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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Culture War or fashion news? You decide!

So Sam Brinton, former deputy assistant secretary since they have been fired, appeared in court in Las Vegas on Wednesday on one of the two charges against them for stealing luggage. This was just a bail hearing, so nothing juicy to report yet.

Well, except for clothing choices. Whether advised to do so by counsel or whatever, for their court appearance Mx. Brinton decided to go for male-presenting and masked. If they were wearing their red lipstick, nobody knows. No heels, jewellery, dresses, or capes today, just a black suit and shirt with white tie combo (not too impressed with that myself, it's a bit retro but however).

So being out, loud and proud non-binary/gender fluid/trans (as the case may be) is okay when representing the government, but when it's your own case, convention wins? General opinion seems to be that "when showing up for bail on a charge of stealing women's clothing, better not to dress in women's clothing" which is fair enough. But it just amused me that once they're in real trouble (as distinct from the stories they told of being beaten by their parents and abused by torture camps), they drop all the affectation and try to look as normal as possible. Be interesting to see what they wear to the Minneapolis hearing, when/if that happens.

(What also amuses/interests me is the quick No True Scotsman turnaround where the former poster non-binary person for the campaign against conversion therapy is now somehow "we knew he was dodgy all along" once the negative publicity starts).

Well, at least he is not a complete idiot. Which should be normally a default for a MIT graduate but now you never know.

Is a masters at MIT really that impressive? He did his undergrad at some state school.

I interview a lot of people. I am not a hiring manager, but if you want to get hired at my major tech company, then you get to chat with a few people like me. I would be entirely unimpressed with a MS from MIT. But also I would not care if someone's BS was from some state school. Neither help or hurt a candidate. We don't care about your impressive pedigree. In the many interviews I have participated in, the particular school has never been mentioned by any interviewer.

Having relevant degrees and experience from any university or business and being able to pass a brief phone screen gets you the interview. Actually passing the gauntlet gets you the job.

For deputy assistant secretary of something nuclear waste management something, his credentials look fine by me. But I don't work in that one industry or government. Maybe they are credentialists to a degree I'm not used to.

Seconded. School only matters for two reasons: a particular department in a particular time period has a reputation for something seriously awry, in which case some probing around that or extra care, depending on the nature of the repute; they went to the same place you did in an overlapping time period and you want to know how you don't know of them already.

Yeah but he gets to put MIT on his resume. Which some people really care about apparently.