Entries from April 2005 ↓

Don’t be alarmed, but this is a not-characteristically-VC techie post. “Techie without the technical know-how,” you might say.

Mac people: an exhaustive review of Tiger from Ars technica: it’s TMI, baby–too much information. But use the dropdown menu to skip to the “Dashboard” section for screenshots of Tiger’s most relevant feature for me: the widgets feature, called Dashboard. Konfabulator is a cool shareware program, but it had its glitches and burps. I got tired of it and deleted it. It will be fun to run little XML windows in the background. Think “bloglines” where the information you’re gathering is the weather in a favorite city, your beloved’s flight pattern, and so on. (My favorite Konfabulator widget was the werewolf detector: it was a moon, the moon at that moment: full, half, and so on.)

See, I am not a real geek. When it comes to computers, I am shallow. I just like fun stuff and/or greater efficiency. I’m into Widgets.

And revolution, of course. But that’s another blog entry.

Mental-Health Aid Denied to Killer’s School * By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS *

Published: April 22, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 21 (AP) – A missing signature disqualified a
grant proposal for mental health and conflict resolution aid for the
Minnesota school district where a student last month killed seven people,
federal and school officials said Thursday.

Last summer, the Beltrami Area Service Collaborative, which includes the Red
Lake Indian Reservation and three other school districts in the state,
applied for a three-year, $3 million Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant.

The Education Department rejected the application because one of the school
districts had its business manager, rather than its superintendent, sign the
paperwork.

The grant would have paid for services such as mental health, conflict
resolution and substance abuse, said John Pugleasa, the collaborative’s
executive director.

In March, 16-year-old Jeff Weise shot to death a school security guard, five
students and a teacher at Red Lake High School before killing himself.
Earlier, Mr. Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend
at their home.

An interesting story from Inside Higher Ed: three historians are calling for academics to get together and fight David Horowitz’s assault on education. In case you’re not following this, Horowitz is leading a movement to make professors in public institutions present all sides of an issue equally. It might seem like a nice idea. Unfortunately, as most of us can imagine, this is an untenable rule.

To state an obvious example, biology professors will have to present creationism as a reasonable possibility. And in any other field, you will find divisions of thought which inspire strong adherence by opposing factions. Sure, professors should acknowledge the other point of view. And having students consider both sides of an argument can boost their critical thinking and analytical skills.

But forcing professors to present ideas they find flat-out wrong is not good.

As the article states, arguing for “academic freedom” as Horowitz and co. claim to do, seems like a good idea:

Like campus speech codes, Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights appears well intentioned. Insisting that academic communities must be more responsive to outside criticism, it adopts a form of the American Association of University Professors’ 1915 “General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.” It holds that political and religious beliefs should not influence the hiring and tenuring of faculty or the evaluation of students, that curricular and extra-curricular activities should expose students to the variety of perspectives about academic matters and public issues, and that institutions must not tolerate obstructions to free debate nor, themselves, become vehicles of partisan advocacy.

The Founders, who recalled their own exercise of free speech and free thought, when they challenged British governing authority, wrote guarantees protecting them from constricting government action. In academic communities, we need an alliance across ideological divides to support free speech by abolishing “speech codes” and to fight the “Academic Bill of Rights” in state legislatures and the Congress because it is a Trojan Horse that intends the opposite of what it claims on its face.

These bills open up the way for lots and lots of new people to abuse the judicial system. Think academic malpractice suits. For every kid who now goes to the department chair to complain that their professor unfairly gave them a C, there could be a kid filing suit in court, crying “bias!”

Sometimes bias is a good thing. Or as some wise person once said,
“Don’t be so open-minded that your brain falls out.”

I do try to be balanced when I teach. And I regularly say, “I personally see things this way, but others don’t agree, and see it that way. And maybe you do too.” But then I’ve never had a student deny the Holocaust happened.

