Kip Austin Hinton

squeezing jobs through a pipe

2011-12-13T19:41:00.000-08:00

"TransCanada numbers count each job on a yearly basis. If the pipeline employs 10,000 people working for two years, that's 20,000 jobs by the company's count. The estimates also include jobs in Canada, where about a third of the $7 billion pipeline would be constructed... Even according to TransCanada, the amount of permanent jobs created would be only in the hundreds."

The pipeline plan would have very little impact on the unemployment rate in the states it passes through. The pipeline plan would have no measurable effect on the supply or cost of petroleum in the U.S. Finally, the petroleum will not belong to any of us. It will belong to TransCanada, who will obviously sell it to the highest bidder (for many barrels, experts say that will be China).

The greatest problem is the process of gathering and processing oil from oilsands. This is not like the stereotype of a gusher, with oil bursting from the ground. They have to dig down with gigantic machinery, hauling out ton after ton of goop - dirty, tarry sand. It is very expensive and wasteful to separate the sand from the oil, polluting thousands of gallons of water, which is then simply dumped onto the ground by TransCanada. All this arguably makes oilsand one of the most wasteful forms of energy. The process creates 25% more pollution and greenhouse gas than regular oil, such as is generally found in Arabia, Mexico, and Russia.

In short, everything that is bad about regular petroleum is even worse with the stuff that would come through the proposed pipeline. Even if it does satisfy some of our appetite for fossil fuels, it will only delay the inevitable, while accelerating the destruction of our climate.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/13/news/economy/keystone_pipeline_jobs/index.htm?hpt=hp_t1

How to admit Chinese students

2011-11-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

I have taught many Chinese students who are honest, hard-working, and creative (unlike profs in this story, I did not reduce the number of presentations to "help" them). I also taught a few who plagiarized in class, and probably plagiarized their UCLA admissions essays. Supply and demand at work:

... Zinch China was contacted by the provost of a large American university who wanted to recruit 250 Chinese students, stat. When asked why, the provost replied that his institution faced a yawning budget deficit. To fill it, he told Mr. Melcher, the university needed additional students who could pay their own way...
The company concluded that 90 percent of Chinese applicants submit false recommendations, 70 percent have other people write their personal essays, 50 percent have forged high-school transcripts...
"If a student isn't placed, we've got screaming, yelling parents in the lobby," says Kathryn Ohehir, who works in [Aoji Education Group], in Beijing. "They don't want their money back. They want their kid in an Ivy League school."

Before they begin to recruit, universities need to understand what they are dealing with. Every admissions office needs an employee who is not only fluent in Chinese (putonghua), but also knowledgeable about China's educational system and the agent system. For smaller colleges and universities that admit less than 200 Chinese students per year, it is a good idea to interview admitted Chinese candidates before making a final decision. This should be done via Skype or videoconference. It should only take 3 to 5 minutes. An interview will allow the university to confirm and document 1) what the student looks like, and 2) the students' level of fluency in English. If the student's alleged TOEFL score does not match the reality of the interview, obviously admission must be refused. If the student who eventually shows up for class is not the same as the person from the interview, obviously admission must be refused. [as of right now, there are cases when a wealthy Chinese "applicant" has no knowledge of what was even written in the application. As the article mentions, some even expect to simply buy their way through coursework.]

This is not a screening for English proficiency. Of course a successful applicant could have a low TOEFL score; that will mean taking pre-major ESL courses, which is a delay but not a punishment. A fraudulent applicant, on the other hand, should be rejected. To keep this fair, a Chinese speaker must also be part of these interviews.

This is an argument in favor of acknowledging the agent system, and requiring China's agents to reveal themselves. Perhaps even a "registration" system (similar to the one already followed for student-athletes who have declared eligibility for professional sports drafts). By doing this, America's universities could push the agents to increase honestly, with the threat of banning them from future representation of students. I understand such a system would be drastically different, but it might be a good idea. And there are wealthy students in the U.S. who similarly hire "agents" to help them prepare applications, whether private tutors or after-school study centers. These should also be monitored, this is one of the unpublicized ways rich kids build advantages in the admissions process.

Back to the topic, if the student is from a region that speaks one of China's many other languages, it is unethical to accept those students unless the admissions office first hires someone who speaks that language. Dependence on so-called "official" translations, essays that may be written by a professional, and transcripts that are often forged? That is a highly questionable business practice, advocated by universities that value money more than education. I do not actually support the use of translated transcripts at all. I don't expect non-English institutions to produce them, that is not their job. I do not trust private, third-party translation services to hire only honest brokers. They are interested in serving their customers, the foreign applicants. The university that is interested must do the work itself, to assure an accurate understanding of what the student can do. If that means extra cost, it is reasonable to charge a small fee to applicants who need translation. At the same time, this must not become a profit source to exploit foreign applicants (as it already is in Great Britain).

We cannot look the other way just because the university is having budget problems (problems that in the case of public universities invariably originate with the state itself). Investment in Chinese recruiters alone is not acceptable. More time and resources must be devoted to verification and academic honesty, on applications and coursework. This will require advanced technology (turnitin, SafeAssign) along with human resources -- humans with cultural and linguistic knowledge of whichever countries our students come from.

......................................................................................................................................................

http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/

November 3, 2011

The China Conundrum

American colleges find the Chinese-student boom a tricky fit

By Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer

Dozens of new students crowded into a lobby of the University of Delaware's student center at the start of the academic year. Many were stylishly attired in distressed jeans and bright-colored sneakers; half tapped away

silently on smartphones while the rest engaged in boisterous conversations. Eavesdropping on those conversations, however, would have been difficult for an observer not fluent in Mandarin. That's because, with the exception of one lost-looking soul from Colombia, all the students were from China.

Among them was Yisu Fan, whose flight from Shanghai had arrived six hours earlier. Too excited to sleep, he had stayed up all night waiting for orientation at the English Language Institute to begin. Like nearly all the Chinese students at Delaware, Mr. Fan was conditionally admitted—that is, he can begin taking university classes once he completes an English program. He plans to major in finance and, after graduation, to return home and work for his father's construction company. He was wearing hip, dark-framed glasses and a dog tag around his neck with a Chinese dragon on it. Mr. Fan chose to attend college more than 7,000 miles from home, he said, because "the Americans, their education is very good."

That opinion is widely shared in China, which is part of the reason the number of Chinese undergraduates in the United States has tripled in just three years, to 40,000, making them the largest group of foreign students at American colleges. While other countries, like South Korea and India, have for many years sent many undergraduates to the United States, it's the sudden and startling uptick in applicants from China that has caused a stir at universities—many of them big, public institutions with special English-language programs—that are particularly welcoming toward international students. Universities like Delaware, where the number of Chinese students has leapt to 517 this year, from eight in 2007.

The students, mostly from China's rapidly expanding middle class, can afford to pay full tuition, a godsend for colleges that have faced sharp budget cuts in recent years. But what seems at first glance a boon for colleges

and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit for both.

Colleges, eager to bolster their diversity and expand their international appeal, have rushed to recruit in China, where fierce competition for seats at Chinese universities and an aggressive admissions-agent industry feed a frenzy to land spots on American campuses. College officials and consultants say they are seeing widespread fabrication on applications, whether that means a personal essay written by an agent or an English-proficiency score that doesn't jibe with a student's speaking ability. American colleges, new to the Chinese market, struggle to distinguish between good applicants and those who are too good to be true.

Once in the classroom, students with limited English labor to keep up with discussions. And though those students are excelling, struggling, and failing at the same rate as their American counterparts, some pro

fessors say they have had to alter how they teach.

Colleges have been slow to adjust to the challenges they've encountered but are trying new strategies, both to better acclimate students and to deal with the application problems. The onus is on them, says Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School, one of Beijing's top schools, and director of its international division. "Are American universities unhappy? Because Chinese students and parents aren't."

"Nothing will change," Mr. Jiang says, "unless American colleges make it clear to students and parents that it has to."

The Role of Agents

Wantin

g Tang is quick to laugh, listens to high-energy bands like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and OK Go, and describes herself on her Facebook page as "really fun" and "really serious." Ms. Tang, a junior majoring in management and international business, speaks confident, if not flawless, English. That wasn't always the case. When she applied to the University of Delaware, her English was, in her estimation, very poor.

Ms. Tang, who went to high school in Shanghai, didn't exactly choose to attend Delaware, a public institution of about 21,000 students that admits about half its applicants—and counts Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. among its prominent graduates. Ms. Tang's mother wanted her to attend college in the United States, and so they visited the offices of a dozen or more agents, patiently listening to their promises and stories of success.

Her mother chose an agency that suggested Delaware and helped Ms. Tang fill out her application, guiding h

er through a process that otherwise would have been bewildering. Because her English wasn't good enough to write the admissions essay, staff members at the agency, which charged her $4,000, asked her questions about herself in Chinese and produced an essay. (Test preparation was another $3,300.)

Now that she can write in English herself, she doesn't think much of what the employees wrote. But it served its purpose: She was admitted, and spent six months in the English-language program before beginning freshman classes. And despite bumps along the way, she's getting good grades and enjoying college life. As for allowing an agent to write her essay, she sees that decision in pragmatic terms: "At that time, my English not better as now."

Education agents have long played a role in sending Chinese students abroad, dating back decades to a time when American dollars were forbidden in China and only agents could secure the currency to pay tuition. Admission experts say they can provide an important service, acting as guides to an application process that can seem totally, well, foreign. Application materials are frequently printed only in English. Chinese students are often baffled by the emphasis on extracurriculars and may have never written a personal essay. Requiring recommendations from guidance counselors makes little sense in a country where few high schools have one on staff. Many assume that the U.S. News & World Report issue on rankings is an official government publication.

But while there are certainly aboveboard agents and applications, other recruiters engage in fraudulent behavior. An administrator at one high school in Beijing says agents falsified her school's letterhead to produce doctored transcripts and counterfeit letters of recommendation, which she discovered when a parent called to complain about an agent's charging a fee for documents from the school. James E. Lewis, director of international admissions and recruiting at Kansas State University, says he once got a clutch of applications clearly submitted by a single agent, with all fees charged to the same bank branch, although the students came from several far-flung cities. The grades on three of the five transcripts, he says, were identical.

Zinch China, a consulting company that advises American colleges and universities about China, last year published a report based on interviews with 250 Beijing high-school students bound for the United States, their parents, and a dozen agents and admissions consultants. The company concluded that 90 percent of Chinese applicants submit false recommendations, 70 percent have other people write their personal essays, 50 percent have forged high-school transcripts, and 10 percent list academic awards and other achievements they did not receive. The "tide of application fraud," the report predicted, will most likely only worsen as more students go to America.

'Studying for the Test'

Tom Melcher, Zinch China's chairman and the report's author, says it's simplistic to vilify agents who provide these services. They're responding, he says, to the demands of students and parents...

Most Chinese students who are enrolled at American colleges turn to intermediaries to shepherd them through the admissions process, according to a study by researchers at Iowa State University, published in the Journal of College Admission...

http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/

‘I pay more federal income taxes than General Electric, Boeing, DuPont, Wells Fargo, Verizon, etc., etc., all put together.’

2011-11-09T22:55:00.004-08:00

Thursday, Nov 3, 2011

America’s corporate tax obscenity

A new report about companies' finances won't just enrage you -- it'll make you run to the nearest protest

By Andrew Leonard

(Credit: Reuters/Jose Luis Magaua)

In 2010, Verizon reported an annual profit of nearly $12 billion. The statutory federal corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, so theoretically, Verizon should have owed the IRS around $4.2 billlion. Instead, according to figures compiled by the Center for Tax Justice, the company actually boasted a negative tax liability of $703 million. Verizon ended up making even more money after it calculated its taxes.

Verizon is hardly alone, and isn’t even close to being the worst offender. Perhaps most famously, General Electric raked in $10.5 billion in profit in 2010, yet ended up reporting $4.7 billion worth of negative taxes. The worst offender in 2010, as measured by its overall negative tax rate, was Pepco, the electricity utility that serves Washington, D.C. Pepco reported profits of $882 million in 2010, and negative taxes of $508 million — a negative tax rate of 57.6 percent.

Altogether, according to “Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10,” a blockbuster new report put together by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that will have you reaching for your hypertension medicine before you finish reading the third page, 37 of the United States’ biggest corporations paid zero taxes in 2010. The list is a blue-chip roll-call.

As the authors acidly note, “Most Americans can rightfully complain, ‘I pay more federal income taxes than General Electric, Boeing, DuPont, Wells Fargo, Verizon, etc., etc., all put together.’ That’s an unacceptable situation.”

The “high taxation” lie

Reading through this report, you will find yourself seized by an irresistible desire to hurl yourself headlong into the nearest OccupyYourLocalCity protest. In an era of crushing government deficits and mass unemployment, corporate America is not only skating blissfully free of its civic responsibilities, but continues to complain that it is paying too much in taxes. Even worse: Congressional Republicans and many Democrats agree! Listening to our politicians talk, you would imagine that corporate America’s neck is permanently under the tax man’s steel-tipped boot. When, in fact, the exact opposite is the truth.

The list of companies that paid zero taxes is only the beginning of the travesties documented by the report. The authors looked at the tax filings from 2008-2010 of 280 of the nation’s biggest, most successful corporations. These companies reported $1.4 trillion worth of profit during a period when most Americans were struggling to stay afloat. The authors discovered that the average effective tax rate — what the companies really paid after government subsidies, tax breaks and various tax dodges were taken into account — was only 18.5 percent, less than half the statutory rate. Fully a quarter of the 280 companies paid under 10 percent.

Remember that fact, the next time someone tries to tell you that American corporations pay the highest income taxes in the free world. The only number that counts is the “effective tax rate.” One of the interesting tidbits provided by the authors is that in many cases, the tax rate on foreign income for many of these companies is actually higher than the effective U.S. rate.

The most distressing part of the tale is the big picture: The overall trend line is pointed in exactly the wrong direction. If you break out just the years 2009-2010, the effective tax rate was 17.3 percent. “In 2008, 22 companies paid no federal income tax, and got $3.3 billion in tax rebates. In 2010, 37 companies paid no income tax, and got $7.8 billion in rebates.” When measured as a percentage of total GDP, over the last three fiscal years, “total corporate income tax payments fell to only 1.16 percent of the GDP … a new sustained record low since World War II.

Corporate taxes paid for more than a quarter of federal outlays in the 1950s and a fifth in the 1960s. They began to decline during the Nixon administration, yet even by the second half of the 1990s, corporate taxes still covered 11 percent of the cost of federal programs. But in fiscal 2010, corporate taxes paid for a mere 6 percent of the federal government’s expenses.

How have these companies managed to cut their tax liabilities so far? The answer includes a mixture of targeted tax breaks that impact specific industries or companies, accounting games that corporations play with stock options, and sweeping adjustments to tax law such as changes in the rules in how companies can write off the value of depreciating equipment. The accounting rules for so-called accelerated depreciation are now so accommodating that companies can write off 75 percent of the cost of new equipment immediately.

A look at the list of the 10 corporations receiving the biggest tax-subsidy breaks from the U.S. government will defeat the ameliorating effects of any medication: Wells Fargo, AT&T, Verizon Communications, General Electric, International Business Machines, Exxon Mobil, Boeing, PNC Financial Services Group, Goldman Sachs Group, and Procter & Gamble. “56 percent of tax subsidies,” write the authors, “went to four industries: financial, utilities, telecom, oil/gas/pipeline.”

The companies that pay

However, not all companies are tax dodgers. Of the 280 companies analyzed by the authors, about 25 percent of the total paid close to the statutory rate, a little over 30 percent. But there’s no rhyme or reason to who pays or who doesn’t.

