Oh, for the Love of God, People
It's just a graffiti tunnel! Perhaps I should have saved the "Tempest/Teapot" post title for this one. Hold on while I take a deep cleansing breath.....okay, here goes.
From our campus paper, The Technician, this story regarding the "clash of ideological titans" in the graffiti tunnel. Note how the disagreement has now escalated into a full-blown "ohmygoditsahatefilledcampus" kerfluffle, complete with a Statement on Tolerance from the Chancellor.
To me, the money quote is this statement, prepared by the students who were confronted in the tunnel:
"As people who believe that white supremacy and heterosexism are fundamental stumbling blocks to any sort of meaningful humanity, we feel it is our duty to challenge racist and homophobic violence whenever we see it," the statement read. "We have come here today to demand that the administration of N.C. State denounce the environment of hatred and violence that faces its students every day." (emphasis mine)
Okay, look. There was apparently a threat of physical violence, which is criminal behavior and can be prosecuted as such. The slogans were offensive and in poor taste. But someone needs to explain how we got from that to the need for a definition of "meaningful humanity" from a sociology major. And how this one incident has now become indicative of an "environment of hatred and violence."
There are the usual calls for "mandatory diversity training," and a need for the university to "do more," while everyone mouths platitudes about respecting "free speech." No they don't.
Frankly, I think the training needed is a course in etiquette by Emily Post.
Oh, Hello Tempest! Your Teapot is Right Over Here.
Reading this forum on childbirth and leave from The Chronicle of Higher Ed was eye-opening, to say the least. The article to which it refers was, to my mind, a pretty straightforward accounting of ways in which universities need to prepare themselves to meet the needs of students when the unforeseen happens. In this case, three female professors in a fairly small department were going to have overlapping maternity leaves, raising some legitimate questions about leave policy, preparation, etc.
However, as tends to happen when resident "deep thinkers" get hold of an issue, discussion soon devolved into name calling and disparaging comments toward those women who have the ABOSLUTE GALL to want CHILDREN when they're tenure track professors. Then of course we had to have the whole "what really defines a family" posts, the smug asides about family leave policies in Scandinavia and Canada, etc. etc. My personal fave was this one, entitled "use birth control." Here's an excerpt:
"Having babies is a choice -- already, people who have babies are getting tax breaks, getting hugely discounted insurance (forcing those more reproductively responsible to subsidise them), and often getting to slack off work for some 15 years using children as an excuse to reschedule meetings and avoid heavy committee work. This is NOT a women's issue -- it is a matter concerning a specific group of people taking advantage of the rest of their department."
Bitter, much? Her sentiments are breathtakingly condescending. I'm assuming that the writer, Lisa Jenkins, counts herself among the "reproductively responsible" here. Wonder if it's occurred to her that if all women were similarly responsible, she'd have no one to impart her wisdom to? Oh, but I'm sure she's merely referring to those within her profession. Because, after all, it's ALL ABOUT LISA. Sounds like the girl's got issues, to me. Speaking of issues:
"It seems to me that if employees want special "perks" for having a baby, then they should be responsible enough to schedule their baby having time, with their department.
With Ithaca, had the three faculty agreed to the dates when each want to be with child, and scheduled these dates with the department, the department wouldn't be so shorthanded."
Yes, because as we all know, the human body is a simple clockwork mechanism, and that's why everyone can schedule when they want children, and infertility doesn't exist, and all birth control is 100% effective. Let's see, set the timer for May 15, procure sperm, preheat the womb...no problem! Oh, and I'll switch the safety lock on, so that there will be no premature labor or complications. This is so easy! There's absolutely no excuse for anyone, anywhere, ever to have a problem with scheduling maternity leave! La, la, la! Look at the pretty green sky! At least, in my world, that's its color. Wheee!
I never cease to be amazed by people who cry freedom all day in their classrooms, but deny it to anyone who might inconvenience THEM by exercising free will. People who support all kinds of radical feminism, but who are enraged by women who then use their freedom of choice to "go traditional." Hey, professors? Here's a nice big cup of Get Over It. Will that be one lump, or two?
War Bad! Arrrrrrr!
I think I may have actually reached critical pissed-offitude today. Oh, it's been building for a while--a really long while, now that I think about it--but it's finally hit the whole cartoonish "head with exploding thermometers for eyes and steam-emitting ears" phase today. Why? First, let's just make a list:
I could go into a lengthy analysis of knee-jerk anti-war leftism descending into the depths of contentless ad hominem crapola, but it's been done. Perhaps the problem is that we've been spending too much time trying to lend intellectual discussion to a debate which is quickly becoming a Usenet flamewar writ large, instead of, as we are taught in "Instructor 101," making our message "audience appropriate." So in the interest of time and clarity, here goes:
Grow. The. Fuck. Up.