And long ago, teaching in a conservative religious college, I was forced to read essays, often horribly written, very graphic essays, denouncing abortion and celebrating the death penalty. Some of them were well-written and argued and got good grades. Many of them (just like many of those taking the opposite viewpoint, I should add) were badly written or used absurd evidence, and did not do well. One choice example argued that same-sex marriages were a bad idea because animals do not behave in a sexual manner with animals of the same sex. I wish I could have sent the author to see the penguins in the Central Park Zoo, or frankly, any number of male dogs I’d met. (By the way, I never chose those delightful topics. I was teaching for a year under a department head who came up with these ideas. Later the regime changed and I was allowed to set more reasonable topics for writing assignments. But I digress.)

The bottom line is that professors should engage with debates, and encourage students to do so. Students should be taught to analyze their position and support it with logical arguments backed up by evidence. Students should be encouraged to disagree vocally and in writing with the professor’s views, where applicable. But some positions aren’t able to be supported by strong evidence. And some viewpoints are more valid than others. And people go to college to learn to think critically.

I have learned the most from professors I disagreed with.

Today I saw a film with a friend: Short Cut to Nirvana. As A.O Scott points out in a NY Times review, the 70 million pilgrims who attended the last Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India in 2001 really put into perspective the few million who went to Rome last week. It was in many ways an interesting film–moreso because I had little knowledge of the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival, and the largest pilgrimage in the world, before this.

The filmmakers approached a wide range of babas and holy people with open eyes. I was especially intrigued by the well-spoken Pilot Baba, a former Indian Air Force pilot who was now a guru, devoted to peace. Yog Mata, a Japanese-born guru, had herself buried for three days during the festival, in order to practice samadhi.

Kali Baaba, an African guru, we learned in the question and answer session with one of the directors, Nick Day, is also a Masai Anthropology professor out in California. Nick said Kali Baaba lectures on tribes, and in the course of meeting and studying tribes from Indonesia to Maoris in New Zealand and the Masai in Africa, had been inducted into each tribe in turn; in doing so, he was given the physical signs of this induction: Maori tattoos on his head, a lip-plate from an Indonesian tribe, and so on. He had been layered with symbols of tribal membership: perhaps an embodiment of tribal ecumenism?

The Dalai Lama makes an appearance, an honorary Buddhist visitor, speaking at the Mela about how “Conversion is an idea whose time is past.” He notes instead that religions should try to live in harmony together. There’s a holy man you can really get behind.

Though I enjoyed the spectacle and novelty of the film, and thought it was quite thoughtful in many places, I was perhaps less charmed by the subplot surrounding the encounter of Dyan Summers and Swami Krishnanand–a New Yorker in India for the first time, and a young, wide-eyed Indian monk, respectively. Indeed, the filmmakers’ focus on the experiences of Dyan and her partner, and their interactions with the Swami, seemed distracting to me. I appreciated getting to see the Kumbh Mela through the eyes of individuals, yes–but I wanted to know more about spiritual journeys, and less about the magic of young westerners encountering the east. I can see that the point was to help western audiences relate to the Mela–to see it through Dyan’s eyes. I just think a few more visitors’ views–from a wider variety of perspectives–would have balanced things out.

Still, it was well worth seeing if you get a chance. It’s an independent documentary, winning awards, and I love a documentary that gets into theaters. Check it out!

This from Obsidian Wings, by way of Bitch, PhD: yet another amazing story from the ashes of the Rwandan Genocide.

Did you see Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April? I was very moved by both, but especially impressed by the latter. They are good in concert with one another, in any case.

James Howard Kunstler thinks the world oil production may peak as early as 2005, and that very soon–in the next 10-15 years, the US will be in dire straits energy-wise (and therefore financially, socially, and so on.) I have heard of this peak oil theory, but I had not thought it would happen so quickly.

Now, for some childhood regression…

The NYTimes has an article today about the use of civilian videos in getting charges dismissed for 400 of the people charged during protests during the Republican Convention:

Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
By JIM DWYER

Last week, he discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop’s lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake.

You can read the rest here. The article also points out cases where video proved activists guilty. What it does not mention is that thousands of people picked up during the RNC were held for up to several days in a moldy disused bus terminal on Pier 57. Most people who were arrested that week have had their charges dropped or cases dismissed. A full 400 of them were let off because of video footage.

