Thursday, December 11, 2008

Maybe You Have to be American

I was reading "Canada's National Newspaper" The Globe and Mail today and there was this add encouraging Canadians to join the medical research community in Miami. Now the add sort of stuck out to me because it seemed to look so awkward and uncomfortable. It looks like a bad add you would see in Chemical and Engineering News. I mean they obviously have played the diversity card as far as they can (they do not have anyone with a visible disability but if you have watched any action movies from the past two decades you recognize the hairstyle of the white dude as hiding pure distilled and repressed evil). The fact that they are all standing to a kind of smug attention and the guys are all wearing ties (half Windsor knots I would say all tied by the same wardrobe chick) suggests the sort of fixed stock actor assembly.



That said, I went to their website and found pretty much the symmetry opposite picture and not much more. Does anyone know these people? Would anyone want to work with any of these people? Is it just me or does the white guy seem to be standing separate from the non-whites. What kind of message is this? Is it a "yeah we work with the white dude but there are more of us than him so when that evil haircut takes over we will take him down" message or a "come to Miami and you can work NEAR minorities but not WITH them (if you know what I mean)"

And then there is the badly arranged display of "scientific" equipment. Who advises these people? Why couldn't they have gone to a real lab with real people and photoshopped in the palm trees and water?

On the other hand the Asian guy has a clipboard and I was wondering if it had chemical nonsense on it so I scanned it and an zoomed in. If only I had the magic zoom lens that they have on CSI Miami that renders fine detail from traffic cameras but this is what is on the clipboard. I don't recognize it but it looks legit.



Anyway, I am avoiding marking final exams. I have miles to go before I sleep ...

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About Me

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For a while it was all about research and then it was all about teaching and now it's all about trying to find a balance while teaching at a small liberal arts and science university.