No, really. You don't like Bush? Fine, whatever. Vote against him in 2004, write your congressfolk and senators, have bake sales to support his opponent. But stop letting your hatred of one man blind you to, well, everything else. The world has changed in the past 18 months, and the rest of us don't have time to wait for you to catch up.
Stop letting your belief that he "stole the election" send you into hyper conspiracy mode, wherein every single person who may have even considered voting for him somehow manages to be stupid, evil, yet diabolical enough to aid and abet the Wellstone assassination. Stop. It. NOW. And don't even try with the whole "nuanced debate" bullshit. Bush=Hitler? Where's the friggin' nuance? I see no nuance! I see a bunch of people so enraged by the fact that "our side lost" almost THREE FREAKING YEARS AGO that they're throwing a mass tantrum. I include Hollywood, France, The New York Times, and the current democratic petty obstructionism in that list. And when it's pointed out that their tantrum is actually having the opposite effect re: making war more likely, as well as being directly responsible for the subjugation of an entire nation by a fellow who would, incidentally, set their anti-war asses on fire as soon as they stopped proving useful, what happens? They get naked! What the fuck is that?
I'll tell you what it is. They're channeling my toddler. Scream and cry when thwarted. Reason doesn't work--the screaming merely intensifies, sometimes coupled with throwing things, or tossing a diaper at my head. Do you know what works? Ignoring the toddler. And it looks like the "eeeeville Bush Junta" (aside: stop with the junta, okay? Likewise with the whole hegemony thing. It doesn't make you seem smart or clever. It makes it seem like you just spent 10 minutes in a post-colonial theory course and you jotted down the glossary terms 'cause you thought it might help you get laid at the kegger later on) is going to do just that.
Everyone loses sometime. You can either accept it, learn from it and try harder next time, or you can throw a fit. But it doesn't change reality. No, not even if you click your heels together three times, hug your blankie and wish REALLY REALLY hard.
Damn You, February!
Ya know, for the shortest month, this one does seem to go on and on and on. Sorry, Sartre, you were wrong. Hell isn't other people--it's February.
I hate you, February. I hate you with fiery, burning, lava hate. And a good thing, too, because that's all that's keeping my feet warm at work right now. There's a reason why I live in the South, February, and apparently you haven't been paying attention, because you Aren't. Leaving. Quickly. Enough. Oh, and the ice storms? The hell? Look, February, maybe you've had some hard times. Maybe people have been cruel to you in the past--calling you names, making fun of your relative size, or the way you spell your name (what IS with that "silent r", anyway?), whatever. Is that really any reason to act like a big bully, overstay your welcome, and piss all over my gardenia bush? I think not. You're never going to make people love you that way, February, especially when you try to force us to love you by tacking on that stupid holiday with the chalky candy so that we can all add tooth decay to the list of ills you bring us. I mean, the flu? Dude, that's just harsh. Get some counseling, February. You know, anger management? And maybe you should lay off the booze. You get ugly when you've been drinking.
The Wages of Sociology
See, this is what happens when an otherwise talented student is exposed to 4 years of unmitigated sociology--they get all huffy and release self-important statements like this one:
"For some time now, the inequalities that are embedded into the American system have bothered me. As they are becoming progressively worse and it is clear that the government's priorities are not on bettering the quality of life for all of its people, but rather on expanding its own power, I cannot, in good conscience, salute the flag,'' Smith said in a statement released Thursday.
To which the soc-whipped administration must reply:
Manhattanville President Richard Berman said he told Smith "what she's doing is courageous and difficult.''
No, no it's not. This is America, and the worst thing that will happen to Ms. Smith is that she'll be mocked. Not stoned to death, not imprisoned, not prevented from pursuing a career in sports or the private sector, just mocked. Of course, in a world where our students are so sheltered that the occasional appearance of snow porn is enough to cause PTSD, this could be construed as an horrific punishment, but your mileage may vary. Mine sure as hell does.
Life is inequality, Ms. Smith. I'm sure that I would enjoy being able to play basketball as well as you do, but alas! I cannot. How do you propose we address this inequality? Oh, I get it. Inequality only counts in cases where the government can step in and intervene through preferential treatment for the oppressed. But doesn't that create a different kind of inequality? Ah, that inequality doesn't count. It's all so very clear to me now. Thanks for the help.
Via Campus Nonsense.
Tina Brown is a Tiny Moron
Don't believe me? Read her latest column, full of lamentation for how the poor fashion industry is suffering, struggling to regain its footing after its self-absorbed hedonism was so cruelly stopped by those insensitive jihadis. But that's not the really annoying part. This is:
IS IT JUST THE RESIDUE of fashion week that makes me wish there were more, or should I say any, gay men in the Bush Administration? At The Sunday Times in the Seventies one top editor used to shake his head when the paper became too humourlessly high-testosterone and say that what it needed that week was “more pooftah power”.
