Entries from March 2005 ↓

today, one question:

Is there some kind of feed for blogspot? I don’t seem to be able to syndicate Radiohumper, or applecidercheesefudge, Matt at the Butcher Shop, or any of you other great blogspotters on my reader. Am I missing something? In case I seem like the slowest girl at the bowling alley, yes, I have been blogging for 6 months and only now just decided to start using a news reader. It suddenly seems like it will make things more efficient.

Thanks for your advice!

UPDATE: Thanks to all for the advice. And I want to apologize if you commented and your comment was inadvertently–recently or ever–deleted by my WP Blacklist or spam filter. Unfortunately, a few days ago, the filter started flagging and automatically deleting a few IP addresses. Dr. Praetorius’s was one. And when I tried to repost what Dr. P wrote, it then rejected my IP.

It took me a long time to get WordPress to filter anything at all. And now, I am in the position of trying to get it to chill a bit. I think I have it sussed out, but please, please don’t stop commenting. Bear with me. I do have the filter set to email me rejected postings, so at least I should know when it rejects a normal person who is not advertising a c-a-s-i-n-o.

Yes, I thought it was a strange title too.

Though it does sound like a sensationalist fundamentalist Christian novel about the aftermath of a medical supply Rapture, “When surgical tools are left behind” was the compelling title of a show on TLC tonight. The Sicilian and I were having dinner and looking for a little electromagnetically charged entertainment. However, as is so often the case, there were 200 channels or more, and not a single thing on worth watching. No Russian films on the CUNY channel, no CBC news, not even those wonderful commercials for South Asian psychics on Zee TV, nothing. And as compelling as the idea of finding out what happens when surgical tools get left behind was, I could not watch it.

But I did have a convulsive fit of laughter. At the title, at the idea of a show about this. What’s disturbing is that there are (a) enough cases of this to do a show about it, and (b) footage (I assume).

And here’s a photo I took of one of the vast number of painted cows exhibited last June in Prague. It’s modelling a representation of the Astronomical Clock in Staromestske namesti.

Inside Higher Ed reports that David Horowitz’s campaign to control college classrooms is in full swing in Florida, where the state House of Representatives has approved an Academic Bill of Rights. The legislation has the support of Jeb Bush, after all.

The bill sounds innocuous enough. It is couched in terms of “Academic Freedom,” though, oddly enough, “Academic Freedom” implies a restriction on what professors can say, and perhaps a requirement that they say other things, instead. It seems like what the bill restricts most is academic freedom.

The proponents of such legislation believe that students are being forcibly indoctrinated by liberal professors. All of this begs the question of what conservative students are so worried about, in Florida, a state where it seems like the only time their views might be challenged, even gently, is in college? If the election of 2000 taught us anything, it’s that the powers that be in Florida are looking out for those oppressed conservative minorities. Because, in fact, they run the state.

The problem is that the bill opens the way for people to challenge, left and right, what happens in classrooms–which, of course, they can already do without clogging the courts. From a logistical standpoint, we can expect much extra litigation. And I am not sure there’s evidence that universities aren’t already handling such complaints well enough. But if every student with a grade dispute simply has to call “foul!” and call a lawyer, there are going to be all kinds of nasty results.

I also worry whether requiring professors to be fair to all sides (and I don’t believe that most aren’t fair) is going to mean liberal professors are eventually replaced with replacements who are “fair and balanced” in the Fox News sense of the term.

The article in Inside Higher Ed states, “Rep. Dennis K. Baxley said his own undergraduate education at Florida State University — in the 1970s — illustrated the failings of higher education: The problem was that an anthropology professor “did a tirade” in his course that evolution was correct and that creationism was not. Baxley said that students should not “get blasted” as he did for not believing in evolution.”