The prevalance of surveillance cameras all around us (in buildings, on streets) is a controversial one, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with cameras looking down on us from every building. However, this article reminded me of the power which can be given back to innocent people by the presence of someone else purposefully recording what’s happening. Someone who beats up a cop should be arrested. But someone who was just out to buy some sushi, or who was following police directives and undertaking a peaceful protest, should not.

Prosecutors said “a technician had cut the material by mistake.” Yeah right.

Cheap cameras have the potential to level the playing field a bit. Vive la techno-revolution!

Bicyclemark and I were interviewed last night on Warwick’s radio show in New South Wales. Hello Australia!

I just brought it.
Thanks Radiohumper.

Hanif Kureishi writes about this kind of thing a lot: South Asian immigrant dad, Muslim but on the secular side, struggling to make it financially, whose immigrant kid is much more into Islam than his parents, falls in with a conservative Muslim crowd, starts dressing differently, praying more, maybe even getting into some kind of political movement. (In Kureishi, it’s usually a “he,” but there’s no gendered monopoly on this kind of thing.) In Kureishi’s stories, when this dynamic happens, it’s trouble. I’m thinking mainly of “My Son the Fanatic,” from Love in a Blue Time, and the film which it sprouted, but The Black Album also concerns itself with Muslim fundamentalism among second-generation immigrants.

But in this NY Times story, one wonders if the alleged “would-be suicide bomber” did anything–or planned to do anything–wrong, besides embracing religion in a secular country.

Obviously, it remains to be seen–we don’t have the whole story. However, what we do know is a young teenaged girl who liked Bollywood soap operas and shopping gradually became more and more interested in Islam, taking on conservative dress, teaching classes in religion to other teenaged girls at Mosques, becoming put off by the world of teens in her co-ed public school, a school where her chosen conservative dress was not welcomed, dropped out to study at home. In short, it was the opposite of classic American teen rebellion: she became more conservative than her parents. She wanted to marry a Muslim boy she barely knew, and her father refused. What comes next is frightening. According to the NYT article:

“A few months later, when the teenager stayed out overnight for the first time, the father, fearing an elopement, went to the police for help.

“It is a decision he regrets deeply. His daughter and another 16-year-old girl are now described by the government as would-be suicide bombers and are being held in a detention center for illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania. He is sure that his visit to the police set off the F.B.I. investigation that led to a chilling assertion, in a government document, that the girls are “an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers.” Family and friends call that absurd.”

The article implies that the police saw the second teen being detained with this teen, for the same reason–a female Guinean immigrant–give some sort of sign of solidarity to her fellow Muslim female in a public place. Apparently this is suspicious behavior to the Feds:

“Little is known about the second 16-year-old. The mother of the Bangladeshi girl, conveying her daughter’s account, said the two girls met for the first time at 26 Federal Plaza after her daughter’s arrest. But when the other girl, a Guinean who was facing deportation with her family, noticed her daughter’s veil, she gave her a traditional Muslim greeting, and federal agents seemed to think they were friends. The second girl ended up in the Pennsylvania detention center, too.”

Although we obviously need to prevent actual terrorists from perpetrating acts of terrorism, I worry that goal is not being achieved. There’s detention centers full of people whose main crime appears to be having brown skin and a Muslim-sounding name. If you haven’t seen it, watch the documentary Persons of Interest, which has been on the Sundance channel, and is probably available at only the finest video stores. It consists of a series of interviews with people in just this situation–families and friends of those “Persons of Interest” scooped up after 9/11. It’s harrowing, and it is important.

According to the article above, and this one too, there doesn’t appear to be any real evidence here. Maybe the detectives know something they’re not telling us.

Or maybe this is another witch hunt.

Update: Commenter Saurav’s site tipped me off to the update on the NY Times–this time, an article on the “Guinean Girl,” and things are looking even more suspicious. I actually know a teacher at this girl’s school. Anyhow, it’s a chilling story. I hope Nina Bernstein at the Times keeps on it.

Another Update (4/11): more discussion over at Daily Kos and Sepia Mutiny.

And now, a Times editorial (4/12).