DuPont and Monsanto both produce chemicals. But over the 2008-10 period, Monsanto paid 22 percent of its profits in U.S. corporate income taxes, while DuPont actually paid a negative tax rate of –3.4 percent. Department store chain Macy’s paid a three-year rate of 12.1 percent, while competing chain Nordstrom’s paid 37.1 percent. In computer technology, Hewlett-Packard paid 3.7 of its three-year U.S. profits in federal income taxes, while Texas Instruments paid 33.5 percent. FedEx paid 0.9 percent over three years, while its competitor United Parcel Service paid 24.1 percent.

The authors conclude on a wistful note, with a list of what Washington could do to bring sense and reason to corporate taxation, while providing the government with desperately needed revenue. But as the authors themselves readily acknowledge, their recommendations exist in an alternate universe from the one that we actually happen to live in.

Unfortunately, corporate tax legislation now being promoted by many in Congress seems stuck on the idea that as a group, corporations are now either paying the perfect amount in federal income taxes or are paying too much. Many members of the tax writing committees in Congress seem intent on making changes that would actually make it easier (and more lucrative) for companies to shift taxable profits, and potentially jobs, overseas. Meanwhile, GOP candidates for president are all promoting huge cuts in the corporate tax or, in several cases, even elimination of the corporate income tax entirely.

And that, ultimately, is the most enraging fact about the new report from the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It won’t make a darn bit of difference.

Support the Transaction Tax

2011-11-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

to slow computer speculation, decrease volatility, and raise revenue. support the transaction tax!
"The Benefits of a Financial Transactions Tax"
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/financial-transactions-tax-2008-12.pdf

"Taxation generally leads to economic distortions, with the possible exception of cases where the activity being taxed is itself harmful, such as smoking or drinking alcohol. While there are undoubtedly distortions associated with financial transactions taxes (it will have some impact on the cost of capital), much of the economic activity that will be lost as a result of the tax has the character of gambling. It will have very little effect on the effectiveness of capital markets.

"In this sense, a financial transactions tax can actually increase the efficiency of financial markets. If the sector can just as effectively fill its function as an intermediary while employing fewer workers and requiring less capital, then the tax will have increased the efficiency of the financial sector. In this respect, it is worth noting the explosive growth of the financial sector over the last three decades...

"There is a real economic benefit to this growth insofar as it improved the allocation of capital, allowing firms to better gain access to capital markets or for individuals to better adjust their saving and spending patterns over their lifetimes. However, if this growth in resource use was only associated with additional trading and did not actually lead to better allocations of capital, then the resources were wasted. If a financial transactions tax reduces the volume of trading, and therefore the resources used by this sector, without harming the sector’s ability to allocate capital, then it will be making the sector more efficient and freeing up resources for more productive uses."

Letter to Governor Brown

2011-06-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

I am in favor of equal rights for agricultural workers. This means equal protections and a minimum wage equal to other jobs.

I voted for Jerry Brown because he supported farmworkers' rights in the past, and promised to do so again, in the spirit of Cesar Chavez. I was then very disappointed tonight to read ( http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/06/emotions-run-high-as-jerry-bro.html ) that Brown has followed the footsteps of Schwarzenegger, not Chavez. Brown vetoed the bill that would allow agricultural workers to protect themselves by organizing.

This bill would improve the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act; it would not destroy it. CALRA's framework is viable no matter how votes are counted.

But beyond that, it is disheartening that Brown has become so cynical. He used his personal relationship with Chavez to win votes during the campaign, but vetoed Chavez's legacy the first chance he got.

Brown does not step foot onto these farms. Brown has not lifted a finger to help the workers since 1983 - but he happily lifted a veto pen to hurt them, last night.

Maybe Brown's conscience is clear, because Chavez is already dead, right? Brown will never have to look him in the eye. But the truth is, farmworkers have lost ground in the past 20 years. Fewer of them are union members, and more of them are paid substandard wages in substandard conditions, by dishonest farm owners. Calfornia's government lacks the will or money to enforce labor and safety laws in the agricultural valleys. Even under Brown's tenure as attorney general, violations increased in the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Valley, and the Coachella Valley. Therefore, the only ethical option is to put that power in the hands of the workers, by empowering unions. With more members, they would have more bargaining power and could at least stop the erosion of workers' rights.

I urge governor Brown to reconsider his alliance with those growers who would exploit workers. If our governor is not happy with this modification to the CALRA, I urge him to support workers, and I hopw his abandonment of them is temporary. Find a new option that would protect our state's hardest workers.

Sincerely,
Kip Austin Hinton, Ph.D.
University of California, Los Angeles

translation of the Manu Chao song "Me Llaman Calle"

2011-06-04T14:32:00.000-07:00

this is about my translation of the Manu Chao song "Me Llaman Calle." [video below]

i'm reasonably close to a literal translation, with changes to fit the rhythm and number of syllables per line. "baldosa" is like ladrilla (a brick to build a house) except flat like a tile. based on context, i translate it as "cobblestones." Chao also uses "maquinita," literally "little machine," but this implies a small device in english (a machine that does something, but does not move itself - such as a laminating machine, a blood-glucose meter, or an ATM) - so i use "little engine" instead, to imply movement. the one line i'm not happy with is the translation of "no me rebajo"; if i wasn't worried about rhythm, i would translate it as "it doesn't dig ruts into me." the tricky part is that this word, rut, is almost never used as a present-tense transitive verb in english. we generally use it as a noun ("in a rut") or participial adjective ("a rutted road").

i'm not certain which meaning of "a la salida" too use. Chao has so many street metaphors, i'm tempted to say it means freeway exit, as in off-ramp. but of course since he's referring to a man, the man could simply be standing in the exit of a bar or hotel. either way, both versions would be symbolic exits, a way for the protagonist (street) to escape her life of prostitution.

one of the cool things here, he says "calle tristeza," as if Tristeza were the name of the street (i.e., turn left on Sadness Street). but in English, we switch the order, which breaks up the flow into the next line. i tried translating it as "street of sadness from loving so much," to put the object next to the gerund phrase. but with ih the preposition in the middle, my version loses the clever double grammar from the spanish version. i avoided the switch entirely in a different place, with the words "street wounded," because i can take advantage of wounded's dual status as a participial and as a conjugated verb. this cannot preserve the idea of a street name, but it does allow a smooth, singular connection to the next line.

another cool thing is Chao's line "calle más calle" (literally "street more street"), a common spanish way to artificially force a noun into an adjective. english does not do this; however, there are poetic forms that approximate it. i think of the Blade Runner (1982) quote and White Zombie song, "more human than human." logically this makes no sense, but we can understand the intent of this slogan: the replicants/androids are better at imitating humans than we are at being humans. so we can extend this concept to other things, especially when we turn nouns directly into slang adjectives. "christmas" (noun) becomes "christmasy" (adjective). i could claim "this christmas is more christmasy than last year." sounds odd, but you can understand. this is what Chao is doing with street. so i turn street into a fake adjective ("streeter"), then translate it as "streeter than street."

i inverted the refrain ("me llaman calle" becomes "street, they call me") to make the throchees fit. either way is grammatical, in either language. as a side effect, "street" is sometimes read as enjambment, part of the previous line. as in the 3rd and 4th line, "the revolting and the lost street." this works most of the time, especially in last full stanza, when the enjambed lines allow the refrain to appear split in the middle, across two lines with multiple subjects: "street, they call me/streeter than street/they call me always and/at any hour." do they always call her street? yes. do they always call her at any hour? yes.

my full translation:

street, they call me

street, they call me
walking cobblestones
the revolting and the lost
street, they call me
street of night
street of day
street, they call me
i go so tired
i go so empty
like a little engine through the great city
street, they call me
i climb in your car
street, they call me
i owe happiness
tired street, street wounded
from loving so much
i go to the bottom of the street
i go to the top of the street
it doesn't rut me [it doesn't dig ruts in me]
neither does life
street, they call me
and that's my pride
i know one day it will arrive
i know one day
my luck will come
one day come looking for me
at the exit[off-ramp], a good man
giving life without a fee
my heart's not for rent
street, they call me
street, they call me
suffering street, street of sadness
from loving so much
street, they call me
streeter than street
they call me the street with no future
they call me the street with no exit
street, they call me
streeter than street
the one of women, of life
i climb up to the bottom
i go down to the top
like a little engine
through the great city

street, they call me
street, they call me
suffering street, street of sadness
from loving much

street, they call me
streeter than street
they call me always and
at any hour
they call me handsome
always at a bad time
they call me whore
and also princess
street, they call me
that's my nobility
street, they call me
suffering street, street lost
from loving so much

street, they call me street, they call me
suffering street, street of sadness from loving so much (x5)

lyrics from internet:

Me Llaman Calle

Me llaman calle
pisando baldoza
la revoltosa y tan perdida
me llaman calle
calle de noche
calle de día
me llaman calle
voy tan cansada
voy tan vacia
como maquinita por la gran ciudad
me llaman calle
me subo a tu coche
me llaman calle
debo alegria
calle cansada, calle dolida
de tanto amar
voy calle abajo
voy calle arriba
no me rebajo
ni por la vida
me llaman calle
y ese es mi orgullo
yo se que un dia llegara
yo se que un dia
vendra mi suerte
un dia me vendrá a buscar
a la salida un hombre bueno
dando la vida y sin pagar
mi corazon no es de alquilar
me llaman calle (x2)
calle sufrida, calle tristeza
de tanto amar
me llaman calle
calle mas calle
me llaman calle la sin fututo
me llaman calle la sin salida
me llaman calle
calle más calle
la de mujeres de la vida
sube pa abajo
baja pa arriba
como maquinita
por la gran ciudad

me llaman calle (x2)
calle sufrida,
calle tristeza
de tanto amar

me llaman calle
calle más calle
me llaman siempre y
a cualquier hora
me llaman guapa
siempre a deshora
me llaman puta
tambien princesa
me llaman calle
es mi nobleza
me llaman calle
calle sufrida, calle perdida
de tanto amar

me llaman calle, me llaman calle
calle sufrida, calle tristeza de tanto amar (x5)

invites you to the Public Defense of the Doctoral Dissertation

2011-04-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

define "terrorist."

2011-01-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

Why Aren't We Calling Loughner a Terrorist?

huffingtonpost.com

I can't help but wonder why folks are so afraid to call the mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona an act of terrorism. The fear of the "T" word seems almost palpable in describing the gruesome events that took place this past Saturday...

my responses to the article:

- yes, there is a race component within how this word is used. but the politics are more powerful: some of the same Mujahideen who reagan called "freedom fighters" in 1983 became "terrorists" in 2001.
- if shown to be politically motivated, i think a lot of americans will accept that Loughner is a terrorist. especially since it involves assassination.
- Sirhan Sirhan is regularly described as a terrorist - is it because he is palestinian, or because he assassinated a political figure? i think both.
- the man who flew a plane into the austin IRS building was described (in media) as deranged AND as a terrorist. same for Ted Kaczynski. so, maybe if you're white, you are called a crazy terrorist instead of a sane terrorist.
- this might reveal something about the way america sees itself: for a palestinian or iraqi to attack U.S. interests, well, that is sort of rational because they have a grievance (americans recognize that there is a motivation of some sort, even if they would label that motivation "evil"). on the other hand, we think of [white] americans as being the beneficiaries of U.S. policy, so if [white] americans are angry about it, they must be acting against their own interests. which would be "crazy."
- one of the effects popularly defining "terrorism" is a general sense of terror, a fear of continuing daily life. the southern white lynch mobs of the 1950s definitely fit the definition, but the word was not popular in U.S. media until the 1960s - and domestically, it began as a derogatory label only for leftist groups (weathermen, black panthers, etc.).
there was initially a lot of resistance by U.S. conservatives to the idea that right-wing political actors could also be terrorists. this was played out in the controversy over the My Lai massacre. like Abu Ghraib, My Lai was so horrific it should not have been controversial at all. it was probably not until Timothy McVeigh that the republican party fully acknowledged the possibility of white, right-wing, U.S. born terrorism (i think of the perpetrators of all these events as terrorists; obviously, rumsfeld disagrees).
- tucson is different because there is no critical mass of terror. the article gives a list of events, but the events have been separated by years and many miles.
- a sequence of events attacking a group of people, we would think that looks more like terrorism (even if the attacks were uncoordinated or the attackers were apparently "crazy")
- many "terrorists" who kill civilians in afghanistan are motivated by offers of money. without a political message, i'm not sure how it's useful to define them as "terrorists." maybe they were hired by "terrorists"?

The Alamo should be integrated into the San Antonio Missions National Park

2010-12-05T17:40:00.000-08:00

The Alamo should be integrated into the San Antonio Missions National Park. It should be a place to see and understand the past, good and bad. It is not a "shrine." It is an old church, built to offer/force a foreign religion to indigenous people. And it is a battleground, where a few Tejanos and white immigrants fought in a rebellion against the Mexican army -- some because of greed, others because of principle.
In the 20th century, the Alamo became site of a battle over white Texas identity. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas have thrived on this battle. See Richard Flores: http://books.google.com/books?id=Rc4mtLSzu9oC

New York Times ran an article about a legal battle at the Alamo/Mision San Antonio de Valero. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas are at the center. Of course there are good women in the organization. But as long as the Daughters' goals remain divisive, they will create (rather than memorialize) conflict.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/us/05alamo.html
"Critics Accuse Group of a Serious Texas Sin: Forgetting the Alamo"

...
This summer, the attorney general began an investigation into the group’s finances and business practices, seizing thousands of documents. As the inquiry has gone on, donations have plummeted and speculation has grown that the state may take control of the site in downtown San Antonio...
“There is a kind of mini civil war going on within the organization,” said Richard Bruce Winders, the historian and curator of the Alamo. “Unfortunately, the Alamo is caught in the middle.”
But beyond the controversy over maintenance is a larger debate over the future of the shrine and battleground, an emotional touchstone for many Texans. More than 2.5 million people visit it each year.
With 7,000 members, many from prominent Texas families, the Daughters, as they are known here, remain a political third rail no one wants to touch...
Still, Gov. Rick Perry clashed publicly this year with the Daughters over their attempt to trademark the words “the Alamo” to generate more revenue from souvenirs, and he has signaled he might consider switching custodians...
The current turmoil inside the organization began in 2006, when it started a fund-raising campaign to collect $60 million for the expansion and for preservation...
But Ms. Bowman soon fell out with the governing board after she asked for a business plan to show to donors and was rebuffed. She was fired in 2008. She and another disgruntled member, Dianne MacDiarmid, promptly started a separate charity to raise money strictly for preservation. Both women were kicked out of the group later that year.
“They punish anyone who disagrees with them,” Ms. Bowman said in an e-mail. “It is just sad that a group of stupid, vicious women could hijack an organization with a lot of good women in it.”...
“They honest to God think they own the Alamo,” Ms. Reveley said...
“The Alamo is not just a battle,” Ms. Rosser said. “It was going to be a beautiful church to convert the Indians to Christianity.”

about "The man who writes your students' papers"

2010-11-20T14:25:00.001-08:00

Still contemplating this article. Though i am interested in the concept of online classes, this is the main reason i have not yet agreed to teach one. For now, i integrate online elements into a face-to-face course.
-
http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/125329/
-
I know cheating is endemic not just online but at all colleges, from community college to ivy league. I agree with one of the commenters: the only students likely to be immune to ghostwriting are those who are too poor to afford the high cost. Since application essays are a large portion of ghostwriters' business, a poor student deserving of a college education/scholarship is being unfairly excluded every time a rich student hires a professional writer. This is a strange way our admissions processes reward wealth and dishonesty.
-
Financially speaking, the only way the poor can cheat on a paper (thesis etc.) is to plagiarize it themselves - that is, copy and paste from wikipedia or a paper from the web. Colleges already use software which will detect this, even for purchased essays (these cost less than $100, which almost anyone can afford; in case you're wondering, turnitin.com will detect these easily). It is important to note that our current tools only find the cheap ways of plagiarizing. In terms of a finished product, the commenters discussing this article present no practical way to catch the expensive form of cheating.
-
With a brick-and-mortar classroom, i emphasize and grade the writing process. I can learn the writing style of all my students, i know what they look like (i can compare their appearance to the school database of student ID photos). I watch them move their pencils across a piece of paper as they create a first draft, and can require multiple drafts. Unlike a final draft, students' first drafts should be graded on content and concept, with very little regard for grammar or detail. Yes, the students could turn their first draft over to a ghostwriter such as Ed Dante. He would gladly write a second draft etc. On the other hand, since the first draft grade is substantial and the hand-written first draft is turned in with the final draft for comparison, hiring a ghostwriter is not a great investment in my class.
-
Can't say for sure it won't happen, or that the cheaters won't get away with it; only that if this is your chosen strategy to get a grade, you would probably find a different professor. Of course, cheaters always invent new ways to cheat, which could make my prevention efforts irrelevant...
-
An institution gave me a handout claiming honor codes -- actively read and signed in front of a teacher -- can measurably reduce all forms of cheating. I do not remember the study cited, i'll try to look it up. Anyway, i should remind myself of their verb choice, reduce. There are 6 or 7 solid techniques to reduce (but not eliminate) cheating.

graded in-class writing for every class
oral examinations in every class
multiple drafts of every writing assignment
interactive assignments that require combined action and writing (e.g., outline a project, explain it to the professor, gather data, explain data to the professor, submit multiple drafts of analysis/results/conclusions.)
unique, unrepeated, and unannounced tests and writing prompts for every class
software to automatically detect plagiarism
a spoken and signed honor code from every student

All of these mean lots of extra work for the professor. I will try to use all of them, and i will still find students cheating. I've found cheaters everywhere i've taught.* The most skilled cheaters? I probably gave them As.
-
*this is not entirely true. i taught at a small language school in Querétaro, where i worked with very small classes and did not give traditional grades. coursework was tailored to each student, and passing was measured by ability to orally explain (essentially, ability to teach) what was learned. this made cheating irrelevant. i understand this is not a reasonable model for most schools to follow.