Um, maybe students in an anthropology seminar in a public university should hear a “tirade” about evolution. And what kind of lasting trauma did this cause, anyway? If a student believes in creationism, is being exposed to evolution, or even to a strong proponent of it, going to shatter his/her world?
When I read comments like Baxley’s, I wonder about the way Thomas Jefferson is quoted in the preamble to the bill:

94 WHEREAS, the value of the life of the mind was articulated
95 by Thomas Jefferson when he stated, “We are not afraid to follow
96 truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as
97 reason is left free to combat it…”

It seems like a student whose world was so horribly shaken by a discussion of evolution (yes, I said discussion–as “tirades” are in the ears of the beholder) is exhibiting, if nothing else, this fear Jefferson warns us of. And yet the problem lies in the words “truth” and “error.” The anthro professor believes s/he is sharing the “truth,” whereas the student Baxley thought he was being confronted with error. Oh dear. What to do? The answer, I believe, is not to add legislation. (Wow, that is the first libertarian-sounding thing I can remember saying ever.)

Interestingly, the Academic Bill of Rights would apply only to public colleges. According to the bill:

11 WHEREAS, the principles enumerated in this act fully apply
12 only to public postsecondary institutions, and nothing in this
13 act shall be construed as interfering with the right of a
14 private postsecondary institution to restrict academic freedom
15 on the basis of creed or belief…

It’s nice that professors in private universities–including religious institutions where one-sidedness is more often a problem–are allowed to indoctrinate to their hearts’ content. No class at (assuming this were a nationwide bill) Bob Jones or Oral Roberts or Brigham Young would be troubled by hearing a different point of view.

And no, in case anyone is worried, I do not believe professors should ideologically bully students. I know there are professors out there whose grading is swayed by ideology. But I believe it is extremely rare (indeed, rarer even than professors getting threatened physically by students, but that’s another story).

As a teacher, I try very hard to create an environment where respectful dialogue is possible. And the topics covered in class are appropriate: I don’t launch into tirades about George Bush when we’re talking about W. B Yeats. I don’t think the vast majority of teachers do, though I think is the sort of thing Horowitz wants us to think goes on in classrooms everyday. And I do believe that this sort of legislation will just yield court cases and instill fear in the hearts of professors, who will be anything but academically free. And believe it or not, students-of-different-ideologies everywhere, we will all be the losers.

Addendum 1: After writing this, I discovered applecidercheesefudge and Crooked Timber have much more coherent stuff to say about this. Check them out.

Addendum 2: You know, the more I think about it, graduate level study will really be screwed up by a bill like this. Think about a seminar in Marxist Literary Theory: Will the prof have to balance that out with another approach? That’s another course. Oy!

sometimes look a bit like this:

So I blogged about invisibility, and then, I was just plain invisible. My goodness, I have been busy. And not busy blogging, obviously.

I have just had my first good blog-reads in a week:

Bitch, Ph.D. has a good recent post on debt. She also gets the most interesting comments I’ve seen anywhere–always worth a read. There’s also Crooked Timber on the same issue–all of this sparked by Paul Krugman’s recent NYTimes op ed.

I don’t know many young academics who are not in debt up to their eyeballs. And though some would argue we’ve chosen a track of education and employment that make this inevitable, no argument there. But it doesn’t make it right. I do believe in paying things off. The bankruptcy laws don’t apply to student loans anyway. But paying off student loans is one thing; universal default is quite another (it should simply be illegal for credit card companies to raise your rates to 29.99% when you pay your phone bill a few days late; but it isn’t.) Usury laws, anyone?

I personally know of only two people who have declared bankruptcy. One had medical emergencies and did not qualify for medicaid. The other went through a divorce. Both were underemployed. There are all kinds of social changes which could have prevented their bankruptcies, but none are in place. If they were not allowed to declare bankruptcy, they’d be in debt forever.

Okay, now I’m getting depressed.

In other news, who knew Bicyclemark was a fan of the musical? His podcasts are must-listens. I memorized the original broadway case recording of Evita when I was 9 and it was played all the time in the house; I loved it. Oddly enough, though I love Evita, I hate everything else Andrew Lloyd W. has ever done. Go figure.

And the Unwashed Depressive celebrates International Women’s Day. She’s one of the coolest women in the blogosphere.

Profgrrl is having an exciting visit to Italy, and her blog is chock full of loverly photos and travelblogging. Delightful!

I feel like I’ve been out of the country for a week or so. But in fact, I’ve been here, slogging away.