Hey–we’re a guest cup today on The Year of Coffee. What fun.

Seven months ago, I did not blog and had no espresso maker.

My old hand-me-down one had died, its hand-me-down replacement was a non-starter, and the sad, pathetic $30 replacement I bought in desperation (a cheapo Melitta on sale at Target) seeped steam out of every crack in a very high-pressure, scalding hot, frightening kind of way, and seemed like it just might explode into a million glass pieces. I knew that you could not make real espresso with a cheapo machine, even if you lived long enough to try repeatedly.

I knew you could make it in a stove-top Moka pot, and I have many friends who swear by them, but I loves me some crema on the espresso, and from what I’ve seen, the Mokas don’t do crema. I was also used to using a machine, and I liked the ritual of it.

So after some research, it was discovered that there are decent espresso machines for not-obscene amounts of money. But not for cheap. And we broke down and bought us one. And lo, it was good.

Understand, people, I do not own a stereo. I put up with a boom box and an ipod with some fancy speakers. But no stereo. The espresso machine had to come first.

Now every day is a good coffee day. I don’t know what kind of warm brown liquids all of y’all are into, and yes, I do appreciate black and herbal teas. But for me, when it comes to coffee, drip doesn’t hold a filter to a nice espresso or espresso-based drink. For the American in all of us, there’s the Americano (double espresso in a large mug, filled with boiling water)–a much purer and more nuanced taste than tired old drip, but no stronger. And as you can see from the top photo above, I do loves me a latte or cappucino. (Usually my home-made ones are, as in the photo, somewhere between the two.)

My good friends from Bosnia make hot sugary espresso in a Moka pot. They call it “coffee.”

The Sicilian’s mom makes espresso in a Moka pot. She calls it “black coffee”. Drip coffee, no matter what’s added to it (or not), is called “brown coffee.” After dinner, she asks everyone around the table, and everyone says, “brown coffee,” “black coffee,” “brown coffee,” etc.

Last September, I did not blog and had no espresso machine. By November, I was blogging when I could, and teaching a workshop for teachers on how to blog with their students, and drinking only the finest arabica, pressurized into beautiful, creamy espresso and espresso-based drinks.

If I had to give up one of these habits, I don’t want to say which one I’d choose. Either way, I’d be very grumpy.

What would your dressed-to-protest suit look like?

This is interesting, and the amplified heartbeat is a nice touch, but perhaps Ralph’s time in NYC as an activist did not fully prepare him for the kinds of brutality cops are capable of meting out. (And no, I don’t entirely blame them, they are following orders.) I would love to display the photo, but hate stealing bandwidth from an artist. Respect. So do click.

I think protestors needs something a little more like the Popemobile, but ambulatory. Just my opinion. I am not a designer.

And why are we not seeing more about this movement?

Sadly, it is just satire. But I love the idea. Almost nothing pisses me off more than homophobes who cry “Leviticus! Leviticus!” and go to all-you-can-eat-Shrimp-festivals at Red Lobster. It’s not right.

When John Paul II came into his Popely position, I was about 8. My uncle came into the room, having presumably just seen a TV news report, and said enthusiastically, “Well, we have a new Pope!” You have a new Pope, I thought. We weren’t Catholic, but my uncle’s family was. That was in the days when nice Protestant boys converted so they could marry nice Catholic girls. I am a Quaker now, but we weren’t then. I didn’t really fully understand the Pope concept.

I don’t agree with a lot of his policies, and I think he has to be held responsible for his treatment of Cardinal Law and his reaction to the priestly child molestation scandals. I think that not developing a more pragmatic approach to condom use has led to a lot of deaths. Nonetheless, I realize I say that as someone who thinks neither gay sex nor condom use are evil. So how can I possibly understand conservative Catholic theology? I am also not sure I get Bono’s assessment of JPII as “The first funky Pope.” However, I can also see that he did a lot of good, and maybe some of the good he was not able to do wasn’t entirely his fault. Is it too much to hope he has a more radical successor? Dare I say it, a Liberation Theologist would do nicely.

Anyway, I hope that does not come across as flip. My sincerest condolences and prayers are with all Catholics right now.