Eugenics Redux: Sloppy Research Again Masquerading As Significant

I just read the following headline which made me go, "WTF!" followed by additional expletives: Study: Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids. Walter Schumm, a family studies professor at Kansas State University, has released a study proclaiming that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents. His study appears to support the theory of right wing zealots that people can be taught to be gay.


I've done a great deal of research in my professional career, and I can tell you this, the questions that you ask have a direct correlation to the answers that you find. According to Schumm, he was looking for a connection between parenting and sexual orientation, "His study on sexual orientation, out next month, says that gay and lesbian parents are far more likely to have children who become gay. 'I'm trying to prove that it's not 100 percent genetic,' Schumm tells AOL News."


Schumm's research methodolgy consisted of reviewing other people's studies on gay parenting. In his meta-analysis of 10 such studies, Schumm extrapolated data that adult children of gay men and/or lesbians are statistically more likely to identify themselves as gay.


Whoop-di-do! This anecdotal evidence proves nothing except that children who grow up in a straight household may be far more reticent to self-identify as gay. In other words, a child who grows up in a home with two loving parents who are gay may feel more comfortable in acknowledging their own orientation. This so-called lighting bolt of insight is nothing more than the logical result of growing up in homes where sexual orientation is not a basis for disowning or ostracizing one's children.


Think about the number of people who are gay and stay in the closet for years, afraid of the reaction from their parents and other family members. That the adult children of gay parents are more likely to identify themselves as gay is not an indicator that sexual identity is determined by parenting; growing up in an accepting environment just means that you don't spend part of your life denying your authentic self.


I might actually read Schumm's study when it's released. I'd like to know if he addresses the conundrum that there have always been gay people. Who taught them how to be gay? What about gay children with straight parents? Did the straight indoctrination just not take?


This isn't research. This is a man who read a lot of books on gay parenting and then drew conclusions based on the answers collected by a variety of other studies. There is no control group, no methodology for isolating relevant data, or to account for variables because Schumm didn't interview any of the people on whose responses he bases his conclusions. Were the respondents in each of the ten different studies asked the identical questions, phrased in the same exact language, and under the same conditions? I doubt it; each of these studies produced its own independent report. Schumm just read them all.


Studies like this grab headlines. I find such studies to be the height of irresponsibility, feeding into the prejudice and hysteria of homophobia. Ultimately they are shown to be meaningless but the harm has already been done.


In the late 1960s and well into the 1970s, well credentialed researchers such as Arthur Jensen and William Shockley produced studies that proclaimed that intelligence was predetermined by genetics and that Black people were intellectually inferior to Whites. However, Jensen also concluded that Asians were intellectually superior to Whites. Although these studies were later largely discredited they still influenced policy makers in making decisions regarding public education.


Jensen and Shockley were not a one time anomaly. In 1994, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published a book in 1994 clearly directed at policy, just as Jensen and others had in the 1960s and 1970s,The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. Herrnstein and Murray posited among many theories about IQ that Blacks were genetically inclined to have lower IQs than Whites. They also advised that the government "stop encouraging" poor women to have babies and contaminating the gene pool. In 2007, James D. Watson, 79, co-discoverer of the DNA helix and winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine, told the Sunday Times of London that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."


Research can be used to support any position and its validity is only as good as the methodology of the researcher. The harm done by pseudo sociological research is like a tsunami; it hits the shore destroying everything in its path and then recedes but the damage it leaves behind is catastrophic. WTF were you thinking Mr. Schumm?

The Dino Voter's Brief and Simple Guide to This November's Elections

Reading the accounts of the Coming Electoral Apocalypse – or so the pundits are forecasting, if one takes them seriously – is an exercise in frustration for anyone who values basic rationality.

I can understand someone being a Republican born and raised and always voting that way by force of habit or perceived affinity of interest, but anyone who thinks handing over control of even part of the government to the Grand Old Pachyderm is going to restore equilibrium or "shake things up" fails to understand the nature of that particular elephant. It's sort of like handing over your ship to a passing crew of pirates because you're dissatisfied with the way your captain runs the boat.