Behold the power of the gay! I know that in matters of dire national emergency, the best way to ensure the success of our nation is not to find qualified folks to lead, but to randomly select people on the basis of their sexuality! Because it's all about offsetting that deadly testosterone! Although, I do want to bitchslap Tina Brown. Could that be due to the Power of the Gay, or is it just that she's a twit?
In lieu of outright womanhood — except for Condoleezza Rice, who crosses the gender barriers by becoming the most zealous enabler — perhaps an injection of androgyny could be brought to bear on diplomatic relations in this moment of crisis. The Bush crowd’s only management style, like that of many who subscribe to the outmoded cult of America’s Toughest Bosses, is to unzip and thwack it on the table. As Senator Robert Byrd put it in his speech last week, they deal in “crude insensitivities”.
Yeah, gotta get in the gratuitious "slap Condi" moment. So now, not only is she inauthentically black, she's inauthentically female. And while we're flailing that broad brush of stereotyping around, let's do mention the whole BSD trope. It's all about the penis, people. Power to the penis! Wait a minute--there's a knock at the door....oh, look! It's our good friend Irony. Hi, I! What's up? Oh, yeah, I noticed she's talking about insensitivity by using a former Klansman as a mouthpiece--I was trying to ignore that. Hey, Irony, you look a little down. Beer? Help yourself. I'll be with you in a moment.
The offence of it is enhanced by the fact that we know how unauthentic Bush is in this role of macho man. Unlike the war vet Powell, who never swaggers, he has no credentials for talking the tough talk.
Is it just me, or is anyone else having Village People flashbacks about now? Macho man, pooftah power...once our Tina gets her tiny pointed teeth into an extended metaphor, she just doesn't let go, does she? Like a tiny, rabid chihuahua, she's just worrying this column to death. Really slowly. And not very effectively, either. But, like the aforesaid diminutive doggie, she's managing to be very annoying, all the same.
Bush never said that the trouble with the French is that they have no word for “entrepreneur” — that turned out to be an urban legend. But I wish we had a leader who did not believe that “nuance” was strictly for cheese eaters.
Behold the mighty TB! Clairvoyant, y'all! Able to see through the urban legend and into the very heart and soul of our leader! Down with the bi-lingual shizzy! Oh, hold on a sec--Irony? Why are you crying? Well, yes, I know you've been poorly utilized of late. I'm sorry. No, we do appreciate you, Irony. And we don't judge you based on crap like this. You don't have control over every hack columnist on the planet. Shh, shh. It's okay. Have another beer. Go to your happy place. Focus on the happy place.
We'll Be Back After this Brief Word from Our Sponsors
Sorry for the non-posting this week. I discovered today that the nagging, piercing pain in my ears was not, as I had previously thought, caused by the Toddler's new penchant for tantrums (helloooo, 18 months!), but by a double ear infection on top of a sinus infection and bronchitis. Given how short my fuse has been lately, a couple of days off with drugs and The Two Towers video game (woo-hoo! Go Gimli!) have been good for the soul.
I'll return to my regularly scheduled ranting and raving tomorrow.
Bugs in Amber
In undergrad, there was a running joke at my school that you could tell in which year a professor received his or her PhD by the way he or she dressed. It was particularly true in the Psych Department: the two professors who matriculated in the seventies--one male, one female--still wore lime green leisure suits and peasant blouses and skirts (with knee socks!), respectively. And the newest addition to the faculty (this was in the late 80s) was all about the Capezios shoes and parachute pants. At the time, I chalked it up to "absent minded professor syndrome"--they were so busy thinking deep thoughts that they never looked around and noticed that things change.
Fast forward a decade plus three, after more schooling and a university job, and I realize that my first analysis was at least half right. Those professors and a lot of the ones I ran into subsequently didn't notice that things change, but it wasn't because they were thinking deep thoughts, it was because they were repeating the same thoughts that they had in grad school (or earlier) over and over until the thinkers became completely paralyzed--trapped in one mindset and preserved like bugs in amber, unable to recognize or react to the outside world.
How else can you explain the disproportionate number of academicians who cling to the rhetoric of class warfare and who still believe that Marx holds the answers when human nature and real world regimes have proven this false? How else do you come to terms with ideologies that are all about "shades of gray" until someone offers an opposing viewpoint, and right and wrong suddenly solidify into darkest black and starkest white? And how else can you begin to understand a worldview in which the academic alone holds the key to correct knowlege and the greatest sin is hypocrisy, not the consequences of actions undertaken in the real world, where those shades of gray are much more apparent than in a classroom?