Re: the future of UC retirement, letter from president Mark Yudof

2010-10-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Re: the future of UC retirement, letter from president Mark Yudof
http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/ucrpfuture/

[University of California, like many educational institutions, is bleeding money. Each year, more and more of money goes to non-employees, , former employees who no longer contribute to the prosperity of the campuses. Current employees are struggling to increase the amount of money they personally will get in exchange for retiring. As experienced people retire, the university struggles to find money to hire young replacements, all while continuing to pay the former employee up to 100% of his/her highest salary. Yudof's letter is attached below.]

These cuts are not deep enough.

The people commenting here all talk about UC employees, as if a university’s mission is to employ people.

I am a student. As you (employees ) get more benefits, students get fewer benefits, at greater cost (specifically, experienced retirees are not being replaced for lack of funds). Your years of “service” mean you serve students, right? If you no longer serve students, you do not deserve “maximum pension benefit equal to 100 percent” of salary.

Just because you desire something does not mean it’s the right thing to do. I survive on $25k/year; you can surely retire on just $50k. University resources should first and foremost go toward improved teaching and research. You want to retire wealthy? Good for you, but why should taxpayers and students pay for it?

I understand that many years ago, somebody I never met (and never voted for) agreed to give UC employees a bunch of money. We students never signed that agreement. We are not here to help fund your health care and pension. You, on the other hand, are here to help educate us. That is your mission.

I like the idea of a pension system, and I do not want UC employees to go hungry in old age. They need a safety net, but not a golden parachute (for some, retirement benefits amount to millions of dollars). Morally, every percentage increase in student tuition should come with an equal decrease in employee retirement benefits, especially for UC executives. I don’t want to punish you – I want you to show we are all in this together. Otherwise, the future of UC will belong to wealthy students, taught by wealthy professors.

Sure, some of you could earn more in the private sector. That’s why it’s called service.

kip
UCLA

--------------------------------------------

October 26, 2010

Letter to UC from President Yudof about proposed changes to UC retirement benefits

Dear Colleagues:

I am writing to share with you the recommendations I plan to discuss in November with the UC Board of Regents about changes to the University’s post-employment benefits programs.

When I established the Post Employment Benefits Task Force, I made clear that the proposed changes needed to satisfy two critical objectives: Help address our financial challenges, and preserve good post employment benefits in support of UC’s commitment to excellence and in recognition of the vital role our faculty and staff play in the quality and delivery of UC’s service to the public. I believe these recommendations achieve those goals.

As you know, for the past two months senior UC leaders and I have been engaged in extensive discussions with faculty, staff and administrators about how to ensure the financial sustainability of UC’s retiree health and pension programs while still providing attractive retirement benefits.

Those discussions are continuing, but the feedback we’ve received to date has been very consistent, particularly as it relates to the design of a pension tier for future faculty and staff.

My recommendations – which have the support of the chair and vice-chair of the Academic Senate, UC’s Staff Advisors to the Regents, and leadership of the Council of UC Staff Assemblies – reflect that feedback.

In short, I am proposing a new pension program for future employees hired after July 1, 2013 that will preserve good pension benefits while also reducing UC’s long-term costs. Many elements are similar to the current UCRP program, including:

A defined benefit or “pension” plan;
A five-year vesting period;
A pension benefit formula based on an employee’s highest average compensation over 36 months; and
A maximum pension benefit equal to 100 percent of an employee’s working salary.

There are also some distinct differences that make it a more conservative pension plan than the State of California offers its employees, including proposals to raise the minimum retirement age from 50 to 55 and the retirement age for maximum pension benefits from 60 to 65.

I will also recommend that we no longer subsidize survivor benefits and that we eliminate the option of a lump sum cash out.

This recommendation does not affect pension benefits for current UC employees, or those hired between now and July 1, 2013 – only future employees.

The annual cost to UC and its future employees for this proposed new pension program is 15.1 percent of annual payroll, 2.5 percent lower than the 17.6 percent that our current UCRP pension program costs UC and its faculty and staff.

New employees and UC will together pay the full 15.1 percent cost of the new plan, with future faculty and staff contributing 7 percent of annual pay and UC paying 8.1 percent.

I think this is a very fair and balanced approach, and one that, if adopted by the Regents, will allow UC’s retirement benefits to continue to be an important component in attracting and retaining excellent faculty and staff.

Although the new pension tier would affect future employees, I will also recommend changes to our retiree health program that will directly affect current faculty and staff.

Most notably, I will propose that the Regents adopt in full the recommendations from the Post-Employment Benefits Task Force on changes to our retiree health program including:

Reduce UC’s contribution to retiree health premiums over time to a floor of 70 percent;
Change retiree health care eligibility rules, effective July 2013, so that UC’s contributions to retiree health care premiums are offered on a graduated scale based on years of service and employee age at retirement;
Allow faculty and staff to remain under the current retiree health care eligibility rules if, on July 1, 2013, they have five years of UCRP service credit and their age and years of UC service together equal 50 or greater.

I will also recommend a course of action to erase the UC Retirement Plan’s $12.9 billion unfunded liability.

One of the most important components of that plan requires UC to increase its annual contributions to the UCRP by 2 percent per year, until UC is contributing roughly 20 percent of annual payroll to UCRP.

There is no question that without state funding support, it will be difficult for UC to find the resources necessary to contribute such a large amount to the UCRP each year. But given the size of our current unfunded pension liability, it is essential that we find a way to do so.

Although the state has not yet agreed to pay its share of the UCRP, we have made some important strides on that issue this year, and we will continue to press our case in Sacramento. In the meantime, we must take sensible action now to address our unfunded liability.

The Regents will hear and discuss my proposals at their board meeting in November, and will possibly take action at a special meeting in December. The full details on my recommendation will be contained in a Regents item that will be available in early November.

In closing, I want to thank you for your thoughtful input and suggestions on these difficult issues. And I encourage you to stay involved. Together we are doing the hard work that is essential to preserving this great institution.

With best wishes, I am,

Sincerely yours,
Mark G. Yudof

"Three Things About Islam" youtube video

2010-09-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

This post is about the Quran, specifically a viral youtube video about how "evil" the Quran is. I am a christian, not a muslim. Since I am not a religious scholar, I probably misunderstand some things about every religion. What follows is my opinion.

--------------------------------

There are a billion and a half muslims in the world; maybe you are a muslim, maybe not. regardless of what you or I think of their book, most muslims are not terrorists, and are not trying to take over our government or create sharia law. So our options, as a society, are
1. fight against all muslims and their religion
or
2. figure out a way to stop killing each other

I think most Muslims and Christians -- and others as well -- prefer option 2.

Whoever made that video obviously thinks the Quran is evil. Well, even if this were true, what is your solution?
Should we fight a war against all 1.57 billion people who call themselves muslim (ignoring that fact that almost all of them live normal, peaceful lives, and that many of them are part of our society and even military)?
Do you think 1.57 billion muslims will watch that video and magically abandon their religion?

Right now, I teach many Iranian students. They grew up in a theocracy, being told America is "evil." Now, they tell me, the young people of Iran are muslim, but do NOT want sharia or ayatollahs. Many students have told me they love America, that it's the best place to be muslim, because the government doesn't control or interfere with religion. They do not choose to live in a place with a religious government.

Are they lying? Is this a spy network of taqiyya, as the video warns?

-----------------------------------------

It makes sense that the youtube propaganda video is trying "to inform non-muslims," because muslims would know the things it says are not true.

Now, according to that video about the Quran, all muslims want a religious government -- but I've met and taught many of them, and they do not want religious government at all. Students from Arab muslim countries generally do not like their own government. Of course, only 20% of muslims are Arab; governments of Turkey and Indonesia are a different story. These two countries are almost entirely muslim, and now have strong democracies. Fundamentalist political parties exist, but do not get many votes in either country. Turkey is constitutionally secular -- their separation of church and state is even stronger than in the U.S.

The video presents a ridiculous version of "taqiyya"; in the Quran (chapter 16 verse 106), taqiyya was for muslims who live under governments that would kill them for their main beliefs (called "pillars," see below). Muslims are supposed to profess faith, but are parmitted to deny their religion while being tortured or threatened. For centuries this has been a minor theological issue, used specifically by Shia muslims living under Sunni governments, and vice-versa; it was also used by muslims in authoritarian christian countries, such as Spain after 1492.

Taqiyyah does not permit muslims to lie in an effort to spread islam. That was in the video but was NEVER part of muslim theology or practice (Shafique 2007).

Overall, I disagree with that video about the Quran. It makes me angry. It looks professional, but the information is deceptive, different from what I have read and what muslims have told me. Somebody is intentionally making videos with false information.

--------------------------------------------------------

So the passage written later takes precedence? Take a look at these verses -

verses from the beginning of the Quran:

Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last Day and do righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. (2:62)
O People of the Book! Let us rally to a common formula to be binding on both us and you: That we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, lords and patrons other than God. (3:64)

verse from the middle of the Quran:

O ye who believe! Be ye helpers of God: As said Jesus the son of Mary to the Disciples, "Who will be my helpers to (the work of) God?" Said the disciples, "We are God's helpers!" then a portion of the Children of Israel believed, and a portion disbelieved: But We gave power to those who believed, against their enemies, and they became the ones that prevailed. (61:14)

verse from the end of the Quran:

Then shall anyone who has done an atom's weight of good, see it!
And anyone who has done an atom's weight of evil, shall see it. (99:7-8)

All of these verses build up similar ideas. There are dozens more like this, they can't be superceded because the ideas are repeated later!

On the other hand, yes the Quran has contradictions. The video is right about that. And it's certainly not all peace and love. Violent verses throughout the Quran, like these:

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (9:5)

Those who reject the Book and the (revelations) with which We sent our messengers: but soon shall they know, When the yokes round their necks, and the chains; they shall be dragged along- In the boiling fetid fluid: then in the Fire shall they be burned; Then shall it be said to them: "Where are the (deities) to which ye gave part-worship- In derogation of God?" (40:70-74)

----------------------------------------

The video is talking about "naskh," which is one possible theory from islamic theology. Naskh can be translated to English as "abrogate," which is when a judge claims a previous ruling is no longer valid.
Naskh is based on a real verse of the Quran:

None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that God Has power over all things? (2:106)

Some islamic scholars (Tabari) theorized that Satan had caused interference in the transcription or interpretation of God's will (based on Quran 22:52). For example, there was supposedly a verse of the Hadith (the list of "sayings," not part of the Quran) about stoning people to death for adultery. For a long time scholars have interpreted this verse as of questionable origin. They think Mohammad never said this - they think a human or Satan chose to lie and pretend Mohammad said this. Tabari wrote that Satan could interfere and create conflict with verses, which contradicts God's will in the Quran.

Quran chapter 24 says male and female adulterers must be whipped 100 times unless they repent and ask God's forgiveness. Now, to me this is a horrible idea. I do not advocate whipping. My point is, whipped 100 times is not that same a death by stoning - so for centuries there has been controversy about it. This is why today, most muslim countries do NOT follow the saying about stoning. Even many fundamentalist muslims think stoning is unholy - not because they believe in women's rights, but just because of how they interpret the words.

Other scholars interpret naskh as referring to the previous, "imperfect" versions of God's word. Specifically, the Torah and the Bible. They claimed it was not that the Torah or Bible were wrong, or that their followers were "Satanic"; they instead said those books contain God's word, but also interference from bad interpreters or even from Satan. this interference caused people to believe imperfectly. In contrast, the Quran says that the Quran is a more accurate version of God's will. Unusual for a religious holy book, the Quran admits (within chapter 2 and 22) that even the Quran can contain errors.

The theory used in that youtube video is that the HIGHEST number takes precedence. However, this is not a popular theory among muslims. The biggest problem is the the order they were written is not the same as the order they were put in, or the order they were "revealed" in.

The bigger problem with the video's theory is that dominant muslim theology interprets Quran 2:106 as referring to the MAIN BELIEFS or "pillars" of the religion. So in controversies or contradictions, whatever verse is closer to the main beliefs takes precedence. God would "substitute" the more important verse. Not the higher number. I asked several muslims, they have never heard of anyone using the "higher number" idea.

-----------------------------------------------

In my non-muslim opinion, this DOES come down to interpretation, and it IS similar to the contradictions in other religious books. Just because some guy made a video about the Quran doesn't mean all muslims agree with his idea of what their religion is. Obviously, Muslims don't even agree with each other about the contradictions. "Jihad" is important to some muslims, but is not a pillar for any muslim; the majority of muslims learn and believe that jihad is generally internal, and means "spiritual self-perfection" (Brockopp 2003, p. 99).

Muslims who say jihad is violent and aggressive are a big problem for America and the rest of the world. Muslim terrorists are very few, but they do horrible things. Moderate muslims have not done enough to fight against these extremists. However, calling Islam "evil" does not help this situation at all.

Sunni and Shia (and groups within each!) have their own versions of the sayings. But in all cases, there are only a few core beliefs. Here is my outsider summary of these pillars:

For Sunni Muslims (the majority of Muslims), the beliefs/pillars are

profess faith
pray to God
fast during Ramadan
give generously to charity
visit Mecca once

For Shia Muslims (maybe 15% of Muslims?), the pillars are

believe in God
believe in the day of judgement, when
Jesus will return and defeat the antichrist
everyone will be judged by the good and evil deeds
believe in Noah, Moses, Abraham, Jesus, and finally Muhammad
believe in the 12 Shia imams
practice justice in thought, word, and action

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:58:07 -0400

From: ________@_______
To:
Subject: If you read only ONE e-mail today - THIS is it. (UNCLASSIFIED)

This is a little long, but take the time to LISTEN. It's important for our survival
If you read only ONE e-mail today - THIS is it.>
Check this one out, it will shock
you.....................................(Hopefully)

A group calling themselves "White Roses" created a video to inform non-Muslims about Islam.
The name of this video is "Three Things About Islam".
White Roses is headquartered in Sweden. This first version is in English.
The name "White Roses" is based on a student resistance group "Die weiße >Rose" in Nazi Germany.
The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, from June 1942 until February 1943,
which called for active opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime.