I suspect that underlying the shake-em-up rationale is the notion that the Republicans know best how the economy works. Nothing could be more distant from the truth – as a general rule, THEY UNDERSTAND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT HOW A SUSTAINABLE CAPITALIST ECONOMY WORKS, which you can see by the way most of them behave every time they gain a working majority in Congress. They act like pirates, slashing and hacking the tax base and raiding the public treasury for the benefit of their wealthiest backers before the dullards who voted them in start to catch on, however fleetingly, to what's happening. If the Republicans regain the House, I'll not trouble myself much with politics for the next few years because I think I've come across this script before, and it's just not worth hearing or watching.

So here's the simple-dino line: O Human Democrats, quit nattering and yammering, just vote. Vote, and thereby limit the damage Republicanist piracy can do -- for the umpteenth time -- to our country. Doesn't matter if you're dispirited or not entirely happy with the Dems, just do it.

An unbalanced truth

Seems like yesterday when criticizing George Bush was close enough to treason that the police would get involved. I remember people walking out of a Jon Lovitz stand-up routine when he made some mild crack about Bush's garbled English. I remember tirades on TV when Streisand aired her opinions of the president. I remember grumbling in the movie theater lobby after a showing of "W" about how "you shouldn't criticize a president like that." There were the Dixie Chicks, and there were the Radio bloviators out there bashing liberals as though freedom of speech were some Marxist plot. The word treason, the accusation of "emboldening" and giving aid and comfort to some amorphous enemy was given enough air time to warm the climate for real.

I remember audiences for Bush's town hall meetings being vetted to make sure flattering questions were the only ones asked. I remember protesters being herded into "free speech" zones behind barbed wire and miles from anywhere the President might be. I remember people being escorted from the premises by armed policemen simply because of a bumper sticker on the car they arrived in.

Many people persist in telling us that such things are common on "both sides" yet I do not remember anyone being escorted away from the current president for carrying signs advocating killing "his ugly wife and stupid children" nor for carrying guns. It's perhaps the most false of the false equivalences that constitute political dialogue today.

Of course if you want to tell me the courts share the blame, I'll agree. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the US Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of two Colorado residents who were excluded unwillingly from a speech by President Bush in 2005 because White House aides saw them arrive in a car with a bumper sticker that proclaimed: “No More Blood For Oil.”

Do we attribute this slap in the face for the First amendment to the Bush Police State? Certainly it wasn't the only one, but Bush is gone and the highest court seems to think we won't care that they don't care enough to hear the case.

So is it now that the freedom to have a bumper sticker on your car -- that is the freedom to criticize the government, to petition the government, to print your opinions for all to read can simply be washed away by a government that can't be bothered to listen to it? Stare decisis?

I don't know about you, but no matter how conservative, libertarian or just plain ornery you are, I don't see a way to pin this one on Obama or to try to pull a fast one with the "both sides do it so its not so bad" sidestep. If you agree that this kind of presidential power is inappropriate, you'll have to agree that getting away with it because the courts don't care is worse. So can we shut up about "liberal active courts" and recognize that this one at least has come down on the side of the police state and the Liberals had nothing to do with it?

So where's the anger? where's the admission that yes, we supported this administration and its policies and WE WERE WRONG!

Fox is Republican? That's crazy!

Well, there you have it. There is no center any more and objective reality is defined as a manifestation of insanity. Bill O'Reilly says people who think Fox News supports the Republican party are "Crazy left wing loons" because although the corporate owners are all Republicans, save those who are Saudi Royalists; because Fox stages rallies for the Tea Party, publicizes and and funds them along with Republican think tank and propaganda groups; Because Fox gives million dollar contributions to Republican candidates and nothing at all to others; because virtually all important employees there are lifelong Republicans, because much of the editorial staff have worked for Republican presidents and even such lefties as Karl Rove can and will be publicly browbeaten into supporting promising to support any and all Republican candidates including Christine O'Donnell -- only a loony would think they're Republicans. No, that's not the gutter, that's right down the center. No, that's not Thule Greenland, that's Paris. That's fair and balanced. Crazy as a Fox.

It's only another word for "you're in my way" in O'Reilly speak. So in response to President Clinton's mention that Fox's rhetoric was whipping Republicans into a "white heat" Balanced Bill replied with:

"What he's trying to do is demonize Fox as carrying the water for Republicans. That's a theme Democrats have been using for months."