The "explosion" of critical theory in the last couple of decades is simply the application of popular late-nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophies and causes--Marxism, Existentialism, Nihilism, Feminism--to literature. The ideas are recycled, the concepts are nominally "freshened up" by adding a dash of race or sex, and voila! Post-Colonial theory, Queer theory, and New Historicism magically appear. Yes, part of the joy of literature is finding universally relevant themes. But turning the themes that you find into courses of study all their own just leads to an overabundance of specious research and poor writing, as each little critical theory sub-group fights for a piece of the pie. And for all of their writing and research and scholarly production, these folks are still basically talking about Marxism, the academic cause du jour when they were up and comers.
This watered down Marxism pervades academia to such an extent that it is every bit as unquestioned as the old-fashioned reader-response approach to literature used to be. Incoming students are fed it, learn to regurgitate it back, and even if they don't necessarily buy into it, they learn how to play the game if they want a career in academia. Until recently, no one bothered to question the politicization of literature courses--it was simply accepted that your english professor was probably going to make a snide comment about Reagan, and no one batted an eye when he or she did. What was that old chestnut? The battles are so fierce because the stakes are so low--that about summed up the student attitude toward politics in the classroom.
But the world has a stubborn tendency to change, and so for whatever reasons--the end of the cold war, the rise of the internet, 9-11--students, scholars, and those outside the academy are a little less apt to swallow the old line. This is a healthy thing, I think, for the university, provided there is energetic debate about the issues involved. However, I am not encouraged by what I've seen thus far. CampusWatch and NoIndoctrination.org are being held up as the new McCarthyism, as though anyone with the temerity to question a professor's tactics or beliefs must automatically be an imperialist troglodyte and tool of the man. We have professors writing course descriptions in which those students who aren't "right thinking individuals" aren't encouraged to attend. And we have universities implementing draconian speech codes, to protect the young from the consequences of speaking their minds, one would assume.
These responses are ridiculous and out of touch, and expose the universities and scholars who hold them as fearful, inflexible relics, unable to fulfill the basic definition of a university: unity from diversity. The folks in charge of academia today are, by and large, the youthful rebels of the sixties, who wanted to get rid of the old strictures in the name of freedom. I submit that they have become what they once beheld: rigid rule-makers, or to put it metaphorically, bugs in amber.
Brushes With Mayhem, Part the Second,
Or,
Hey! There's an ATF Agent in My Den!
One year after the Summer of Police Protection, the soon-to-be-hublet and I were finishing up our degrees and working at the local Barnes & Noble bookstore to help with expenses. The big exciting Raleigh news event that summer was the attempted murder-by-mail-bomb of a female BTI employee, which served to remind everyone about the Oklahoma City bombing, and brought the usual complaints about our store stocking The Anarchist's Cookbook. Incidentally, we had moved that volume behind the register after Oklahoma City, in response to those same complaints.
I was coming home from work one day about a week after the BTI bombing, and as I got ready to turn into my apartment complex I noticed an abandoned car at the bottom of the driveway. Something about the vehicle made me think "unmarked police car," but I didn't pay any more attention than that. So I pulled into my parking space, hopped out of the car, checked my mail, and opened my door, expecting my fiance' to be there.
He was there all right, along with two ATF agents complete with guns and those blue nylon "Hey! We're ATF agents!" jackets they wear. I took in the scene, said "hi," and retired to the bedroom to quiet Gertie, the barking wonder. About thirty minutes later, they left, and I wandered out to politely inquire of my fiance why he was being questioned by federal agents.
Turns out that he had sold the BTI bombing suspect a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, and furthermore, he was able to pick the guy out of a set of photographs. Long story short, the bomber had come to the counter, asked hublet for a copy of TAC, and made small talk while he looked it over. He then purchased it from hublet, pretty much guaranteeing he would be remembered. Then, he left the book and the receipt in his basement, which his wife remembered seeing after she got out of the hospital. Did I mention his wife was the victim? Well, she was. Lost two fingers and the thumb on her left hand, but all things considered, she was pretty lucky.
About 6 months later, hublet and I got a free night's stay in Wilmington while he testified at the trial. I talked to some of the other witnesses for the prosecution while we waited, and it turned out that this guy did something memorable or stupid at every store he went to. The lady from Home Depot who sold him the pipe he used for the bomb remembered him because he was talking so much; he had recently upped the wife's insurance policy to $250,000--the list went on. Frankly, all I could think of was, "He was gonna kill his wife for a measly $250,000? Chump. That won't even get you 4 bedrooms in Raleigh!" But I digress.