PLEASE view this video. TWICE.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9rofXQl6w&feature=player_embedded
>
>
> (NOTE: If you're at work, send this to your home computer)

Value-Added Modeling is not sufficient.

2010-08-31T23:53:00.000-07:00

re: the la times sensationalist expose' series on value-added modeling of LAUSD teacher "effectiveness"

this is a report by eva baker, linda darling-hammond, and many others. necessary context for those newspaper articles.

http://epi.3cdn.net/b9667271ee6c154195_t9m6iij8k.pdf

"Nonetheless, there is broad agreement among statisticians, psychometricians, and economists that student test scores
alone are not sufficiently reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness to be used in high-stakes personnel decisions,
even when the most sophisticated statistical applications such as value-added modeling are employed.
-
"For a variety of reasons, analyses of VAM results have led researchers to doubt whether the methodology can accurately
identify more and less effective teachers. VAM estimates have proven to be unstable across statistical models, years, and
classes that teachers teach. One study found that across five large urban districts, among teachers who were ranked in
the top 20% of effectiveness in the first year, fewer than a third were in that top group the next year, and another third
moved all the way down to the bottom 40%. Another found that teachers’ effectiveness ratings in one year could only
predict from 4% to 16% of the variation in such ratings in the following year. Thus, a teacher who appears to be very
ineffective in one year might have a dramatically different result the following year. The same dramatic fluctuations were
found for teachers ranked at the bottom in the first year of analysis. This runs counter to most people’s notions that the true
quality of a teacher is likely to change very little over time and raises questions about whether what is measured is largely
a “teacher effect” or the effect of a wide variety of other factors...
-
"Evaluation by competent supervisors and peers, employing such approaches, should form the foundation of
teacher evaluation systems, with a supplemental role played by multiple measures of student learning gains that,
where appropriate, could include test scores. Some districts have found ways to identify, improve, and as necessary,
dismiss teachers using strategies like peer assistance and evaluation that offer intensive mentoring and review panels.
"These and other approaches should be the focus of experimentation by states and districts.
-
Adopting an invalid teacher evaluation system and tying it to rewards and sanctions is likely to lead to inaccurate
personnel decisions and to demoralize teachers, causing talented teachers to avoid high-needs students and schools, or
to leave the profession entirely, and discouraging potentially effective teachers from entering it. Legislatures should not
mandate a test-based approach to teacher evaluation that is unproven and likely to harm not only teachers, but also the
children they instruct."

racism, capitalism, libertarianism

2010-06-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

[re: Ann Wortham meme about Obama]
Well, I disagree with almost every claim in that article. First of all, the author is a strange "libertarian." Ann Wortham wrote a book claiming government should not make laws about racism.

In her book, Wortham defended the right of business owners to discriminate against African Americans, or women, or the handicapped. She thinks the Civil Rights Act was unfair interference with businesses. In 1981, Wortham specifically defended "Lester Maddox, the owner of the Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, who armed himself with a pistol and pick handle and ordered blacks to get off his property." ( http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/a-reviewers-notebook-the-other-side-of-racism/ )

So basically, she wants "liberty" for owners, but she opposes liberty for customers. She thought Black citizens should never have protested at Woolworth's counters. She wanted them to only "boycott" (how do you boycott a business that won't let you buy anything?). Maybe that's what she would recommend we do about BP today. After all, they're a private business. Let's just boycott BP gasoline, and the spill will magically fix itself.

Wortham imagined a wall between government discrimination and private discrimination. This was a basic misunderstanding of Jim Crow racism in 1950s America: in the small towns of the South, local government and local business owners worked together. Often they were run by the same white racists. As of today, the civis rights movement was only partially successful. Restaurants serve people of every race, but schools do not give equal resources to kids of every race. (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/equal_funding.html )

---------------------

It is true that 94% of Black voters chose Obama. But this is almost the same as in 2000, when 90% of Black voters chose Al Gore, or in 1984, when 90% of black voters chose Dukakis (note: Gore and Dukakis appear to be white). Wortham is lying, with deceptive statistics. In general, more poor people vote democratic, a higher percentage of Black people are poor, and more Blacks vote democratic. For comparison, most middle-class voters are white; the middle-class often votes republican, so most middle-class whites always vote for a white man, but this does not prove they are "racist." It proves you can manipulate statistics.

The 2008 election was not much different from usual. Yes, compared to previous elections, some people voted for Obama just because he's black: there was a 4% increase in the percentage of Black support, which equals 0.5% of total voters.

0.5%? Are you serious? Obama's margin of victory was much higher than that. A more likely culprit may be people under 30 - 66% of them voted for Obama, the highest percentage of any candidate since 1976. Young people have more invested in the future than old people, so Obama's message of "hope" was probably appealing (especially after 8 years of messages about fearing terrorists, immigrants, and gay people).

Also, notice Wortham claims "94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted... to play the race card," but in fact, Black turnout was at 65% - which is better than usual, but is obviously not the same as 100% which Wortham erroneously believes. Again, voter turnout is generally lower for poor people, so since a higher percentage of Black people are poor, their turnout is also lower. This does not mean poor people are unpatriotic, of course. Poor people often deal with irregular work schedules and unstable living situations, which makes voting more difficult (this is not my excuse for them, I want everyone to vote - but you must admit that when voting information arrived at your correct address, and you have time to register or wait in line, voting is more convenient). (http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805063897 )

Wortham is grossly generalizing and stereotyping Black people. Somehow, she alone magically knows why they voted - how can someone ever know how someone else voted a certain way? Even polls which ask this question are notoriously unreliable. Voting is private, people say one reason when they really have another. But no, Wortham did not even ask voters. She is making a racist assumption: that if a Black person votes for Obama, it must be because of race? This is ridiculous. Just like it would be ridiculous to claim that White people who voted for McCain did it because of race. In both cases, a few people based their decision on race, but not enough to decide an election.

And this brings me to McCain. In her entire essay about the election, Wortham never once mentions the Republican candidate. She mentions many other political figures ("Jimmie" Carter, Ron Paul, McGovern, Greenspan, Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy) but cannot bring herself to say McCain's name. Why would this be? After all, if a Black person (or a white "progressive") were to vote against Obama, it would have been for the Republican candidate. She, of course, made an irrelevant protest vote for Paul. Paul, a candidate not even the republican party liked, a candidate not on the ballot, a candidate who was not nominated by any political party.

This reveals much of the explanation she is deliberately hiding. Many republicans did not like McCain. Many women did not like McCain (55% of women voted for Obama). Many white people did not like McCain (43% of whites voted for Obama).
Most surprisingly, 41% of white males voted for Obama - this is the highest percentage of white males a democrat has won since 1976. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1083335/Breakdown-demographics-reveals-black-voters-swept-Obama-White-House.html )

Most libertarians did not like McCain. Not even Wortham liked McCain! So in Wortham logic, in order to prove they were not playing the race card, Black voters would have to choose a candidate she herself could not vote for. She is distorting the circumstance to create a racist impression of how Obama won. Obama won among women, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, whites under 30, Jewish Americans, Catholics, rich people, and poor people, while among men, Obama and McCain tied. Americans chose Obama, period. This was not drawn along imaginary racial battle lines. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

I have sympathy for third-party voters, I voted for Ralph Nader instead of Gore. No, I did not choose Nader because of race. I chose Nader for the same reason I chose Obama: Obama was clearly the best candidate on the ballot.

(I am white. So Wortham claims that proves I voted for Obama because he doesn't look like me. What does that even mean? Is she so simplistic that she thinks all my decisions are based on looks? Wait a second, Obama is half white, so maybe I voted for Obama because I only vote for white people? My point is, this is a ridiculous game.)

-------------

The last point I want to make is about capitalism. A lot of conservatives like to accuse Obama of being communist or socialist. Conservatives want to call the new healthcare law socialism, even though it will be fully serviced by private companies; they do so at the same time that they yell "keep your hands off my medicare." The truth is, medicare is socialized medicine, while the new healthcare law is not. So according to conservatives' logic, anyone who loves medicare is also a socialist. The truth is, all the new law really does is add some regulation to an industry where one or two companies control most of the market in many states. I see Obama as erring (unfortunately) on the side of corporations, because I have more personal knowledge of over-reaching corporations than of over-reaching government. This is debatable, but back to my point:

We have seen insurance corporations ration care, interfering between doctors and patients.
We have seen banks manipulate homeowners and investors with immoral and manipulative investments.
We have seen petroleum corporations falsify safety documents and destroy seafood and tourism industries.

Only corporate lackeys like Joe Barton (R-Texas) can look at the current state of corporations are say BP needs less regulation. Barton apologizes to BP for requiring them to pay for damages. After all, they are a privately owner corporation. But lack of regulation hurts people every day. If you are poor, you are vulnerable to corporate lawyers and accountants, who give you financial documents which are intentionally misleading. If you are an independent businessperson, perhaps with a shrimping boat, you are vulnerable to corporate polluters and their disdain for the earth we all share.

I support freedom for individuals, regardless of race, creed, gender, or handicap. Wortham's definition of freedom only applies to businesses, and I disagree completely. I never declared "capitalism is dead." I never heard Obama say this, and I think it sounds crazy - our economic system is capitalist, the thousands of corporations in the US are capitalists. There are thousands of small business who have already benefitted from Obama's development and green technology initiatives and tax breaks. Is there even such a thing as a "socialist business"? People who talk about that all the time are fighting a straw man. Nobody is turning the United States into a socialist or communist organization, anyone who claims that is trying to sell something. For example, Glenn Beck is trying to sell you something:
"I could give a flying crap about the political process... We're an entertainment company." (http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/building-an-empire-glenn-beck-makes-32m-a-year.php )

I support Beck's right to sell entertainment. We are a free society. but I oppose his slander against the President. Without evidence, he regularly says Obama is a new Hitler, and is a communist. Never mind that Hitler murdered all the communists, and murdered everyone who was mixed race like Obama. Obama has not nationalized our industries (even in the case of Wall Street crime, when there were strong reasons to do so, Obama preserved the free market structure), and corporations are all privately controlled. Obama is not fighting capitalism. He is not "destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth," as Wortham wrote on November 6, 2008, months before Obama even took office. See, Wortham could do this because she did not need evidence. Evidence is for suckers. She just had a feeling (i.e., "truthiness").

Capitalism without regulation is anarchy. I am not a socialist and I am not an anarchist. I am an American who wants greater freedom for people. I place people ahead of institutions. Katrina's broken levees were evidence of bad government; BP's oil spill is evidence of bad corporations. Big corporations and government can both be harmful. We must watch them both, as we the people protect our interests. We must investigate BP and the Minerals Management Service. (http://www.mms.gov/DeepwaterHorizon.htm )

I am not happy or oblivious, and I hold Obama to a high standard. I press him to make the right decisions. About ending the wars, repairing education and our economy, and protecting the environment for future generations.

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:04:24 -0400
From:
To:
Subject: God help us all

She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association.
She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

In fall 1988 she was one of a select group of intellectuals who were featured in Bill Moyer's television series, "A World of Ideas." The transcript of her conversation with Moyers has been published in his book, A World of Ideas.

Dr. Wortham is author of "The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness" which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues.

She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality.

Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004, she was awarded tenure.

This article by her is really something!

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America .

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .

Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them.

I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University 's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that a man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.

So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.

There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness. God Help Us all.
(online source for this essay: http://moneyrunner.blogspot.com/2009/05/anne-wortham-on-election-of-barack.html )

2010-06-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15256386

Mexico blasts fatal shooting by Border Patrol agent

Rock throwing led to teenager's death, US says

By Daniel Borunda and Maggie Ybarra / El Paso Times

Posted: 06/08/2010 10:38:18 PM MDT
...

U.S. authorities said [15-year-old Sergio Adrián] Hernandez was part of a group throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents who were trying to detain two men who had illegally crossed the border near the Paso del Norte Bridge in Downtown El Paso.

[actually, this information was false. it turned out they only tried to detain teenagers, not adults. and "None were carrying backpacks or appeared to have weapons... While holding down one of the Mexican boys, this agent fired shots toward Mexico." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256604575294950172855306.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ]

[photo: this part of the Rio Grande is small, so they put a double 12-foot barbwire fence (top right of bridge photo, close-up below) that prevents entry into the U.S. in the photo, the boy's dead body is not anywhere near the fence, and not even in the riverbed. click to enlarge.]

Chihuahua state police said the boy died on the Mexican side of the border from one gunshot wound to the head. A .40-caliber casing was seized by [Chihuahua state] investigators.

[that shell was near the body, not near the fence. http://www.orovillemr.com/news/ci_15250967]

...

[Bobbie] McDow, a U.S. citizen, ... said she called 911 in El Paso and has since spoken with the FBI.

She said the man who made the throwing motion was not the one who was shot. She said the man who was shot was on the Mexican side of the border.

"Where he was clearly on the Mexican side when he got shot," she said...

[Hernandez's mother "said he ran and hid underneath one of the bridge's pillars upon hearing gunfire." http://www.orovillemr.com/news/ci_15250967 ]

Border Patrol agents have said that rock attacks have become frequent and can be deadly.

[however, no agent was injured by the dead boy or any other boy by the bridge. No agent has ever died from a thrown rock. on the other hand, many people have died from being shot, especially if they are shot twice:]

["The agent and the teenager 'had four seconds to look at each other' before the young man was shot, first in the shoulder and then in the head, he said." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256604575294950172855306.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ]

[how did the shell casing end up south of the Rio Grande? it's against the law for a U.S. border patrol agent to cross the border without permission, but this man may have actually been inside Mexico while he shot that Mexican boy, who was also in Mexico. If true, the agent could be extradicted to Mexico and imprisoned for murder. http://www.orovillemr.com/news/ci_15250967 ]

regulating accents

2010-05-25T00:09:00.000-07:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html

in the mid 1800s when arizona was "acquired," 2/3 of population was native american. therefore, the traditional "accent" of arizona is a native american accent.
half the white people in phoenix were born in a different state. they speak outsider dialects, including new york english, chicago english, and valley-girl.
of course, most evaluators hired by the state speak a white, outsider variety of english. they all have accents, because everyone has some sort of accent.
the question is, which accent will get you fired?