Months? You sure are right on top of things Mr. O'Reilly. And of course if Democrats use it, it can't be true, because they're not fair and balanced like you: they guy whose obviously not a Republican. Demonize? Are Republicans horned and forked tongued demons then? Is that why you don't admit to it?

You're the guy that invented a story about Saginaw Michigan banning red and green because they were God hating Liberals at war with Christmas. That was five years longer ago than "months." Fox is the News Network that twisted a story about a small town using cumulative voting for village trustees into an Obama communist campaign to give extra votes to illegal aliens and disenfranchise white people.

Mr O'Reilly, you've excused every Republican action from starting a war under false pretenses, to torture, to warrantless spying, to libertine and deviate sexual excesses and called everyone who ever disagreed with your hyperbole a pin head, an idiot and insane. You're a Republican, you support Republicans exclusively and your network will punish anyone who deviates from utter devotion to any Republican candidate no matter how grotesquely unqualified. Why are you afraid to admit it?

You lie sir. You lie a lot. You're a radically extreme extremist with a total disregard for truth and Fox pays you a fortune to balance your farcical contradictions and concocted stories on your nose like a trained circus seal. You reported, the world has decided. You lie.

AN IMPULSIVE POST IN THE FACE OF OVERWHELMING TEMPTATION

Credit: Bill O'Reilly picture by preemiememe of the Democrats

Hat tip from AZRainman’s PhotoShop Satire

I return you to our regularly scheduled Captain Fogg Program.

New signs of the same old thing

I believe it was the Architect Frank Lloyd Wright who once griped that Florida, being the lowest part of the United States, everything loose had slid down into it, but whether he did or didn't, there are many unsavory things down here in America's bilges. Not that we're all that unique. One can turn over rocks anywhere and find the same sort of things that turn up in the Sunshine state, but here they're more likely not to bother hiding.

So I'm leaving the local car parts store yesterday, coming up empty handed in my search for a transmission shift cable bushing and right next door in the seedy strip mall containing a barbecue joint where the ancient, blackened smoker sits in the parking lot and a pawn shop in front of which a weathered 1950's pickup truck has been moldering since I moved here 9 years ago.

These times are good for the pawn shops and I happen to be a fan of History Channel's Pawn Stars featuring a shop in Las Vegas operated by some funny characters and stuffed with real treasures, so I decided to have a peek. I'd been there before. It was about 6 months after President Obama took office and the two men seated inside in front of a large screen TV where Fox News was raging away were declaring that that damned Commie in the White house had had 6 months to fix the economy and had failed miserably. Little has changed, except for the worse. Same two men, same TV, same dark, gloomy, mildewed interior filled with the seedy detritus of sad lives and one hell of a lot of guns. Same suspicious glower. All that was new was a sign saying "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." underneath which was the name Barack Hussein Obama - "from his book Audacity of Hope."

There's been a rash of newspaper comments about such things appearing in stores all over town and of course, that quote is gross misinterpretation of what the book really said.* Other stores have offended customers with entirely fictitious quotes by the First Lady. The real quote of course showed his promise of support for American citizens if such things as the internment of Japanese-American citizens should happen again.

I have to admit that the sheer firepower displayed there made me decide to vote with my feet and not shoot my mouth off and I simply left. But of course, to the devotees of the Obamahate religion, such heresy as any bit of truth I might have offered would not have been well received or credited. What's the use? No newspaper editorials debunking this disgusting garbage are effective, since newspapers are "Liberal" as we all know. The religious symbols of Obamahate are becoming as widespread as those chrome fish and other religious declarations scrawled on Mom's dump truck. It's not new, it's just a new sign in the old pawn shop.

Of course they can't find enough real criticism, even though there is plenty. That would require more in terms of intelligence and education than they possess -- nor can they simply say what they really mean, thanks to what they call "political correctness" which to me, is a cynical name for common decency: decency, at least as it relates to the cult of nativist and racist bigotry, being a Liberal affectation rather than a virtue. So they make up stories about the president. Easier than discussing the likelihood that TARP 'spending' will prove to be a net gain or whether financing a war on the prospect that a disproved scheme will generate sufficient revenue. Call him a Kenyan tribesman, a somehow Communist Muslim fanatic. Call his wife a gorilla. Safer than using the N word and revealing what you really are.


