Entries Tagged 'general' ↓

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.

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.

“I am the boy who can enjoy invisibility.”

Joyce wrote those words, but I have been singing them lately. Yesterday, as I walked around all day in Manhattan, from subway to library to park, I got the sense that maybe I was invisible.

People walked into me several times and none said anything. I was whacked with bags slung over arms, and time and again, nothing was said. But I could hear what was going on around me.

In Grand Central Station, a middle-aged rich-looking white woman said upon exiting a gift shop, to no one in particular, “Mag-ne-tic po-ih-tree. Hmmmmm. How about that. Magnetic Poetry.”

Some young woman swung a taxidermied skinned fox in my path (only she did not see it was my path), and her colleague shouted loudly in the direction of my ear, ostensibly to those behind me, “Don’t buy fur!” I never would, but I also really did not need to see a skinned fox. Oh well, maybe someone else did.

Two other young women were walking up 34th Street past a newsstand, and one of them said loudly, “Carrie Bradshaw always buys her cigarettes from a place like that.” Indeed she does.

Later, I went to see The Gates, in its last twilight afternoon. And all kinds of people were walking and talking in Central Park, and having the kinds of conversations they’d usually have (if they walk in parks usually). Only they were having them as they walked under “saffron” panels, flickering gently in a light wind on a cold February Sunday. The panels reminded me of three things:

1) Saffron robes (but, strangely enough, not as worn by Hare Krishnas),
2) Sunshine, and
3) The curtains which nurses pull around hospital beds.

A gay daddy pleaded, hopelessly, with one of his charges, “Christian, don’t go in the muh-hud!”

A little Latino kid called not-too-loudly to his mom, from a distance, “You are f***ing lucky!” before he darted off over a hill. I don’t think she heard him. I hope she didn’t, for his sake.

And as I walked, the invisibility continued until the sun was nearly setting.

Then suddenly, two young beautiful J. Crew-ed young things on vacation asked me to take their picture, and I knew I was visible again. (My heart was warmed that they were not afeared I would run away with the fancy photographic apparatus.)

I myself had only the most pedestrian of camera phones, with which I attempted to snap a few pictures, which will inevitably pale in comparison with those you’ve seen on the news.

Before I went to walk under Christo’s Gates, I was skeptical. I guess I still am. Was this a good use of $25 million, all things considered?

Maybe. Probably not. But…

It’s kind of like someone bought New York City a bouquet of flowers. We didn’t need it. In fact, lots of us could have used something much more practical. You can’t argue with that.
But who doesn’t like flowers (saving the allergic)? And Christo’s the kind of boyfriend who would not have bought us something else that we needed. Even if his girlfriend could have used a nice roasting chicken or a dozen eggs instead. He just brings flowers.

And, as far as practical value goes, well, this is a lot better than a tropical island wrapped in pink cellophane.

And it certainly got a lot of people, all kinds of people, out and walking around the mud-slick paths of Central Park.

Today they’re gone, and a nor’easter blows. Too bad. It would have been nice to see The Gates in a snowstorm.

Peter Benenson, who founded Amnesty International, has died at 83. He started the group when he was outraged after two men in Lisbon were arrested and imprisoned for drinking a toast to liberty, in 1961.

‘Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government. The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done.’

‘When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: Better light a candle than curse the darkness,‘ Benenson said.

I started volunteering for Amnesty International in high school. The concept seems almost too simple–the idea that people around the world writing letters on behalf of tortured people could make a difference. I believe it does.

In high school, we wrote to express concern for the treatment of an imprisoned Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. Only a few years later, he’d be running South Africa.

Funny how fast things some things change.

Sad how most things don’t. Or haven’t yet.

Countries and territories which retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes:

AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO (Democratic Republic), CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBERIA, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, MOROCCO, MYANMAR, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE

(I apologize for the capitals, but I wasn’t about to try and re-type that.)

Many countries who we in the US might consider to have less-than-stellar human rights records don’t routinely execute their own citizens. Some of them appear in this list.

Japan and the US are the only “Group of Eight” major industrialized nations to still use the death penalty.

I think I was always instinctively against the Death Penalty, but Amnesty International taught me lots of practical reasons for being against it–the kinds of reasons which help convince people who do not reject it on principle. Like the fact that in the US, it costs more than life imprisonment. Or the fact that there’s no proof the death penalty deters crime more than other punishments do. And, as Amnesty says, “The death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities. It is imposed and carried out arbitrarily.” In the U.S. we see how the racial imbalance–as well as a socio-economic imbalance–plays itself out in this arena.

But for me, it always comes back to, “it’s just wrong.”

One after another, British Prime Ministers of the last 40 years offered Peter Benenson a knighthood. Each time, he’d write back to them, detailing the human rights abuses Amnesty was currently fighting in the UK, and asking them–if they wanted to honor his work–to make things right. He did good work.

As the tribute on the Amnesty home page states,

In an age of self-aggrandisement, his modesty was almost hard to fathom. He never went forward to receive the numerous accolades showered upon Amnesty, known universally by its candle in barbed wire. His mind was always fixed on what had not been accomplished and the countless victims still to be rescued.

“The candle burns not for us,” he declared, “but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who ‘disappeared’. That is what the candle is for.”