Lippi-Green, Rosina (1997). English with an Accent. http://www.amazon.com/English-Accent-Language-Ideology-Discrimination/dp/0415114772

the answer is obvious: accents associated with immigrants from mexico or other latino countries will get you fired (never mind that arizona actively recruited hundreds of teachers from mexico, and convinced them to move to the state years ago).

this new law is not about knowledge of the language - there was already a state requirement that english teachers speak english fluently, and understand english grammar. the new law is redundant except for the pronunciation/accent provision.

in kentucky, in elementary school, i was taught by competent english teachers with heavy kentucky accents. people of los angeles or new hampshire would have a very hard time understanding them. however, the teachers were completely comprehensible to us, the students. that's because we were part of the same language community. everyone has an accent, and every accent can be understood within its language community.

it is true that in the past 50 years, midwest english has become privileged in national contexts. midwest english is now spoken by media and political figures in major cities of most states. the rich and powerful know this dialect. however, learning this accent does not guarantee riches.

midwest english is not useful to children in other parts of the country, therefore it is not spoken by them. and it is especially not spoken by ESL students, whose communities are not rich, and are more likely to speak, say, chicano english.

here in los angeles, my ESL students frequently use the words "like" (as an interjection and filler word), "hot," "dude," and "yuh" (which means "yes"). they use these words way too much. but then again, that's just my opinion, and i don't speak the local dialect. believe it or not, in LA english, it makes sense to use those words all the time. it makes sense to use the word "the" in front of every highway name. and it makes sense to inflect declarative sentences as if they were questions (for comparison, teenagers who do this in texas get labeled as stupid).

even though british english is foreign to arizona, you know they will not reprimand or remove any of their british teachers. because this is not really about accent. it is legislation aimed at race and immigration status, part of a sad pattern in arizona.

surviving AERA

2010-05-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

i went to a big conference, of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). it was tiring and overwhelming, i don't know how many people were there. tens of thousands. it's the one everyone says we (grad students) have to present papers at - so i presented a paper.

met great people, learned and partied with them. saw carol lee shake her groove thing.

i submitted the same paper last year, but it was rejected. so i fixed the things reviewers didn't like, and this year they accepted it. appreciate criticism.

by the way, AERA finally has an opinion about something.
education is part of our world. how did they make it through the 20th century without any "political" opinions (eugenics, fascism, genocide, internment camps, mccarthyism, jim crow, voter literacy tests, brown v. board, nclb, etc.)?

my title:
Undocumented Paradox: Activist Immigrants and the California Dream Act

my abstract:

IDEAS is UCLA’s undocumented student support group. My ethnography follows our planning of a conference on immigrant rights legislation. How do undocumented immigrants engage politically? This conference responded to opponents - Schwarzenegger had expressed sympathy, but vetoed legislation; ICE deported families; schools said “you’re not even supposed to be here” and seized merit scholarships, regardless of academic excellence. Students struggled with rent and tuition, so financial workshops were developed for our conference. Though politically influential, these activist immigrants cannot vote. “What sense does it make to keep them disenfranchised?” Against odds, IDEAS members succeed at UCLA by emulating Freirean ideals. IDEAS’ political engagement is unique in student leadership. These “illegal” American college students contest nativist versions of the American Dream.

my PowerPoint (with no speaking or music; i recommend los dynamite):
undocumented_paradox.ppt

thanking the adjuncts?

2009-11-28T11:25:00.000-08:00

I appreciate the general point of Hanson's title: adjuncts (like me) deserve more credit. But this article seems less about thanksgiving than about his beef with tenured professors and student protesters.

He accuses us (the student protesters) of not caring about injustice, and slaims we should not be protesting tuition hikes." Long-term, tuition increases will push poor and middle-class students out of UC; the only poor students at UC will be those few who get a generous scholarship. That shift is what we mean when we say it will be like a private university. In protest, we exercise our first amendment right to speech and assembly. Thank you, Mr. Hanson, for describing it as a "riot." I guess students should pay whatever the state and university ask, and if we can't afford it, we don't deserve an education.

I am a TA at a UC, and an adjunct at SMC. Compared to low-wage workers at Wal-Mart or foodservice, I am paid very well - several times the minimum wage. Compared to full professors or Victor Davis Hanson, I am very underpaid.

Maybe that sucks, but wage inequality is a dominant feature of every capitalist society. So I should not be surprised (fun fact: the highest-paid professors are actually at private Ivy League universities, public research universities try to compete with them).

Hanson's gratitude is insincere. He is criticizing all of higher education as "liberal," so in his mind, all of us who are exploited by "the administrative elite" are propping up a corrupt system, right? Hanson would perhaps prefer we all quit, then every public college would shut down. Then he would have his revenge on the priesthood of tenured professors.

The only colleges left would be the private universities. Without interference from unfairly subsidized public systems, private organizations could let the market decide how much education costs, and how much profit to earn from us. Then, just get the government out of the student loan business, so loan sharks (i.e., Bank of America) can set interest rates. We will have a perfect system to serve every wealthy family in America. And the uneducated masses can forever work for Wal-Mart, where they should be thrilled to get $8 per hour.

While many tenured professors (even in social sciences!) do great work, I fully agree that the tenure system is messed up. I have worked with professors and admins who suck; on the other hand, there are bad lecturers, TAs, and students, too. Sure, some professors' research is irrelevant, but a lot of it is at least as valuable as anything published in the National Review.

Anyway, we were actually protesting the UC Regents' meeting. The regents are the ones who set policy for hiring, pay, research, services, and tuition. Professors and administrators don't control this. Unfortunately for the National Review, regents do not fit their profile of leftist academics. Regents are the kings of the private sector: bankers, CEOs, real estate speculators, and lawyers, as well as politicians (they get the job by giving about $300,000 to the governor). Regents and politicians built the current system. If Hanson has a grievance or wants a change, it makes sense to talk to the regents or legislature, instead of vaguely complaining about snooty professors.

Academics did not bankrupt our state. I think bankers, real estate speculators, and politicians deserve the thanks for that.

Kip Austin Hinton

-----Original Message-----
From: JIM
Sent: Fri 11/27/2009 1:38 PM
To: FACULTY_ADJUNCT
Subject: Thanks to the forgotten part-time teacher

Here's a Thanksgiving article for all of you from an unlikely source.

Jim
Soon-to-be former Adjunct Faculty member

***

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDRjMTgxMjlkZGU5YjE5YTI0NjUwZmQ5MmE0YjRiZWQ=

Thanks to the forgotten part-time teacher
Victor Davis Hanson

Last week within about an hour, I got a form email from a UC administrator deploring California's cuts to higher education, asking for money, and pleading for support for the university-even as You Tube was airing the UCLA student protests over tuition hikes.

.which got me to thinking. The students, of course, have no answers to the problems of California that sees some 3,500 professionals and the well-paid leaving the state each week, since our officials cannot explain why-with the nation's highest state income, gasoline, and sales taxes-we have among the nation's worst infrastructure, schools, and educated populaces.

If the students were really worried about injustice in the CSU and UC systems, they would not be protesting tuition hikes that will still not result in their educations even approaching the costs at private colleges. Nor would UC administrators be swarming the internet and emails systems warning that cuts will hurt their tenured faculty and research.

Instead the dirty secret in California is that at JC, CSU, and UC campuses, nearly half of the instruction offered-whether calibrated in the total number of students in classes, or by the number of courses listed or by the number of those employed-is taught by non-tenure-track lecturers, TAs, and part-time faculty.

If one were to compare that cost per unit with instruction by regular tenured faculty for often essentially the same work, the exploitation makes any in the private sector mild in comparison. Wal-Mart is saintly in employment practices in comparison with CSU.

An English 1A class taught by a TA or part-timer might service 30 students at a cost of $4,000 to 5,000 in instructional fees; an upper-division required course for the major, with 10 students, like "The Construction of Manhood in Blake" taught by a full professor might run the university $25,000. Part-timers might make $35,000 without benefits for juggling together 5-7 classes at different campuses, while tenured professors might make well over $100,000 for teaching 4-6 courses with full facilities, benefits, and support.

The problem is that all the old justifications for such wide imbalances-tenured faculty advising, publication, intangible college governance-don't wash any more, at least in the case of the humanities and social sciences-not when TAs, lecturers and part-timers often have PhDs, and are as good or better teachers than full professors, while the scholarship of the affluently tenured, especially in the humanities and social sciences, is either irrelevant or unreadable, while their teaching is not subject to the same scrutiny or consequences as part-time evaluations.

So next time students nearly riot at UCLA, the angst should be on behalf of a near majority of their faculty who are paid a pittance of what an elite makes for nearly the same sort of work.

The fact is that the students are subsidized by the bankrupt state. The governing administrative elite and cohort of tenured professors are, in turn, subsidized by tens of thousands of mostly unknown, exploited part-timers. The latter each day in California teach hundreds of thousands of college students at JC, CSU, and UC at a fraction of the wage that a tiny priesthood receives for essentially the same job.

So on Thanksgiving Day, give thanks to the part-timers and temps who keeps the liberal system of higher education running by the very illiberal treatment they receive.

Memmi

2009-11-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

"France, a rich and geographically accessible country, has had people come to it from every corner of the globe. Many have immigrated and successfully found a home here, despite efforts to the contrary by the native population... In France, four and a half million foreigners have come from the Maghrab, from sub-Saharan Africa, from Yugoslavia, Spain, and Italy..." (Memmi, p. 10)

"Similarly, the Americans, a mixture of people from everywhere, are second to none for the beauty of their babies, the creativity of their intellectuals, the know-how of their technicians and their business executives. Thus, the lesson is obvious: If we would maintain our superiority, we msut defeat purity and ensure adulteration by others." (p. 15)

"I would instead reaffirm that there really does not exist a colonial relationship in whch racism is not only present but intimately linked to that relation." (p. 35)

"they have always been convinced that the colonized should thank them for having taken the trouble to devote themselves to the well-being of such poor, inferior people!" (p. 38)

pointless thoughts on trackpad design

2009-09-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

to: hp customer service
from: kip austin hinton
subject: why are hp trackpads on the left side of the computer?

i have a dv5000 (made in 2006). the trackpad is centered, equal distance from the left and right sides of the computer. all older models i have found had their trackpads centered.

i was thinking of a new laptop. but on your website, all the models i'm interested in have the trackpad on the left side. i don't mean slightly to the left - one edge of the trackpad lines up precisely with the center, and 100% of the trackpad is to the left of that edge. at bestbuy, it was very awkward for me to reach and use the new hp trackpads, because i am right handed (fun fact: the majority of humans are right handed). to be specific: i type with my right fingers on the right side of the keyboard, so if i want to push the "enter" or "delete" button, i use my right hand, never my left hand; if i plug in a mouse, i place that mouse on the right side of the computer, never on the left side.

so a few questions -

1. are you primarily marketing your laptops toward left-handers?

2. with the new laptops, how long will my right wrist last before i develop carpal tunnel?

3. seriously, can i special order a laptop with the trackpad on the right side?

zora in a coma

2008-03-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

in 1994, at ohio state university, i learned two important things: the depth of african american writers, and website design. the internet was still very young. most content was for tech nerds, the military-industrial complex, and usenet communities (dinosaurs left over from 1979). email, back then, required a program called eudora. and file-sharing required an archaic protocol called gopher.
-

i was studying literature. and realized that unless you were interested in the core canon of white male english-speaking authors -- shakespeare, dickens, whitman, frost, twain, hemingway (and lessers like bradbury, clarke, orwell, and asimov, who did science fiction, favored by those tech nerds) -- the "world wide web" (it was called by all three names then) was not for you.
-
in this context, an african studies professor at ohio state taught us about zora neale hurston, a black woman who wrote books in the 1930s. in the 1930s, if you were a rich white male in america, literature was a reasonable career choice. if you were not, it was foolhardy or even crazy. no black woman had ever made a living in literature (if anyone has evidence otherwise, please tell me).
-

zora neale hurston grew up in eatonville, a black-founded, black-run town in central florida. she judged her ability based on her achievement in an environment of equal opportunity. once she left her hometown, her confidence was strong enough to weather the criticism and racism that came her way. and her books, they sure sound confident. she's audacious, funny, agressive, intellectual, and emotional. she wrote in african american vernacular, she held up black folktale structures as equal to the western tradition (inspiring henry louis gates' theories). this all challenged the white literary establishment as well as the male-dominated harlem renaissance. she was praised by the legendary langston hughes and even co-wrote a play with him. who knows what happened next, because for years after, langston talked shit about her every chance he got.
-

zora lauded the creative initiative of black communities in florida, haiti, harlem, jamaica, alabama, and new orleans. she became a pan-african dissenter from african american politics. in 1955 she wrote an editorial opposed to school desegregation, and she claimed the path to success was separate and equal -- with equal money and well-trained teachers, black children (in her theory) would achieve more than in a classroom dominated by racist white students and teachers (fifty years after brown v. board of education, her fears proved true: black children today experience racial micro-agressions that build up and lead to higher dropout rates, low college admissions). feared by the republicans she supported, and ostracized by the democrats and socialists she criticized, she was zora faded into obscurity and poverty. she was buried in florida without a funeral or even a headstone.

-
so in 1995, i traveled with friends in florida to visit her grave. alice walker had placed a modest marker there. i wanted to share the joy of reading zora's trans-racial humanity, paradoxically integrated with black cultural wealth. in 1995, i built a website. to give a sense of how far back this was in internet-years: that website was hosted by prodigy, which gave subscribers 5mb of storage (for $24.99/month). (prodigy was slowly transitioning services from their proprietary dial-in system to a web-based connection that utilized netscape-style browsing. prodigy was also still fighting off an upstart called america online. i don't even know what year prodigy went extinct.)
-

it wasn't much, but at the time -- before corporate sites or google or online video even existed -- it was a beautiful fan website. if you'll tolerate me patting my own back, i did a good job. it filled a need, as zora neale hurston was hardly mentioned on any webpage. immediately, attention came. not in the form of institutions. zora was never about institutions.
-
i was emailed by dozens, later hundreds of individuals. people who had heard of zora from a friend, or an alice walker article, or a rare teacher, and sought more information. their libraries, they said, told them very little. their textbooks ignored her. richard wright and langston hughes claimed she was crazy. professor Horace Newsum and black studies librarian Lisa Pillow helped me gather information, which i typed and scanned for all the world to see. people on the internet, they mailed or emailed publications, photos, archival documents, which i incorporated into the site. it took many hours. i was developing my chernobyl honors thesis at the time, and working nights to pay for school. but little by little, the website grew.
-
in 1997 this zora neale hurston site was still the only one on the internet, and was receiving hundreds of hits a day. soon after, literature-centered corporate websites came to dominate - amazon, borders, barnes & noble. while university-based resources developed, filling the need for scholarly information to reach a mass audience. they hired many professionals to build content, of course, and their designers got much more fancy than i. there was less room for an independent site. still, a large community of students and fans exchanged ideas on my site's discussion board, and shared a large selection of user-created essays about zora.
-
interest in zora skyrocketed over the past decade. she was incorporated into high school textbooks, assigned in courses at hundreds of colleges, promoted by oprah winfrey. the height of interest was reached in and sustained since 2005, when oprah winfrey produced a tv version of their eyes were watching god, starring halle berry and introducing zora to millions.
-
i never arranged any kind of advertising placement, but i could almost pay the site's fees with the tiny commission i got by sending book customers to barnes & noble.

-
in 2007, barnes & noble terminated it's "affiliate" program for independent book fansites, closed my zora account and sent a check for $16 (largest check ever!). then last week, the company that hosted my web address (v3, it was called) went out of business and sold the domain rights to a new company. this meant the zora website, at i.am/zora, disappeared. not cool. so i emailed the new domain owners:

subject: i.am domain help
to: FortuneCity
08:19 AM 3/21/2008 -0700
-
i had an
account with a company that does not exist anymore.
you apparently now
control the domain: http://i.am/zora
-
i
know my account information, but your login screen does not offer my domain as
an option.
-
what should i do to re-activate my web forwarding account?
-
thank you - Kip Austin Hinton

they promptly responded:

subject: Re: i.am domain help
To: kip hinton
Friday, March 21, 2008 10:22:44 AM
-
Thank you for
your mail. We recently upgraded our web forwarding service but elected to stop
providing services under your domain.
-
We apologize for any
inconvenience this may have caused you. I suggest you try our new service and
choose from dozens of terrific short URLs including go.to/yourname and
come.to/yourname.
-
Regards
The FortuneCity Team
-
so my zora neale hurston website not only is out of service, it cannot be reactivated at it's established address. i.am no longer exists as a domain, no matter who i pay. it's listed under the established address on dozens of other websites, including the university and book corporation websites that marginalized it. zora's niece, publisher, and literary agent all refer people to my site. as of last week, they refer people to a dead end.
-
just like in the late 1990s, i'm busy these days. i don't know where to put the site, i don't know what name to find, whether i should buy my own domain. harpercollins owns the now popular zoranealehurston.com, with content much paralleling my own (much older) site. they do not have a discussion board or forum, though. this means there is little-to-no user content. it is very professional, but less democratic. should i offer my content to them?
should i offer it to ohio state's black studies website, or some other university organization? -
should i rebuild it on an independent domain name, to be determined?
(any suggestions?)
-
for now, my zora website is in a coma. for now, most of the content can be accessed at this less graceful address:
http://bridgeportdrafting.com/zora/
thanks to everyone who used the zora website over the past 12 years. thanks most of all to zora herself, "sharp n sassy" as they come.

texans voted for clinton. obama won texas.