The next summer was the last in our trifecta of Mayhem--Hurricane Fran hit. After that, I decided that maybe a house would be a good investment. Preferably somewhere a little bit out of the way of tangentally related criminal activity or natural disasters...so we moved. And I'm happy to report that neither the ATF, Raleigh PD, or FEMA have shown up at my door since then.
Best. Valentine. Ever.
From my pal, this lovely ode:
Four years.
Can you believe
we've been together that long?
It's hard to even remember
what things were like before you.
All I know for sure is
I had a lot more room for pizzas and ice cream.
And look at you.
You haven't aged a day.
And your make-up is still perfect.
I love you, head in my freezer.
All Hail the Mighty Talbert!
This man is an idiot. He's going to be successfully sued, and Shaw University will probably suffer for it. Read about his funny ideas concerning free speech and the importance of staff "loyalty" here and here. Now that he's finally stepped down, perhaps they could send him to work for Robert Mugabe. Sounds like they have similar ideas concerning freedom.
Brushes with Mayhem
All this duct tapin', water buyin', orange alertin' stuff has made me reflect upon my own brushes with mayhem, and because it's my blog, I'm gonna share. Plus, I'm not in the mood for the stupid just now--somebody opened the floodgates yesterday, and I simply cannot process that much idiocy. So for your reading enjoyment, Part 1 of Brushes With Mayhem, or, "How far are we from Central Prison, Again?"
Graduate school marked my first foray into independent living. I was fortunate enough to move to Raleigh before the giant mid-nineties boom, so I was able to procure a 900 square foot one bedroom apartment in a decent, convenient location for $400 a month. Yeah, I'm old. And?
Anyway, my apartment complex was a good mix of graduate students and professionals--pretty peaceful, especially after the woman I affectionately referred to as Rodan moved out as my upstairs neighbor and a young married grad student couple moved in. It was a dog-oriented complex, so we all knew one another by dog names--oh, look! It's Maggie's mom! The new upstairs neighbors had a sweet but high strung dalmation who loved nothing more than to sit on my grumpy weiner beagle's head. Gertie (the weiner beagle in question) hated this dog with a passion, and we (the neighbors and I) would just stand around and laugh as the small brown curmudgeon tried to kill the gangly dalmation. All I knew about them was that she was from Iowa originally, and that he liked to skateboard and mountain bike. A lot.
So imagine my surprise as one fine summer afternoon I exit my car and stop at the mailboxes mounted on the wall of the entryway (it was all open air) to my building, only to notice two large men in dark suits sprinting toward me. I remember thinking, "Oh dear, this can't be good," because there was no way I could get to my door--which was about 5 feet away--and unlock it before they reached me. So I just decided to be nonchalant, and moved toward my apartment.
"Are you Wendy?" the shorter of the men asked when they got to where I was standing. "They told us that Wendy had brown hair and a dog." They must have heard Gertie barking through the door. Gertie was always barking. Still is, nine years later. Stupid dog.
"Um, no." It was then that I noticed the badges and sidearms. "Are you with the police?"
"Yes ma'am." They showed their badges and introduced themselves. "Does she live in this building?"
"Yeah, she lives upstairs, but probably won't be home for a few hours yet."
They thanked me, and returned to their unmarked car to wait. Later, I heard my neighbors return home, and shortly thereafter, two pairs of footsteps heading upstairs, a muffled knocking, and then voices. That evening, I was walking Gertie when I ran into my next door neighbor (who had an old, fat Cocker Spaniel that Gertie also hated. Detecting a theme here?) My next door neighbor always knew what was going on. I think she had the place bugged.
"So what's up with Wendy?" I asked. It turned out that her dad had just escaped from prison. NC Central prison, which was located about 3 miles from where we were living. And, oh, here's the kicker--Wendy's testimony sent him to jail, and he had vowed to kill her and her sister if he ever got out. So she--and we--were to be under police protection until they got the guy.
The irony was that Wendy's dad had no idea she was living in Raleigh. He headed out to Iowa, in fact, and Wendy told us later that her grandmother (his mom) had tried to find out where she was living--obviously to help with the "family reunion."
It took the cops about a month to track the fellow down. In the meantime, we moved a charcoal grill out to the parking lot and had impromptu cookouts with the detail assigned to our building. Once or twice the officers went charging around the underbrush near the apartment--guess they thought they saw something--but he never showed up, and was finally nabbed in Florida at his mom's house. Obviously, he wasn't too clever.
I never asked if he found out that Wendy had been less than 5 miles from him all along--she and her husband moved soon after her ordeal. It seemed like a random event, an interesting story to tell folks when making small talk. I mean, how many people have you known who were actually under police protection? I figured it would make a fun anecdote. Little did I know, the following summer would prove even more bizarre.