*They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

Does The Middle Still Matter?

I actually wrote this blog post below when I was home in the US over the summer and fully exposed to American politics. Keep in mind that prior to that, it had been a good 2 years since I was fully immersed in the wonderfully chaotic intenseness that is the American political system. Now after being back in Europe for a couple of months (while continuing to follow the next round of elections...we always seem to be voting in America), I'm wondering if what I wrote a few months ago still holds true: does the middle still matter? For the sake of America, I certainly hope so. Original post below:

My political beliefs are a bit of a hodgepodge. In general, I’m a middle-of-the-road person, not terribly prone to extremes on either side of the political spectrum. Since I find that most political issues are too nuanced to simply come down hard as a righty or a lefty, I generally tend to reside somewhere in the middle and normally refer to myself as a moderate (not a “fence straddle” as one of my friends put it). There are of course several exceptions to my moderate views (I have both liberal and conservative tendencies…just ask me my views on abortion or fiscal responsibility if you want to see how I make the conservative and the liberal peacefully co-exist in my mind), but for the most part I’m firmly in the middle. Which, for me is an awesome and interesting place to be.

As Congressional races heat up and the claws come out, I’m starting to wonder if my old political mantra still rings true. What is my political mantra you ask? The middle matters. In my rather limited time as a voting adult (10 years and counting baby!), I can’t think of too many political campaigns (with the notable exception of some local GA races) where appealing exclusively to one’s hard right or hard left (or hard Libertarian/Green/Independent) base actually resulted in a victory. Sure politicians need to secure their party base. And if you happen to live in a congressional district that has a sh*t ton of folks from you’re party’s base, then you’re golden.

But let’s consider for a second something a bit large, such as a national political contest. Let's say Sarah Palin, for example, decides to run for president (*shudder*). Sure she’s very popular with her hard right conservative base. But that doesn’t mean jack sh*t. Those numbers aren’t enough to get a majority of the votes (I hope). And the hard lefties wouldn’t vote for her regardless of what she says or does. She would need to be able to convince those moderates like myself that she wouldn’t bring about one of the following: World War III and/or Armageddon/the Apocalypse. Frankly I’m not convinced she wouldn’t. Joking, joking (not really).

The same rings true for President Obama when he runs for re-election. His hardcore supporters will vote for him regardless (I mean unless he does something like turn into the second coming of Ronald Reagan and even then I'm pretty sure I can find some liberals who would vote for him). Those vehemently opposed to him (I’m looking at you Tea Party and Take Back America crowds) wouldn’t vote for him anyway (even if he out-Reaganed Reagan). So where would he pick up the needed votes? In the middle with us moderates (and I’ll go ahead and throw the undecided in there as well).

The same basic principle applies to the upcoming Congressional elections as well. Sure Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell managed to win their respective primaries with their base of Libertarian and/or Tea Party supporters. But that alone won't necessarily be enough to carry them through the doors of Congress. They need to convince us pesky fence-straddlers moderates that they're up to the job.

But now I fear that with a crappy economy, a crappy housing market and pissed off people looking for an easy target to scapegoat blame that the middle, as so often happens during political campaigns, will be ignored…at least by the mainstream media. Too often the focus is on the more diehard left/right voters. Rarely will you hear a sound bite from moderate, middle-of-the-road voters. Instead he who can shout the loudest with the most extreme viewpoint is more likely to get airtime (and in the case of political pundits, get paid handsomely for it). Perhaps it’s more entertaining to watch polar opposites argue on political points that they’ll never agree on. But for me, I’d prefer to see some moderates have an honest discussion on the nuances of government policy and do something radical...like come to a compromise and resolve it. But I suspect Glenn Beck will retire his blackboard and stop crying on cue air while renouncing his fanboy devotion to Sarah Palin while voting for Obama before that happens.

Thoughts?

P.S. For my fellow Americans abroad: don't forget to request your absentee ballot for the upcoming elections. Don't know how? Well click this link...unless you plan on voting for a Tea Party candidate...I kid, I kid. No but seriously, don't click that link if you're going to squander your vote on the Tea Party.