2008-03-06T02:01:00.000-08:00

this is a good chart from the houston chronicle. it shows delegate counts. the relationship between counties, districts, votes, and delegates.
-
clinton wins some -
district 26 is san antonio, and it doesn't matter that clinton won, because the delegate count comes out as a tie (2 - 2).
district 27, east rio grande valley, clinton won by a landslide. but in the delegate count, she gets only a small advantage (2 - 1).
-
obama wins some -
district 13 is downtown houston, obama won in a landslide and gets a huge delegate advantage (5 - 2).
district 14 is austin, obama also gets a good advantage (5 - 3).
-
district 26 has about the same population as district 14. but in Austin, more people voted for a democrat two years ago. so they got a delegate bonus. the pattern extends throughout texas, and most of the districts turned out as close as district 26 or 27. this is a strange system, but it adds up to one thing.
-
clinton won a majority of the votes in about 90% of texas counties. very impressive. but with 254 counties, most of clinton's wins here are worth only a fraction of a delegate. and clinton lost most of the cities, which have delegate bonuses because they voted for democrats two years ago. what does this all mean? in the primary, texas is practically a tie:
clinton 63 delegates
obama 62 delegates
-
(there are supposedly 126 primary delegates. that means 1 primary delegate is left to assign from el paso or greater dallas, i think, and houston chronicle doesn't know who gets it yet, though other sources are guessing clinton.)
-
ok, on to the caucus.
-
obama is up comfortably in the caucus counts so far -
obama 23,009 (56%)
clinton 18,117 (44%)
-
40% of precints reporting by 3:00est march 6. what's taking them so long? the Super Tuesday caucuses reported within 2 hours, right? i asked this question to Karen Brooks, Dallas Morning News reporter:

"Kip - good question.
I can tell you that Texas caucuses have never, ever mattered until this time. So while Iowa, for example, are old hands at it and can zip right through the process, many of the 8,000 precinct chairs and organizers of the caucuses were first-timers. Practice makes perfect, you know?
Not to mention, most of the caucus-goers were first-timers, too - meaning they didn't know what to expect, and it took longer dealing with that.
Also, some of these caucuses last time had 10 people show up and this time, nearly 1,000 - so it took a lot longer than usual. Many of them didn't even wind up until after midnight.
We expect to have the numbers today.
Hope this helps!! -
Brooks"
[ http://trailblazers.beloblog.com/archives/2008/03/caucus-results-part-ii.html

ok, back to the votes. there are 67 total caucus delegates, and about 103,000 total caucus votes. so figure in plus/minus 3,100 votes (at 40% of total, based on a 3% margin of error - expecting differential delay in urban and far west precincts).
-
so here's my projected best-case-scenario for clinton -
obama 54,590 (53%)
clinton 48,410 (47%)
-
and my projected best-case-scenario for obama -
obama 60,770 (59%)
clinton 42,230 (41%)
-
texas caucus delegates are not awarded by district, they are all added together, then distributed proportionally to each candidate. so sticking with the most likely result of obama with 56%, here are the caucus delegates -
obama 37 delegates
clinton 30 delegates
-
so adding the delegates of the primary to those of the caucus, the texas totals (based on the Chronicle's math backed up by my own math) -
obama 100 delegates
clinton 92 delegates
-
the texas democratic party is using the same caucus estimate. but they disagree with the Chronicle about the primary, where they project clinton winning 65 delegates (but looking at the district map, i can't figure out a way to count this many delegates for her). the democratic party projects different delegate totals -
obama 98 delegates
clinton 95 delegates
[ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5596700.html ]
-
the point of all this accounting is that headlines reported clinton won texas. and by popular vote, she did. by almost 100,000 votes!
as the great loser al gore taught us, winning the popular vote ain't everything. obama won texas. combine obama's delegate advantage in texas with his 3 delegate advantage in vermont. it's obvious clinton didn't really make a dent, no matter her impressive 12 delegate advantage from ohio. obama additionally got 5 superdelegate commitments wednesday (according to the texas democratic party). total pledged and superdelegates:
obama 1,567
clinton 1,462
-
it is still mathematically possible for clinton to catch up and win. but to do this, she would need more than 75% of the votes in most pennsylvania districts. and before that, she must win in north carolina and mississippi (where almost half the democrats are black), oregon (where half the democrats are members of obama's facebook group), kentucky, west virginia. and puerto rico.
she'll get el puerto rico, no problem, que dios les bendiga.
-
but no matter what ads she runs, she can't win all of those states. and as long as the vote stays somewhere around 50/50 (even clinton's ohio win, at 54%, is fairly close), obama will probably enter the convention with a one hundred delegate lead. at that point, only the superdelegates could give it to clinton, and only by explicitly overriding the delegate total and the popular vote -- obama leads popular vote by a huge margin right now, 600,000. [http://www.newsweek.com/id/119010/page/1]
-
if clinton is going to reach 2,025, she must start her landslides immediately. there are 12 delegates in wyoming on saturday, and 33 in mississippi tuesday. if these two are blowouts, i will tip my hat to her.
but i'll still vote for someone else. no offense.

re: your feb 11 article about Obama fans being anti-Clinton

2008-02-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html
Hate Springs Eternal
'The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates are smart and appealing. Why, then, is there so much venom out there?'
-
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 11, 2008
-
... Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.
Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.
...most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.
...pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent...
-

to: Paul Krugman
re: your feb 11 article about Obama fans being anti-Clinton
-
Some interesting points, I agree that Clinton words are inappropriately (mis)read as evil. but i must disagree with your conclusion, where you plea for Clinton and Obama supporters to pledge support for whichever one wins. the thing is, i am not a member of the democratic party, i feel no investment in the party nominee.
-
i support Obama for reasons specific to his agenda. for the first time in my life, i've donated money and time to a candidate (i admit, i'm worried about feeling so connected to a politician, since they are by definition liars, but damn the torpedoes).
-
i do not hate the Clintons, i do not think they're evil. but at the same time, i do not support Hillary Clinton. i respect her, but do not find her "appealing." she has plans, yes. i simply am not impressed by bureaucratic skill or traditional political speeches. i cannot say who i will vote for if it becomes Clinton-McCain.
-
i understand that many Clinton supporters are devoted to the Democratic party. good for them.
-
i hope you understand that many Obama supporters are not necessarily members of your party (especially since the die-hard democrats signed up for Clinton so early). Obama voters are democrats, or socialists, or republicans, or independents - who don't care for the party divisions at all.
-
thanks for your time -

kip austin hinton
inglewood ca
kipito@yahoo.com

totino's ad campaign

2008-01-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

totino's ad campaign
-
okay, there are these commercials on TV about a thing called "totino's pizza rolls." apparently it is a very tiny hot pocket. the gimmick seems to be that kids can prepare this food themselves (not sure how this is any different from every other convenience food). of all the features these cubes have, the commercial focuses on taste as a selling point. obviously, frozen cubes of bleached white flour taste great no matter what.
-
so this kid microwaves a bag of these things, then serves them to his friends in the middle of the night. he warns they must be quiet, i guess to avoid waking his parents. but it turns out the cubes are so delicious his friends are unable to stay quiet. "i love totino's pizza rolls!" screams the first taster.
-
as screams erupt from everyone, the betrayed boy-chef expresses dismay at the punishment which will surely follow. oh, i jest. his parents will probably eat the cubes themselves after they come downstairs, then surely forgive him for the ruckus. they will warm their hands around the microwave and laugh heartily.
-
i am inspired to help totino's pizza rolls' inspirational project. here are three more totino's commercials submitted for your approval. i should warn you, my girlfriend thinks these are pointless and "not funny at all."
-
1. a musty funeral parlor, small town USA. old woman lies dead in casket. family stands nearby, many of them weeping. a table has tea and snacks. a suburban-looking american (wearing cargo pants and an abercrombie shirt) picks up one of the snacks and wanders next to the coffin. he chews the food and his eyes get big, as he knocks over the coffin screaming "i love totino's pizza rolls!"
-
2. rural italy, 1966. a group of old men are silent, gathered around a victrola radio, listening to a soccer game. the reception is unclear, but if you listen closely... suddenly the announcer gets louder. their team has a chance to score. the men rise from their seats, focused and silent. just as the announcer's is most excited, the suburban-looking american screams "i love totino's pizza rolls!" the old men did not hear the goal, so they pummel the american with their fists, screaming "baffanculo" as he holds his totino's box and weeps.
-
3. dark attic, berlin, 1942. a gaunt family, dressed in rags, huddles around a lantern. "shh" says the kerchiefed grandmother, pointing down. through cracks in floorboards, they see nazis below, walking through their house. the suburban-looking american quietly puts a square of food into his mouth, chews it, then screams "i love totino's pizza rolls!" gunfire erupts from below until the family lies dead. the suburban-looking american is bleeding a lot. he takes one last bite before dying, and whispers to the camera, "i... love... totino's..."

Christmas Carol Myth

2007-12-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

I just heard a recording of the story “A Christmas Golem,” by David Grimm. Worth checking out, for its ideas. “A Christmas Golem” is a disturbing take on the Christmas Carol redemption myth. I had never thought of it this way, and now the myth has been shifted forever.
-
Myths are stories groups of people use to explain who we are and what we believe. Myths do not have to be false – most myths are based on a historical truth and essential human forms of thought (Barthes, Levi-Strauss). Myths which are not related to actual people or events are usually related to actual behavior. They express and imitate the choices we make or the circumstances we find. The Christian Bible is very mythical, even (or especially) when the the stories have historical truth. These stories are myths for many reasons:

They were passed down by many people before they were ever written, and are shared by a group of people (if you are the only one who believes it, then it is not a myth yet)
They have a core narrative (plot) and morality that almost everyone interprets similarly (I don't mean everyone interprets everything in the Bible similarly, only these certain stories)
They have details and descriptions that everyone interprets differently
They can be re-interpreted in different media and context, yet keep the same core meaning.
The original people or events are less important than the meaings we now create for them – and we adjust those meanings to suit our own purposes

A Bible example: “Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors.” Most Christians have heard this story, but cannot name the chapter it appears in (Genesis, chapter 37 -- I had to look it up). And most Christians understand something of the moral behavior we’re supposed to learn from it. And the story can be represented in many different ways (a broadway play, a children’s coloring book) and still be easily recognized. And English-speaking Christians don’t care that the original Hebrew, “kethoneth passim,” probably meant “striped coat.” And everyone imagines and draws the colors of the coat in a slightly different way. The variations don’t matter, because the core of the story is strong: favoritism, vanity, jealousy, betrayal, sympathy, redemption, forgiveness. This story can be used by anti-slavery abolitionists (1840), psychotherapists (1910), peace-rally hippies (1969), country musicians (1971), and anti-sweatshop campaigns (2005). Myth is very solid, and very flexible.
-

(By contrast, The Book of Mormon is not mythical, because it’s ideas were never passed down before being written, its stories are restricted to the actual words in the book, and the original meaning is considered [by LDS] to be superior to reinterpretations. Now, I’m not judging accuracy one way or the other. Just because the book is not myth does not prove it is “true”; one of the most common misunderstandings of myth is that it is opposite of truth. Falsehood is opposite of truth. For example, If I say my 1996 Tercel is beautiful, that’s not a myth. It’s just a lie.)

Though A Christmas Carol has a more recent origin than most myths (Charles Dickens, 1843), it is by now completely mythic for us. A Christmas Carol is myth because it has a widely understood core narrative and core morality. People understand without the actual book – most people have never read it, and most variations use few of Dickens’ words. The meaning today is not the same as Dickens intended, but that doesn’t prove we’re wrong. It proves the Christmas Carol story no longer belongs to Dickens. It is a myth that belongs to all.
-
So there are versions that claim authority through the author, maybe even using his name (Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol). Other versions claim authority with “accuracy” – they use Dickens-era costumes (starring Patrick Stewart) or dialect (starring George C. Scott). But most dismiss authority altogether. Because the truth is people don’t mind weird variations, as long as the core is there. That’s why it is usually presented as an animal cartoon, a “modernization,” or a musical (Muppet Christmas Carol, Flintstones Christmas Carol, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Christmas Carol: The Movie, Scrooge, Scrooged [my favorite], a couple dozen total). Even How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a recognizable variation on the Christmas Carol myth.
-
That brings me to “A Christmas Golem” (A Golem is a creature from Jewish myth, something like Frankenstein’s monster but made of dirt or clay; sometimes vengeful and sometimes uncontrollable). A jewish shop owner, Ebenezer, narrates a tale of what Christmas means to him.
-
Synopsis:

Ebenezer’s business partner, Jacob, dies. So Ebenezer hires Robert, who is not Jewish but is a decent worker. Soon after, one morning, the shop window is smashed and a dead, bloody dog is on the desk. “What has been done to our shop!” says Ebenezer. “Your shop, not mine,” answers Robert. Ebenezer is disturbed but continues his daily work. On Hanukkah, Ebenezer says he’s taking the day off. Robert asks, “so do I get Christmas off, too?” Ebenezer says there’s work to do, so Robert can have Hanukkah or Christmas off, but not both.
Robert doesn’t show up on Hanukkah. That night, Ebenezer is attacked at home by a man in a hooded white robe calling himself The Ghost of Christmas Past – which makes Ebenezer think of the Dickens story. This “Ghost” ties Ebenezer to the bed, and says he must pay for the past sins of his people. The Ghost leaves him tied up all the next day. The next night, a man in a white robe calling himself The Ghost of Christmas Present comes and smacks him with a crucifix.
And the following night, The Ghost of Christmas Future “relieves himself” on Ebenezer. This last Ghost swears to choke Ebenezer to death unless he converts to Christianity and tithes to the church mission instead of the Jewish temple. Ebenezer feels like he’s betraying his dear mother, but agrees to convert. He returns to work, and on Christmas Robert again is not at work. Ebenezer doesn’t say a word, and attends church every week. He lives as “a good Christian.” But feels uncomfortable every time someone mentions A Christmas Carol.

So I got to thinking about the Scrooge character, and looked up stuff about him. Craziness. Turns out Scrooge is very similar in appearance and speech to another infamous Dickens character, Fagin from Oliver Twist. Fagin is “as vicious a Jewish character as had appeared in the pages of fiction” (Levi) (though Dickens never intended “to hurt the Jew,” his book was cherished by racists). Both of these characters fit the Jewish stereotype popular among the Christians of Edwardian England. “a very old, shriveled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair,” is how Dickens described Fagin. Alec Guinness as Fagin (1948):
-

“spoke in a droning lisp and appeared with hooded eyes and an enormous prosthetic hook nose. The look was modeled on George Cruikshank's illustrations for the novel's first edition, but it also resembled anti-Semitic caricatures in Der Stürmer, the weekly newspaper that had been published by Julius Streicher in Nazi Germany.” (Gross, New York Times)

Dickens grew up thinking of Jews as dishonest greedy “rascals,” he met some of them much later, and came to recognize his own reliance on discriminatory stereotype. The first edition of Oliver Twist was full of reference to Fagin as “The Jew,” which he deleted from the 1867 edition we use today. The professional, physical, and clothing descriptions of Scrooge mirror Fagin, and Scrooge is in what was at the time an almost exclusively Jewish occupation – money lending.
-
In A Christmas Carol, Dickens never calls Scrooge or anyone else a Jew. But the very first stage productiona year later had the line “worse than any other Jew that ever lived” (Annotated Christmas Carol, p. 152). Various stage and screen portrayals have relied on anti-Jewish stereotype for the “stingy” Scrooge:
-

“a well dressed older man with a large hook nose and a shock of long white hair” (Well & truly Scrooged);
“he seemed to be a very angry Scrooge. He looked like Punch from a puppet show, stooped with a hook nose” (starring Patrick Stewart).