Next time, on Brushes With Mayhem: "Hey! There's an ATF Agent in My Den!"
The Grandmother's Script
Here is a list of phrases to keep on hand in the event that you become a grandmother. Because contrary to what you may think, your paranoia level ratchets up to about a million when you reach that stage of life, and you completely forget that you allowed your offspring to leave the house without a suit of armor.
"Are you sure he's warm enough?"
"Why is he crying? Did he get enough to eat?"
"No, I think he's (insert one: tired, hungry, wet, sick). Give him here."
"Is that water too hot?"
"Is that water too cold?"
"There's a draft in here, I feel it."
"I think he needs a hat."
"His little feet are cold!"
"He'll break his neck doing that."
"He's going to break his neck!"
"Why isn't he eating?"
"His room seems chilly."
"Don't let him play with that!"
"Zip his jacket all the way up. And here's a hat."
"I don't think he got enough at dinner."
"Don't get water in his ears! He'll get an infection!"
"Look out! He's going to break his neck racing around like that."
"Watch his head/arms/legs/body/face/other random part!"
"His little hands are like ice."
"Be careful!"
"Don't let him near the dog!"
"Get him away from the cat!"
"I think he's allergic to those animals of yours."
To grandmothers everywhere, and I say this with love: On behalf of me and my overfull, overheated, surrounded by pillows and safety gear toddler, thank you for your concern. You'll find the Valium on the counter. Feel free to help yourself. He'll be driving in about 15 years, and you should probably start preparing yourself now.
Saw Sneak Preview of Daredevil
Eh. That's all. Just, eh. Maybe I'm too jaded by the whole angsty vigilante comic book thing now. Had some good moments--Michael Clarke Duncan was a nicely understated Kingpin, but still, overall, eh. It was free, though, so I'm not complaining. And the extended preview of X2 was very exciting. Deathstrike looks good, and at least from the preview, Halle Berry doesn't seem as stilted this go 'round.
Geek announcement endeth here. Now back to your regular programming, already in progress.
Yeah, You Heard Right. We're Willing to be Slightly Inconvenienced for Peace.
This article made me laugh out loud; unfortunately, I doubt that was the writer's intent. Fave quote:
"We want to provide a visible statement to people that there are folks who are willing to inconvenience their lives in some ways in response to the way that the lives of so many other people have been inconvenienced," said junior Dave Allen, one of the event organizers.
Yep, that pesky war surely does inconvenience people. Way to show solidarity through braving mild irritations! Hee! I could launch into a doomsaying tirade about the youth of America, but the endorphins from the laugh attack have mellowed me out too much. Hee!
Because I Have a Sadistic Streak
I give you this little exercise in "poetry" from the Poets Against the War site. Come, join the fun, as Tightly Wound presents: Poetry Corner!
Ari Fleischer the President's spokesman says all Americans need to watch what they say
it's easy for George W. to watch
when Ari is speaking for him
and for Ari it's easy to watch because
it's on the news later
but fulfilling this need
is harder for me
I devised a rearview speech mirror
and affixed it to my skull
but no one wanted to talk with me
while I watched what I said
in despair I abandoned the act of speech
and devoted myself to a life of text
I wrote: The President's appointment was illegal.
and watched
I wrote: Wilfully causing the death of others is the supreme failure of the human species.
and watched
Ari, as my fellow American
I am watching what you say too
so far I haven't spotted
anything new
Anyone up for a round of scansion? I'll give you a cookie! And people wonder why students rate poetry lowest of all the literary forms they study. Note trite e.e.cummings "look how cool I am! I don't have to punctuate!" affectation, which lends that air of intellectual gravitas to a poem that basically regurgitates Commandments 1 and 2 of the Indymedia Bible. Yeah, I'm moved. Wow, before I read this poem, I had no idea that there was controversy over the 2000 election! Thank you, brave poet! And watch your back--I'm sure that Ari Fleischer has your house bugged, what with you being a fearless dissident artist and all.
Laura Bush should probably reconsider rescheduling that poetry symposium, for the simple fact that no one attending it would be able to recognize poetry if it bit them. Hard.
Paging Irony...Irony, Please Dial 11
From the Corner, this little blurb about Martha Burk and her opinions on Augusta. Let me make this perfectly clear, in case any of you were wondering: I think that perhaps feminism, if it's serious about making the world a wonderful place for women, might be better served by spending less time whining about a country club and more time focusing on issues like, oh, I don't know, forced prostitution and slavery, genital mutilation, and regimes that brutally oppress women. Just a suggestion. But that's not my main point, this quote from Miss Thang is:
"It is because, when men get together, denigrating women is often a part of the social interaction. When women get together, denigrating men is rarely done. It's just not even on the radar screen. Even among the so-called strident feminists of the women's movement. We don't have anything to hide in that way, and men seem to."