P.P.S. Before I get any comments accusing me of "not getting" the Tea Party/Take Back America crowds or being a mindless liberal/progressive/communist/socialist/nazi/facist (actually, if you accuse me of the latter, you clearly weren't paying attention to the blog post...but I digress), trust me when I say I've done my homework on both. Don't believe me? Check out the following posts:
An Open Letter to Tea Parties/Anti-Big Government Crowd
Random Musing on Tea Parties
Taking Back America
Tea Party! An(other) Open Letter


Cross-posted from American Black Chick in Europe.

Scare Factor

It's been many decades since I read Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, but I remember his description of the man up in the bow of the riverboat measuring the depth with a lead line. When the line wasn't long enough to reach down to the river bed, he'd call out "nooooo bottom!"

I could hear that call yesterday when I read about the latest from Sharron Angle and David Vitter's campaign ads fincluding a picture of a trio of Mexican men used to imply that if their opponents were elected, these scary, swarthy, hostile and decidedly non-Aryan aliens would be sneaking about your back yard leering at the womenfolk, giving Marijuana to your toddlers forcing you to pay them social security benefits our of your contributions and spreading leprosy. The oldest of ploys, really and I'm trying like hell not to invoke that jerk Godwin and his damned laws, but of course everyone uses it from biblical prophets to today's iteration of the 19th century Know-Nothing party.

That the picture of three Mexican farmers taken in the far south of Mexico -- that's Mexico, not New Mexico -- and back during the Bush administration, may have been illegally used and do not actually portray aliens, illegal or otherwise, means nothing to these candidates or their supporters since anything they do in the name of the cause, even if they have no idea what that is, is justified. That is, of course, the very policy they attribute to Islamic terrorists, but never mind, only liberals would make an issue of it, you know. Liberals ( and that means anyone who opposes them) are "soft on illegals," love illegals, want more illegals and want to pay them Social Security benefits ( says the ad) and that makes Lou Dobbs a liberal along with that arch liberal George W. Bush who even speaks a few words of Mexican or whatever scary and incomprehensible-to-regular-folk language it is they speak down there. Of course that claim is as misleading as the photograph filched from the Getty Archives, but my experience proves that teabag zealots would rather pass along any lie than bother to check the facts.

There's no bottom to this muddy river. There never has been for any extended time in our history. The dream of a country run by white Protestant, preferably Anglo-Saxon males with guns (God and Guts) and their subservient families is still strong and apparently well armed. It's rapidly becoming a smaller minority and that of course only makes it an angrier bunch of dreamers with an ever greater number of unscrupulous opportunists and yes, idiots and the logically impaired. Few of them are smart enough to understand that their increasingly irresponsible extremism, the incompetent, morally unscrupulous tribe of candidates they support, harms the ability of rational conservatives -- and yes, liberals and even Libertarians -- to control the immigration rate, deal with the undocumented in a decent, American way and most of all to end the support they have from American industry as well as individual hypocrites like Dobbs and Whitman.

At first glance, it may appear that with the rise of the neo-Know Nothings, Liberal principles are under renewed assault once again -- and they are, but the real danger, in my opinion, is the death of principled conservatism and a dedication to efficient, honest government rather than one that looks good in theory but fails every test.

I have a certain amount of faith that the public will recognize the danger of the Christine O'Donnels and the Sharron Angles, the Pallidino's, DeMints and Vitters, but I have far less faith that we'll ever be able to survive the ability of Global corporations to steer us in any way they want, particularly since they are so good at keeping us fighting ourselves that we don't notice.

Steve Pearce - Mindless GOP Zombie

OK, so I've spent a lot of my time here in New Mexico ignoring Steve Pearce. I know the name, but he's been in the Second Congressional District for all my time here (Albuquerque, after all, is in the more resplendent First Congressional District, so I don't really have to pay attention to him).

(See, it's true - we Democrats are elitist. We can't help it. It's in our nature: we want the "elite" - the smartest, best and kindest - to be in charge. Why is that bad?)