In cartoons, maybe this emphasis on the nose is why Scrooge McDuck, Mr. Magoo, and Gonzo, all with big noses, are very effective as Scrooge. Because Scrooge has become Dickens’ most well-known/mythical character, the Scrooge persona influences portrayals of other quasi-Jewish Dickens characters, good or evil (Fagin, Sikes, John Barsad/Solomon Pross, Riah, Wopsle), and vice versa. And because of the explicitly Christian content of A Christmas Carol, it is now difficult for me to imagine Scrooge as a gentile. In popular culture, it is common to hear those who do not participate in Christmas characterized as “Scrooges,” and in terms of “holidays,” Jews are the ones Christians think of as celebrating a different holiday (Hanukkah) (note: Kwanzaa is fairly well-known, but much less visible, and those who dislike it seem to outnumber those who actually celebrate it).
-
This seems confusing, let me explain the myth a different way. Think of a “typical” person who does not celebrate Christmas. What might this (imaginary, typical) person be like? There are three possibilities:
-

A Scrooge
A Jew
A politically-correct Atheist

I know there are other possiblities – we have a few million Muslims, and also Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans, etc. But with myth, it is not so important what their numbers are. What I'm talking about is collective imagination, and our media society represents this in mass media. Practicing Muslims are underrepresented in all media; on television they constitute about 0% of characters. Any other group is imagined as separate (even though in reality they are not separate) from the debates about nativity displays, signs reading "Merry Christmas," or other issues. (I do not support the underrepresentation of Muslims. One reason I'm interested in media is to find ways to create more democratic and inclusive images.)
-
The three possibilities of a typical non-Christmas person (mentioned above) directly relate to what solution society imagines for these debates. If dealing with a Scrooge, maybe society thinks the solution is "Christmas spirit" and generosity. This was Dickens' original solution. If dealing with a Jew, maybe society thinks the solution is Hanukkah celebrations or menorah displays. If dealing with a politically-correct atheist, maybe society thinks the solution is mockery and insults during television talk shows. Such condemnation of "politically correct" "takeovers" is the topic of Bill O’Reilly’s highly-rated War on Christmas and other shows with similar marketing slogans.
-
What surprised me about the “Christmas Golem” story is that it mixes our present-day solutions for non-Christmas people with Dickens-era solutions. In 2007, few people would consider trying to convert Jews as they celebrate Hanukkah. Maybe Mormons, but that’s it. And in 2007, few people would consider tying up Jews and violently attacking them. Maybe a few neo-Nazis or Ku Klux Klan, but that’s it (to be clear, Mormons are not like Nazis! I’m just saying how uncommon these practices are now).
-
However, before 1843, coerced conversion and violent attack against Jews was not only common, it was legal in most European countries. Dickens would have read newspaper stories about coerced conversion and attack against Jews. Most importantly, not all three categories of non-Christmas people (a Scrooge, a Jew, and a politically-correct atheist) existed in the popular imagination. The Scrooge myth did not exist because Dickens had not invented it yet; political-correctness did not exist, and about 0% of England’s population was atheist. So the only category left?
-

A Jew

Before Dickens popularized the idea of private family dinners during Christmas, the day was celebrated with the whole community. In England, it involved festivals and public spaces – more like the way Americans currently celebrate Fourth of July. In 1843 London, if you did not celebrate Christmas, that was probably because you were Jewish. And if you were Jewish, that probably meant you were a money lender, a lawyer, or an entertainer (the Church of England at times prohibited Christians from lending money, and limited Jews to few occupations). Dickens' solution may have been less appealing if you were Jewish. Almost a century later, the few British supporters of Nazism used Dickens’ Fagin character to support their claims about “greedy” Jews.
-
I am not suggesting Grimm’s retelling is an “accurate” version of the story. Obviously it is not. I am not suggesting Scrooge is Jewish. His nephew is obviously Christian. But considering the anti-semitic power of Fagin, there may be an unconscious anti-semitism in Dickens’ story. At the same time, there is a strong secular impulse – through the entire book, there is no mention of Jesus Christ or any biblical myth.
-
There is, instead, a focus on money as a way to define people and express feelings. Dickens was at the time criticized for depicting Scrooge’s turkey as generous (Annotated Christmas Carol, p. 153). According to the logic of workers’ rights, business owners owed debts to those they had taken advantage of. One turkey would hardly compensate for a decade of exploitation. And the cost of one turkey could hardly be a financial sacrifice for Scrooge -- especially compared to the generous donations to the poor advocated by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Ghandi, and Mother Teresa. But whether you are feeling anger, greed, guilt, generosity, or “Christmas spirit,” A Christmas Carol teaches us that commerce is the means to redemption (“…and I'll give you half-a-crown!," says Scrooge, assuming this child has nothing better to do on Christmas that become an errand-boy).
-
Scrooge is redeemed and gives Cratchit a raise. Then, Scrooge continues work much as before, though Scrooge’s money lending business is exploitative. Dickens does not, for example, have Scrooge volunteer at a hospital, or work as a financial counselor for the poor. It is safe to assume Scrooge will still make a large profit from his money lending. The main difference now is that he will spend money (on employees or products) instead of saving it.
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Rather than converting Jews, commercializing Christmas seems to be Dickens’ focus. This focus has only grown since then. The human elements of the characters diminish, but their stereotyped, financial cores remain (just try to describe the characters without mentioning money). Without such concepts as love, spirituality, and community celebration, this myth may marginalize practicing Christians as well as non-Christians (Jews, Muslims, and everyone else). On the other hand, anyone with cash can join in the Christmas spirit. Retail corporations themselves? They don't care what the sign says, as long as we spend money.
-
As a friend always says, I analyze things to death. A Christmas Carol is still a good story. God bless us every one.

bookbag

2007-07-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

______
my cat's new favorite bed is my bookbag. this means she's pissed off every time i study, and every time i leave for ucla. she's pissed off frequently.
yesterday went to ralphs on bike. the return trip was somewhat harder, balancing a 12-pack up and down these hills. i waited til Eli arrived in his giant van, showed off his new scars (he's been working "aerial construction," that means he strings cable lines and falls off poles). we headed downtown to ArtShare, hung out with Daniel, Chon, and Jaime in some art studio until the beer ran out. watched Cava - a fun and strong offshoot of Quetzal/domingosiete - and Mad Marionette. i don't know whether they were Chicano or Jewish or neither, but they sounded like a Chicano Jewish variation on Gogol Bordello. the dancing was odd, one guy doing a cossack dance, some couples trying a stuttery cumbia, a few rockabilly dudes jumping or skanking (that's the category i was in).
you know how some bands switch instruments between songs? these guys switched instruments during songs. the drummer would hand off his sticks to the guitarist, who kept the beat going while the drummer picked up an accordion, then after the accordion solo, the organist held out his chords with his left hand as he blew into a trumpet until the guitarist switched from drums to banjo. they should've thrown a cowbell in, but you get the idea. as i said to Danny, they got potential, but mad marionette is more interesting than good.
after that, rode with Jaime over to the 107 bar, where the bouncer wouldn't let Eli in without id. so we hung out outside, saw Miguel Mouchess (of NALIP) and Priscilla (of Grupo Animo). weird. she's just passing through after visiting Beva and Mika in Albuquerque, on her way home to Portland. and i met a new SF State professor of "media culture." the bouncer almost punched a drunk hipster. for walking on the hood of a car. you could tell he's a hipster by his skinny 80s tie and dickhead charm. so that was enough of 107 bar, we hadn't even gone inside. after a bit more meandering through the Former Skidrow Republic, headed home.

there was a play in houston last night, obviously i didn't go. because i spent all my spending money to get to san antonio last week. i need to earn money to fix my busted-ass car (i've replaced the filters and sparkplugs, and examined the fuel injectors, hoses, catalytic converter, throttle body; i have total loss of power, and very rich mixture out the exhaust -gotta be either too much fuel, or too little air, right? one of the sensors?).
so now i'm leaving for work with my bookbag at 7:20 in the morning and hating it. my cat's hating it too.

framing the past

2007-05-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

saw a presentation today on Susan Sontag's view of photography and history. the recent (since mid 1800s) rise of photos as a dominant, determinant way of telling us what our history is. we don't question photos the way we question written words. even though we all know how subjective it is to decide when and what to photograph, and we all know how easy it is (especially in our photoshopped era) to manipulate an image.
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Sontag starts with Plato's Cave metaphor. but i'm more interested in the idea that photos, like all history, are editorials. and to take a photo is not only to capture an event, but an event itself. some of this is coded into the vocabulary. frame, lens, crop - these are ways of saying how we limit what is included in the photo. science and journalism want to be objective forms of knowledge: they pretend to have no perspective (sometimes they claim to have all perspectives at once, a perfect form of knowledge). a photograph always has perspective, by definition. we are even prompted to wonder what we would see from a different perspective within this same scene.
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Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange worked for the government during the depression. their job was, technically, to document displaced workers, but what they were expected to do was this: create popular support for costly New Deal/WPA/FSA programs. they each traveled the nation, getting photos of hollow-cheeked family of white sharecroppers, far-flung black men hopping a freight, well-dressed chicana/os in a chowline. is this what america looked like in 1933? well, this is what roosevelt wanted people to see - especially northeasterners who survived the economic collapse. unless they felt empathy, they weren't going to politically support anything resembling social justice.
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evans and lange showed a nation on its knees. these photos were reproduced in newspapers and magazines nationwide. and for the first time ever, america looked like a land of equality: everyone was equally poor and hungry. relief centers were "desegregated," i guess, but only because no rich white people had thought to segregate them in the first place. after all, a rich - or even middle class - white person never expected to need such help, and i guess they didn't care much if poor white trash got "contaminated" by black or latino skin. then, once all the white kids were having hunger pangs, anti-race-mixing laws no longer seemed like a priority, did they? (not that the government believed in equal treatment: millions of immigrants and citizens were "deported" to mexico during "operation wetback" - how can you be deported to place you've never lived?)
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there's a poster, the communist party's candidate for president. this was not some lunatic fringe, not in the 1930s. to the minds of many, the great depression had revealed capitalism as a failure. blacks, especially, supported socialist ideas, since all other political parties had abused and exploited them. anyway, communism seemed to be working in russia - at least according to news reports, which turned out to be heavily censored. no matter. the point is america was in a crisis, desperate. and i feel it was a point in time when any number of things could've happened. extremes ruled. we could've become communist, socialist, feudal... even Nazis had substantial support (from white people, of course).
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th first half of the 20th century was full of possibility. freedom of expression was maybe even more free, because government lacked the means to restrict it. there was no corporate control of media. farming and even most manufacturing arose from small groups of independent operators. racist whites ruled and oppressed in the south and the north.
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but that wasn't the full story: community wealth allowed many to resist and even speak out. america's first full generation of black intellectuals built the harlem renaissance while wall street collapsed. california's chinatowns came through the crash unscathed. latina/o and black musicians created great american musical genres - jazz, blues, rock & roll, conjunto, tejano, cha cha. independent communities had effective, bilingual schools - spanish in new mexico and south texas, cajun in south louisiana, cherokee in oklahoma, navajo in arizona, swedish in minnesota, yiddish in new york, german in pennsylvania, japanese and chinese in california. robber barons, politicians, and white citizens' council (klan-affiliated organization which harrassed jews and anyone else who wasn't white enough) had much power, but there was a kind of de-centralization and self-suffient community which no longer exists.
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the poor were in a position to either be completely destroyed or completely empowered. but neither of those happened in 1938. corporations, with their costs subsidized, recovered before the unions grew enough. with huge profits, corporations increased wages, since workers needed incentives beyond subsistence, now that the WPA was in full swing. once the government injected hundreds of millions more for World War 2, the economy was well on its way to the post-war boom, and the return of the white middle class. the black towns of oklahoma, mississippi, and florida were burned down. strict segregation, fell behind during the "united" war effort, but came back in the late 1940s, stronger than ever. the war-era concentration camps for japanese-americans, and the zoot suit riots (in which military recruits killed and assaulted chicanos) - these became the norm after white americans celebrated v-day, confident in their superiority over "foreigners."
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and independent schools, with their "unamerican" practices, were taken over and homogenized by WASPs. systematically, entire communities were labeled "retarded" because the kids spoke a different language, making them prime candidates for assimilation and/or menial labor, depending on skin color.
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(this persists even in the 21st century. from the time they are 5 years old, spanish speakers are way overrepresented in special ed, and rarely allowed into gifted programs, thanks to your local standardized test. why would anyone test students in a language they don't speak? what can this possibly prove? give a child bilingual ed, she or he will learn english completely in 5 years. give a child english-only, she or he will drop out within 2. sorry, i'll step off my soapbox)
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i'm not saying america would be a better place if we had become communist at that point. but i'm wondering about these possibilities. because who would've expected what we have now, with corporations writing legislation to govern themselves? we have workplace and pollution regulations, but no enforcement. we have "patriotic" executives who outsource every chance they get. and finally, the least predictable: we have clueless labor unions: no clue how to get their message to workers, no idea how to be heard over mainstream media, no clue how to stop the corruption in their own bureaucracies. unions today, they're weaker than they were in the 1910s, the during the robber baron era. health benefits, retirement programs, and wages (adjusted for inflation) are all diminishing fast. the gap between rich and poor is as wide as before the 1929 crash. and that's not even considering the millions of undocumented workers who will be "legalized" as second-class z-visa citizens, legally exploited and stuck below the poverty line.
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is this the story these photos tell? is this the proper context to give them? maybe i got half these ideas from watching cradle will rock. i do not live in FDRs era. and the poverty today is not like it was then. it's true many americans have little hope of escaping poverty, but relatively few (less than 10 million?) actually live a life of perpetual hunger. now, if the government succeeds in cutting the successful food stamps program, and then things like WIC, medicare, environmental standards, and education...
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that's a different story. we could have a new depression without a crash. highly profitable corporations, operating overseas; wealthy enclaves (beverly hills, hilton head, grosse point, fairfax) surrounded by legions of underemployed. through global warming, another hurricane, or whatever. imagine roving masses a la the dust bowl.
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our society, in 2007, is not at a turning point. we are, to borrow Thomas Kuhn's concepts, operating as a "normal" society. there are slight disturbances of our capitalism, immigrant protests, war protests. nothing like a new paradigm - but a paradigm shift is possible. not corrupt soviet communism, nobody sane is going to beat that dead horse. maybe democracy, in a way it never happened here. a democracy without a ruling class? a communicating world that doesn't need the media to mediate? schools that are equally funded and serve every student? corporate profit that is shared with employees? there are some models. a few schools here and there, a few corporations and internet content created by and for people. TV replaced photography as the dominant form of seeing the world. what will be the dominant way in 50 years? will the internet (an abstract concept) even be recognizable?
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either way. when or if a paradigm shift happens, there will be some sort of record of what happened. and whoever looks at those records, they will not understand it in the same way as those who lived it (see Richard Rorty). they will have their own context. i'm not saying my own perspective on Lange and Evans' photos is "correct." no view, and no viewer, is objective. it doesn't matter how real the photo looks. history is all about building a narrative that concludes with us, right now, as the culmination of everything (see Hayden White). a historian or anyone else who claims objectivity is pushing a biased doctrine. whether to glorify, nostalgize, denigrate, mourn, or hope, the past will always be put to the use of the present. so if you question those in power, you better question their version of the past.