Okay, now aside from the obvious fact that this is a lie if you live on this planet and have ever had any relationship whatsoever with the opposite sex, and that it presupposes omniscience on the part of Ms. Burk (unless she spends a lot of time in drag, eavesdropping on men's private conversations), it also--drumroll please--denigrates men by assuming that their motives are commonly base, sinister, and hidden.
Oh, hello irony! How are you today? Care for a cup of coffee while we discuss a moron? Nah, me neither.
All Right, Dammit. That's About Enough Out of You.
This'll be brief, as I'm pressed for time. Via the Corner, this lovely piece from the ASA about "the storm of attacks on intellectual freedom and the ebb of open public debate, in the name of patriotism and a war on terror."
Yep, this crap again. Note the use of "chilling effect," the academic's version of the overused "drums of war" trope. It's a collection of the usual suspects--profiling of international students, the eeevillle of Campus Watch--and actually has the gall to state the following:
University administrations are under pressure to silence faculty and researchers who take unpopular political positions. Organizations such as Campus Watch publish lists of faculty and students critical of US foreign policy, especially vis-à-vis Israel. They represent a broad trend among conservative commentators, who call for the censorship of faculty dissent and equate criticism of the government with being anti-American and anti-patriotic. We call on colleges and universities to resist external pressure to curtail academic freedom and to stop aiding federal agencies in the surveillance of teachers and scholars with scholarly or familial ties to other countries.
Look at all the pretty "red alert" words: Israel, conservative, censorship, dissent. It would be funny, except that they actually believe what they're saying. Yes, I stand outside of my office daily, pointing and laughing as the jackbooted thugs drag yet another unsuspecting professor away to the gulag. Hoorah for the suppression of free speech! Viva the quashing of dissent! Can I go kick a puppy now? Oh, sorry, just another fever dream brought on by overexposure to Brit Hume. Ignore me.
Again in the interest of brevity, let me get straight to the point. Dear ASA: Folks are paying attention to the crap you spew, and they're calling you on it. The ivory tower isn't so unassailable anymore, and that's as it should be. And your response is typical--"Ooooh! People on the internet are being disdainful of my intellectually superior beliefs! Our country is acting in its own self-interest, just like every other country ever! The sky is falling!" Get real, get a spine, and get your heads out of your asses. Oh, and you might want to try actually responding to the charges made against you in the name of the academic freedom you hold so dear, instead of running to mommy and crying McCarthyism. You are beneath contempt, you pathetic, puling little whiners, and if I were on your playground, I would take extreme pleasure in knocking your ice cream cone into the dirt. And then stomping all over it. But then, I'm funny that way.
Share the Pain
I won't suffer alone. Go here. And I don't want to hear about your resulting optometrist bills, either, so just stop it.
UPDATE: Okay, so they have a rotating photo gallery, and I'm on Blogger for Free, so no posty of piccy here. It's currently on Drudge's homepage, though, but look fast.
Ahh, Modern Politics
Here's a bit of advice from Clinton to John Edwards, hometown boy, on running for the Big Chair:
"So I told him ... that he'd been on TV enough to be hot. Which was good. But if I were in his position, I'd spend lots of time trying to think things through. ... I told him that I thought that my association with the Democratic Leadership Council, with the education commissions in the state, with policy boards, with these groups most of you had never heard of, had given me a chance over a 10-year period to decide what I really believed about the big issues facing the country. ...
"By the way, the great thing about this approach is that if you win, you don't need to wonder what you'll do. You've actually got something in place."
Yepper, THINKING tends to be a good thing. Interesting, though, how it comes in second to being "on TV enough to be hot." That low-level buzzing sound you hear? Ignore it--just the founding fathers spinning in their graves. I hear that sound a lot, nowadays.
Via Drudge.
Gimme that Old Time Religion
Or maybe not. Via Andrew Sullivan, this lovely course description from Harvard. I thought at first it was a Poli-Sci course, given the reading content and speakers, but a glance at the top of the page shows it listed under religion. What religion would it be, exactly, that embraces Sissela Bok, Peter (bestiality is okay by me, and btw, let's kill people whenever they fall below accepted standards) Singer, and Noam Chomsky?
Ooooh, right. Multiculturalism. See, all this time I thought folks were being figurative when they described mulitculturalism as a religion for its slavish adherents and proponents. Silly me. But the funniest thing about the course description seems to be the professor's need to hype it like the latest release from Tri-Star:
Designed for students who hope to make a positive difference in a troubled world, the course in 2000-2001 received a CUE rating of 4.9; the instructor and the head teaching fellow won the 2002 Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize.
I loved it! It's much better than Cats. I want to take it again and again!