Most of what I knew about Steve Pearce was that he was a featureless Republican rubber stamp, with no real personality and limited reason to exist. A wholly-owned subsidiary of the oil companies. A faceless, balding cipher who never had an original thought that wasn't given to him by Turdblossom and Associates.

Articles stolen from the Heritage Foundation were printed under Pearce's byline in small newspapers across New Mexico back in 2005. (His press secretary took the fall for him, so A+ for loyalty, but a big F for, you know, honesty and the like...)

He really only had one accomplishment to justify his existence. When the execrable Heather Wilson decided to give up her seat in the House of Representatives and try to jump into the Senate, Pearce kicked her butt, and then had the good grace to be defeated by Tom Udall (D-NM).

He's been endorsed by Sarah Palin, which might just be the kiss of death for him. Of course, with that nomination comes the requirement, apparently, to say blatantly ignorant crap, like refusing to admit that Obama is an American citizen.



If you're in a hurry, the lady's meds are wearing off, and she rambles on for the first 90 seconds of the video, trying to sound rational as she asks "Isn't the world about to end because we elected a Black Foreigner to a White House?" At about the 1:31 mark, Pearce tries to sound rational with "Barack Obama raised the most significant issues himself," and repeats the debunked lie that Obama traveled to Pakistan when it was illegal for Americans to be there.

Sorry, Stevie. No such ban ever existed, but the fact that you think there was... Well, a good Birther isn't willing to give up on a lie just because reality is rude enough to disagree, right?

If things follow their usual course with Stevie, he should be saying that Obama is a Muslim who pals around with terrorists next. He's a good follower; he'll say whatever he's told to say.

But that's not the only lie he wants to push forward. You wander around his website, and you find this page, where Stevie, or his Campaign Plagiarism Manager, writes:

Christians are just sick and tired of turning the other cheek while our courts strip us of all our rights. Our parents and grandparents taught us to pray before eating, to pray before we go to sleep. Our Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. Now a handful of people and their lawyers are telling us to cease praying.

God, help us. And if that last sentence offends you, well, just sue me.

The silent majority has been silent too long. It's time we tell that one or two who scream loud enough to be heard that the vast majority doesn't care what they want. It is time that the majority rules! It's time we tell them, "You don't have to pray; you don't have to say the Pledge of Allegiance; you don't have to believe in God or attend services that honour Him. That is your right, and we will honour your right; but by golly, you are no longer going to take our rights away. We are fighting back, and we WILL WIN!"

Sorry, Stevie, that's another lie. Nobody is trying to "take (y)our rights away." You just don't get to pay for it with the government's money.

I mean, I could be snide and point out that the vast majority of America used to have no problem with enslaving blacks, either. Instead... well, since you brought up what the Bible says about prayer, how come your mindless ilk can never seem to remember what else it said?

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:5-6)

Yeah, sorry, Stevie. That's Jesus that just called you a hypocrite, not me.

Oh, and you know that six years in the House of Representatives? Just think of it as your reward. We're done with you now.

Bad Banks and Buttheads

The sad and sorry events that conglomerate to make up The Great Recession are not remote or removed from us. They are not hypothetical or academic. They are happening to me, to you, to people we love and know and meet. This is--ultimate irony-- an illiberal and unprejudiced set of setbacks; open to all comers, the just and the unjust alike. Doesn't that make it just so impossible to grasp the rationale behind policies and pronouncements from the reactionary right?! I'm almost speechless, but only almost. A couple of personal stories and a well-earned award--just got to get these off my chest.

The first thing a young man of my distant acquaintance found in his brand new mailbox during his first orientation week at college in late '90's was an application for a credit card--Holy Magic Crap, free money! The Grail. College definitely had the shit beat out of high school. He hid the application away in a drawer under his new Abercrombie boxer shorts for a few days, pondering whether to ask his parents about it or even whether it was safe to handle.  He took it out once and filled in the information blanks, then put it away. He took it out again and signed on the bottom line; the card company only asked for his signature--could that be right?--and hid it away again. There was the fine print, the interest rate, but those numbers had no meaning yet. Finally, he queried some of the less obviously insane freshmen on his dorm hall, and heard, "Dude, you haven't sent yours in yet?! Mine's already come. My roommate got an application at a booth at orientation. Check it out!"