you were curious, the door is left wide open at the end for another film with a new set of human characters.

Sign here, and here, and here…

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You probably don’t thoroughly read contracts you are asked to sign (or click through).  But lest you think that lawyers read through things they are asked to sign in everyday life, Above the Law is reporting that even the legendary Judge Richard Posner [bio] didn’t read his home equity loan contract, much to the amusement of the audience at the panel where he made his confession.

I suppose Posner should be grateful that his bank didn’t take his soul as part of the deal?  (Don’t laugh–it happened to 7,500 customers of a British computer game retailer earlier this year.)

As amusing as such stories may be from a news perspective, they clearly raise troubling questions about the sacrosanct role of contracts within our society.

Starbucks to expand far beyond coffee

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Starbucks, one of the best symbols of globalization through the spread of its stores and its use of the international coffee commodity chain, is looking to branch out. At about a dozen stores around the world, Starbucks has been testing the sale of wine, beer, and more food. These stores have been informally named “Olive Way.”

This comes in face of competition from retailers like McDonald’s and also in the interest of expanding Starbuck’s reach to customers beyond 11 AM.

Quick review: The History of White People

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Just finished reading The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter and released in March 2010. Some quick thoughts and pieces I took from the book:

1. The book is an overview of defining “white” from the 1700s to the 1960s in the United States. This requires tracking back to a number of European thinkers. The book provides historical background to “whiteness studies.”

2. There is a long-running link between being “Anglo-Saxon” and “white” in the US. Defining who exactly is Anglo-Saxon has been problematic; groups like the Irish and Scots were originally excluded (1700s-1800s) but came to be a part of the group when America experienced more immigration from Southern Europe/Eastern Europe. The Irish and Italians had to fight for decades to eventually be included in the white group.

3. There were a number of thinkers who tried to classify all humans into a small number of races. The most commonly known categories: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid. But others developed more and different categories. Another common set of categories had “Nordic” people (Germans, others) as superior. These differences between categories, often based on geography but also based on the “scientific” study of head shape, were said to result in hereditary differences in intelligence and temperament, among other traits. Of course, these immutable categories could change based on circumstances. Once World War I started, the “Nordic” category lost much of its standing.

4.  Some “great Americans,” such as Henry David Thoreau and Teddy Roosevelt, were quite steeped in white superiority ideology. Both Thoreau and Roosevelt were quite explicit about this in their writings though this is not widely known today.

5. There is a long history of American residents of the Northeast seeing Southern whites as inferior. In the 1800s, Southern whites and the Irish were seen as sitting at the bottom of the racial heap.

6. Intelligence tests, developed by scholars in the early 1900s, were used to “prove” the superiority or inferiority of certain races.

7. As a general background to the ideology of whiteness, this is a decent book. As for explaining how this ideology, particularly among great thinkers or politicians, translated into public policy and general sentiment among the American population, the book is lacking. What is clear is that defining who was white and establishing whites’ superiority over other races was an important area of thought.

How to succeed in business without really trying

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Forget the 1961 Broadway play.  According to the July/August 2010 issue of the Atlantic, all you have to do is be white and be willing to go to China.

Oh, and to check your ethical qualms at the door.

Pew Research: “Apocolypse Now”?

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A number of news outlets are reporting on an April 2010 nationally representative survey from Pew Research of roughly 1,500 Americans that included questions about the future. Some of the findings are summarized in these two tables:

The titles of each table point out some of the differences. Education, a trait that is linked to social class, income, places where people live, occupations, and more, makes a difference in views of the future and even more so in looking for Jesus’ return.

Are we too incompetent to recognize it?

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A social psychologist stumbles upon an article about an incompetent bank robber:

As Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him, an epiphany.  If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.

An interesting discussion with this professor, who developed the “Dunning-Kruger Effect.”

Bonus: talk about the usefulness of Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”!

To the innocent, all things are innocent

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In an interesting anecdote on the perennial nature vs. nurture debate, a father lets his 4-year-old son play Grand Theft Auto:  San Andreas, to rather surprising results.

Retrofitting suburban malls

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Amid tough financial times and many retail vacancies, the story of a project aiming to turn Randhurst Mall in Mount Prospect, IL into “Main Street.”

A quick blurb from Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin:

“Today, in an act of radical design surgery, Randhurst is being remade into an open-air, mixed-use development that will have many features of a traditional downtown, including shops, movie theaters, offices and a hotel. The dome and core of the mall have been demolished, and next year a developer plans to open an old-fashioned Main Street lined with Prairie Style-influenced buildings in their place (above). There will even be angled parking spaces that promise to let you drive right up to a shop, though chances are you’ll really be parking in a vast field of asphalt much farther away.

The revamped mall already has been given a quaint variation of its original name: Randhurst Village.

The catchphrase for this promising — and provocative — type of remake is “retrofitting suburbia.” From Cape Cod to California, its advocates aim not simply to remake dead malls, strip centers and big boxes, but to alter suburbia itself, making it more dense, more walkable, and sustainable — in short, more urban.”

These sorts of plans are not uncommon in recent decades. A number of architects and planners, often following New Urbanist principles, have tried to create traditional atmospheres among suburban amenities. This story mentions original plans to include roughly 200 residential units but this component was scratched. From a more cynical perspective, this sort of planning is just dressing up suburban big box stores – think of the name change from “Randhurst Mall” to “Randhurst Village.” From a more positive side, changing the design might make malls more palatable to more shoppers and most importantly, more profitable.

(Some interesting pictures in this story highlight the history of this particular mall and the proposed changes.)

Chicago vs. Wal-Mart: outcome still in doubt

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A news story today from the Chicago Tribune detailing Wal-Mart’s latest offer to build a store in Chicago (it currently has 0 within city limits). Some of the players in the long saga:

1. Wal-Mart. Its latest offer is starting all workers at $8.75 an hour, $0.50 above current minimum wage standards in Chicago. Has been exploring several sites on the South Side for years.

2. Unions. Don’t want Wal-Mart as the company does not allow its workers to unionize. Worried about lower wages.

3. The City. Has primarily been against Wal-Mart because of the wage issue.

4. Those who want cheaper and/or accessible groceries. Several of the neighborhoods Wal-Mart has looked at might be considered “food deserts” (neighborhoods where relatively cheap, nutritious food is not available). Many other companies are not willing to move in while Wal-Mart has expressed interest.

There might be a path to resolution soon – several aldermen now seem willing to support the stories in their wards. This may be particularly timely as Wal-Mart says it would add 12,000 jobs to the city for the next five years if they could build where they want.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE 6/23/10 at 11:10 PM

From the Chicago Tribune: Mayor Daley of Chicago makes “an emotional pitch” for Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart releases a list of benefits for the community, and demonstrators who support Wal-Mart add the vuvuzela to their arsenal.