Of course, perhaps there's a reason for the shameless shilling: This is the last year in which Religion 1528 will be offered.
Wonder if that would have anything to do with the bright hot light of reality finally burning through the hazy fog of unworkable propositions and fuzzy thinking that this course has cobbled together? I can only hope.
Okay, Now This is Just Irritating
Comments are back, only half have gone missing. The. Hell? Maybe if I turn my back and pretend not to be watching, they'll all return.
Comments? Hellooooo, Where Are You?
Well, my comments have vanished again. Can't tell if it's a problem from work (having trouble accessing several sites), or if Haloscan's gone all wonky.
I should probably get the heck off of Blogger.
Dangit.
Well, Slap My Face and Call Me Shirley!
Via Instapundit, Stanley Fish, my most un-fave academic, comes down on the side of common sense! I must therefore conclude that the world will be ending by midnight. Seriously, though, it's refreshing to see.
Hey Look! It's Monday, Except on a Tuesday!
How's my day been? Thanks for asking! Here's a list:
Embarrassing Personal Admission, Followed by a Rant.
Ahem. Attention, everyone, for I have a confession to make: I HEART Sean Astin. There, I said it. He was a super cute Goonie, great as Rudy, and in my humble opinion, the perfect choice for Samwise, my most favorite of the hobbitses. You got a problem with any of that? Not that I'm defensive or anything...
So there's this press release, in which it's revealed that Astin is going to serve on the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. Pretty bland, huh? I thought, "Oh, how nice. Sean Astin is trying to help out! This may actually make me heart him more. Yay little Sean Astin family guy man!" Okay, so my thoughts weren't terribly deep. Sue me.
Although, I shouldn't just toss that out there in jest, because there are apparently folks who would probably do just that, given their reaction to this nothing little announcement. Suddenly, poor Sean Astin has either become a Tool of the Man, or a cynical, calculating Machiavelli, because he's a-workin' for "the shrub!" And I can't decide what chaps me more, the idea that if you don't like a president, you aren't allowed to recognize that maybe some of his policies might be okay, ever (or risk getting your Moral Superiority Club card confiscated) or the idea that you can somehow divine the motives of a guy you'll never, ever know, by virtue of the fact that you've watched a couple of movies and seen an interview or two.
I just wanna watch my hobbitses running around and being hobbity. I don't want to hear Arathorn's son's views on petroleum, nor am I interested in the latest conspiracy theory involving New Line Cinema's attempts to squelch dissent and cover up the rampant homoerotic content of their films. Yeesh, folks. Movies. Just movies. And actors. Just actors. Not about you. Not at all.
Cause Nothin' Says Gritty Realism Like Stripper Ass!
At first I thought it was a parody. I mean, Come ON! Al Bundy as a tough guy cop? Re-doing Dragnet, which has become a kitsch staple? It had to be a joke. But then I saw the ads and realized that the studio heads were not only serious about this show, they wanted it to compete with the likes of NYPD Blue and all those other hard-hitting crime dramas. How did I realize this? Because the teasers were full of g-string bedecked stripper cheeks.
When did butt cheeks become the universal symbol for Serious Police Drama? What, it's not enough that you show people getting brutalized by criminals (and cops, for that added dash o' tough-guy cred!) each week, that everything seems to take place in a grimy back alley or flop house, or that your criminal extras sport enough faux dirt to qualify as walking pig wallows--you have to add in naked buttocks to prove that you're serious about realism? On what planet is the strip club the loci of Every Single Crime And Clue To Said Crime In The Entire City? It would be funny if it weren't so annoying, because then, in order to avoid the (logical) accusation that perhaps these shows are only about titillation, the writers throw in the gratuitous Lead Male Character Ass-Baring Scene.
Dear Writers: On behalf of America, please, stop doing that. Love, Big Arm Woman. I was scarred for life when Michael Douglas showed us his flat, droopy, saggy little booty in Basic Instinct, and I will never recover from or understand the cinema's need to go the Full Harvey Keitel, which it has done, unbelievably, more than once. Jimmy Smits? At least he's pretty well-toned. But Dennis Franz? Noooooooo! What, exactly, does that add to an hour of television? Do TV producers get a cut from the optometric surgeries required to repair the post-Franz Ass retinas? It's the only explanation I can come up with that fits.
Do real cops wander through a sea of bare buttocks on a daily basis, solving crimes, bravely angsting around bars and "fighting their inner demons," and then returning home to a softly lit sex scene with women who look like Sharon Stone, when they look like Homer Simpson? I'm thinking not. Note to producers of future "gritty, realistic cop shows": Just because you're pulling these shows out of your asses doesn't mean we need to see your asses, or their Hollywood doppelgangers.