clunky glasses and a reservoir dogs suit

2007-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

spent the weekend in coachella with my sister. but first we went hiking 4 hours through griffith park, climbed up near the hollywood sign. then to get sushi in little tokyo with Anthony, he was in town from san anto, 'cuz his jaina had an interview. picked up Felipe from LAX, and drove straight there, met up and stayed with friends, up until 6am talking about school reform and beer. after swimming the next day, dropped Era at the festival, it was 106 degrees so screw that, i didn't stay. hung out in air conditioning, ate an organic feast my sister bought.
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Roy and Felipe got back from the Claremont conference, where they presented their critical media literacy program and their Purepecha students showed a video made in class (should've gone to that conference, but i slept instead). finally drove Roy and my sister to the festival. bought tickets from some guys walking. they make you walk a mile, we were still tired of walking from the 4 hour hike the previous day. but made it in time to see many good bands, including arcade fire, !!!, ghostface killah, gotan projekt, the good the bad and the queen, ozomatli. we also saw part of red hot chili peppers - but the mix was bad, the guitar was sloppy, we were a quarter mile away, and oh yeah, they're tired and old. you could tell they wanted to be good, bless their hearts.
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so we walked over and listened to mike relm, a dj we'd never heard of. but he was scratching video tracks together, mixing them with vinyl, and the crowd was stunned. music so precise, clever, and big. on stage, mike relm plays a character: a vaguely-asian nerd with clunky glasses and a reservoir dogs suit. but then after 6 songs he spoke into the mic for the first time, and we all realized he ain't a nerd at all. he's charismatic and funny, as on-point with words as he is with turntables. the video scratching, Era is familiar with it (he's in paint by numbers, a san anto hip-hop group), but all reports are that mike relm takes it to a new level. he built an entire breakbeat/d&b song from 5 seconds of video dialog from Office Space (keeping with the nerd theme). he turned an instructional swing video into some kind of dub-hop epic.
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the arcade fire, still, was the highlight for me. neon bible is a great standalone album, but this has so be seen to be believed. bombastic, shameless, over-the-top melodies to wrench your heart, always weird enough to keep you off balance. and that voice, wavering near the pitch like conner (sp?) oberst, but with much more air, more power behind each note. with oberst, you kinda want to tell him to chill out, it's gonna be fine, pat him on the back. with arcade fire, you don't want to touch him or say anything at all, 'cuz you're kind of scared to. can indie rock really be this preposterous and sincere at the same time? sign me up to drink the koolaid. non-metaphorically, i didn't get anything to drink: pepsi was $4, and heineken was $7.
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the good etc. announced "we're going to play our album." and nothing else, and in the same order. i think i get it now. still hate their band name. they wore swank top hats, the dude from gorillaz ("the queen" in the band introoductions) had a red satin shirt under his tux. they herded the 60,000 of us like cattle toward the parking lots. after we escaped the L.A.esque traffic, headed back to Magdalena's. she was still out at that train-shaking bar, so i forced open the gate to her backyard. Felipe forced open the chelas. the neighbor had left the hose on and flooded the backyard, but it was drying by then. the thirteen lemons Coree and Maggie picked were inside, so we had it straight up.
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Maggie got home, and a bunch of her friends arrived. dancing ensued, from los temerarios to nelly. and it wasn't long before cazadores was the only option left. the mañác provided entertainment for all, until admitting "there's a big difference between dancing and, you know." so the party died down within a few hours. next morning, Felipe cleaned the kitchen and Maggie's mom cleaned the pool (dirty from the neighbor's hose flood), but i didn't clean anything. woke up and met for a debriefing: breakfast at Andy's Tacos, best vegetarian omelettes in the coachella valley. while Roy and Era headed back for the 3rd day - to get down with cansei de ser sexy, cry with damien rice, and rage with rage (the bands we missed are more impressive than the ones we saw, but whatever).
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Coree and i, we took the 10 to inglewood. stopped to pet the dinosaurs and windmills. but skipped joshua tree until next year, my legs are still sore from the hollywood hiking.

A Mi San Antonio, Canto

2007-04-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

just back from san anto, 4 day vacation.
poetry in Market Square. talent displayed, faces hidden: Anel and Maria. i found a ten dollar bill in an HEB shopping basket after the first set, then after everything was finished, i gave that ten dollar bill to a homeless family. though i am a generous guy, this was not my idea. i guess i'd hoped God wanted me to have $10. but now i think God wants me to break even.
stayed with Mara & Leonard one night. they rock, and the Mutts rock. and they're coming to visit us in august (the people, not the Mutts).

the Museo Alameda opening parade. marched holding a banner, did anyone catch what the banner said?
these photos, they're self-explanatory.

hotel contessa, where they treated us like they thought we were rich. kinda afraid to touch anything, at least until the hotel pachanga got going. thought we caused the 3am evacuation, hundreds of tourists outside in their pajamas - except us, all fully dressed with cocktails in hand. turned out there was a better/worse party on the 5th floor. and they were the culprits. 5th didn't even set off the smoke detector, they just pulled the fire alarm. amateurs.

celebrity gossip: Ritchie Valenz and Frida Kahlo are dating.
and that's a Guernica mobile, by kids from the Jump-Start arts program. displayed last saturday during Public Axis Of Evil. which was funny, offensive, and funny.

a meta-piñata, and a Lydia Mendoza dress. both stunning, both in the Museo. huge, inspiring "history of conjunto" exhibit. while conjunto bands playing outside for our dancing enjoyment.

i, for one, did not look forward to LA again. but i had to teach the next morning, and i'm not ready to quit school. yet.

The Peace of Bakersfield

2007-04-11T01:22:00.000-07:00

roadtrip to La Paz and Bakersfield. Dwight Yoakam and Mika on the iPod. fun and spiritual fulfillment ensue. too grandiose? we visited Cesar Chavez's grave (que descanza en paz) and saw what remains of UFW dream from decades ago: La Paz, the erstwhile (i've never used that word before, i'm a dork) self-sufficient commune - endless fields of vegetables, and interactive, critical education. idealistic and doomed.
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it was real, once, we talked to someone who lived it. saw the photos. as a commune, it has fallen into ruin, i guess, though the Chavez memorial and visitor center are beautiful. and one of the old tuberculosis wards (the whole site was once a TB hospital) is to become a hall for retreat events. we climbed hills, pondered drying pools, listened to freight trains and fraught beats. the whole experience gave us a weird sense of loss and peace.

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the night before, party at Dolores Huerta's house. That's her in the middle, this was taken at 1:30am, during a mashup of "in da club" and a merengue beat. si se puede dance to fity cent. may we shake it so when we hit 77.
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squeezed in a monster breakfast and a family barbecue. Back home, listened to Saul Williams and Mark Gonzales, live at UCLA. Talked to Mark, he lives here so we'll hang out. on the number 6 going home, listened to Dwight Yoakam, again.

I'll shine up my old brown shoes, put on a brand new shirt
Get home early from work, if you say that you love me
Didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?
Oh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?
Feeling all alone without a friend, you know you feel like dying
Oh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?
And I want you to want me
Yeah, I need you to need me

"Deconstructing the Superhero"

2007-04-09T15:37:00.001-07:00

mp4 (iPod video, 52mb)
By Richard Van Heertum, Kip Austin Hinton, and Brian Trinh. 2007. 9 minutes.
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An interview with scholar John Shelton Lawrence. Using clips from popular films, we look at the political, religious, and cultural function of the "American Monomyth."
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Everyone likes superhero movies, right? Like it or not, we show how superhero myths are anti-democratic, and support the unquestioned consolidation of power. Within these myths, people are ignorant and impotent, and must depend on a benevolent white man to make decisions.
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Recently, the myths show possibilities of collaboration and transgressive themes - such as a heroic black vampire in Blade, or "coming out" narratives in X-Men. Even revolution now seems possible: a popular movement in V for Vendetta actually changes the corrupt government, which traditional superheroes work so hard to preserve.
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This was the final project for our Critical Media Literacy course at UCLA. Our movie has many flaws, but we hope it does encourage critical thinking about what America's superheroes mean. I'd like to a see a more inclusive concept of heroism. Not that I think this little movie will change anything, but still. Watch our movie, and feel free post comments and criticisms.

best tacos in the californias

2007-04-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

went to san diego and tijuana. for spring break, i guess, but i'm in grad school these days. that means we didn't do anything that would freak out my grandma.

stayed at Calaca Press headquarters. went to get tacos at Cuatro Milpas, ran into a walkout on the way. student-citizens from 2 high schools marched across the city to chicano park. protesting the recent ICE raids in san diego, in which some of their parents (who are not citizens) were deported. you'd be pissed too.

there was a minuteman woman (that irony is lost on her, i bet) videotaping these minors, intending to sell the tape to Lou Dobbs or Brit Hume. i told her it wasn't her park, and we are there as guests of the chicano community that maintains it, and should be respectful. especially of the rights of minors - who did not sign release forms. do they have first amendment rights of expression, without expecting their under-17 faces and words to be edited and twisted and used against them (and for profit) on TV and the internet? a good question, but she didn't think so. she got pissed off and tried to get a cop to arrest me. the cops just wanted her to stay calm. this is her, smoking and filming minors.

anyway, cuatro milpas was great, they haven't changed much since the 1930s. and that night, we drove into Tijuana, to get a new cowboy hat (estilo Tejana) and Tacos Hermitas. but apparently they've changed the name, now it's Tacos Salceados, i think. still got the same taco chefs, so whatever. Marco was ours. amazing with steak tartare, lobster, nopales, flor de calabaza... heaven on a tortilla, lo juro.

it was a good trip, and my car made it with little protest. now i plunge headfirst into spring quarter, T.A.ing 24/7. with interruptions for a trip to fiesta and a visit from mi hermanita. la vida sigue, que sea un exito.

Third World slums

2007-03-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

[this is about the students of my friend, Roy Garza.]
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The Southland's hidden Third World slums
In the Coachella Valley, hundreds of trailer parks house desperately poor Latino workers amid burning trash, mud, contaminated water.
By David Kelly, Times Staff Writer
March 26, 2007
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THERMAL, CALIF. — Like most of their neighbors in the sprawling, ramshackle Oasis Mobile Home Park, the Aguilars have no heat, no hot water. On cold nights, the family of eight stays warm by bundling up in layers of sweaters and sleeps packed together in two tiny rooms.
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Bathing is a luxury that requires using valuable propane to boil gallons of water. So the farmworker clan spends a lot of time dirty.
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Jose Aguilar, a wiry 9-year-old, has found a way around the bath problem. He just waits until dinner. "My mom makes frijoles," he said, "then I take a bath in that water." Jose and his family live in a world few ever see, a vast poverty born in hundreds of trailer parks strung like a shabby necklace across the eastern Coachella Valley.
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Out here — just a few miles from world-class golf resorts, private hunting clubs and polo fields — half-naked children toddle barefoot through mud and filth while packs of feral dogs prowl piles of garbage nearby.
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Thick smoke from mountains of burning trash drifts through broken windows. People — sometimes 30 or more — are crammed into trailers with no heat, no air-conditioning, undrinkable water, flickering power and plumbing that breaks down for weeks or months at a time.
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"I was speechless," said Haider Quintero, a Colombian training for the priesthood who recently visited the parks as part of his studies. "I never expected to see this in America."
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Riverside County officials say there are between 100 and 200 illegal trailer parks in the valley, but the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition says the number could be as high as 500. California Rural Legal Assistance says as few as 20 parks are legal, and they are often as dilapidated as the illegal ones. When county inspectors locate a park without permits, they prefer to let owners bring the place into compliance through loan and grant programs rather than evict the tenants.
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Some of the largest and poorest parks are on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation where they are not subject to local zoning laws and the county can't monitor safety, hygiene and building standards. The reservation is also home to the worst illegal dumps of any tribe in California, Arizona or Nevada, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The federal agency has closed 10 of the 20 most toxic dumps and cited four of the largest trailer parks for health violations.
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...
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On the other side of the park, Cesar Rafael, 17, a Purepechan, lives in his parents' trailer. He and several other students at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal made a short video about their world, "The Contaminated Valley," which was shown at school.
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"I wanted people to see another side of life," he said. "Everything is poisonous here, even the water is poisonous. And nobody really cares about it. We are invisible."
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david.kelly@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-trailerpark26mar26,0,5417975,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

"how much our love meant to me"

2007-03-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

driving to Palisades Park yesterday (saw Apples in Stereo, Page France & Headlights the night before). birds scuttled in formation along the shiny crashing waves.

Amalia and i translated this Ramon Ayala song. while she focused on meaning, i worked on rhyme. together, it is ready for the studio. so mr. Ayala, if you're jonesin' for a Third Coast top ten hit, we offer our translation services for a reasonable fee.
it is unanimous, Ayala's music is the best for when we dance together.
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she kept wanting to translate "rama" as "ram." i agree with her, everyone should start using "ram" in English, instead of "branch." let's say this new vocabulary is a combination tribute to Ramon Ayala and Ramiro Ayala. (no relation. that tree blocking the door - it should've been mesquite, but i think it's a live oak.)
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probably title this "the mesquite tree."
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the branch of the mesquite tree
where you were waiting for me
ever since you left me
has started to go dry
leaves that once were green
are yellow now it seems
in solidarity
'cuz i'm without my life
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the branch of the mesquite tree
just like me is dying
and if you ever seek me
you'll find me where i lie
deep beneath the lovers' cemetary
but there where i am buried
my darling don't you cry
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my cross will be
the branch of the mesquite tree
so you will see
how much our love meant to me
the branch of the mesquite tree
and i will be together
don't make yourself feel sadder
nothing lasts forever

how does he make the music sound so joyous? just like with Bright Eyes, up to now, nunca he entendido la veracidad profunda de tal letras tan lugubres. hasta tienes doloron de corazon, parecen una broma.

aqui se pueden leer sus letras originales, en espanol. "?y las cuerdas, tambien?" no contaban con mi astucia.

La Rama del Mesquite
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Ab
La rama del mesquite donde tu me esperabas
_________________________ D#7
Desde que tu te fuiste se comenso a secar
D#7
Sus hojas eran verdes ahora son amarillas
__________________________ Ab
Parece que comprenden que yo estoy sin vida
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Ab
La rama del mesquite igual que yo se muere
Ab7 ____________________ C#
Amor si algun dia vuelves me vas a visitar
______ D#7 ________ Ab
Al panteon de los enamorados
___________ D#7 _________ Ab
Pero sobre mi tumba no vayas a llorar
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Ab ____ D#7 ___________ Ab
Mi cruz sera, la rama del mesquite
_______D#7 ___________ Ab
Y asi sabras, lo mucho que te quise
Ab7 _________ C# _______D#7 _____ Ab
La rama del mesquite y yo estaremos juntos
______________D#7 __________ Ab
Mas no te pongas triste todo tiene su final

San Patrick's Day

2007-03-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

at spaceland. we met up with Nicolas, Yesenia, Roy, and Ollin of course. Scott Randy Ralo Vincent. st patrick's day, which in this case was a celebration of the San Patricio Battalion. a group of conscripted irish immigrants who were part of Zachary Taylor's invading army. during the U.S.-Mexico War in the 1840s. seeing themselves as unwilling participants in an unjustified war, they defected to the mexican army, focusing on catholicism and shared victimhood (as the irish were not "white" yet). they are still folk heroes in mexico. Ollin, that night, released an entire album dedicated to the San Patricios. they played those songs and plenty of pogues, too.

there was much guinness and tequila and vodka consumed. among a dozen people who danced with reckless abandon for 2 hours straight. dripping sweat and bumping into each other. we waltzed and conjuntoed, and did uncategorizable dances, too. nicolas probably melted his accordeon keys.

Roy stayed at our place, i made breakfast tacos and coffee the next morning. i think i'm going to do a research and activist project at his Indio high school. looking at the way the teachers/staff do/don't prepare students for college. very few of them continue to college. apparently, nobody wants them to know about AB540. AB540 is a law that allows immigrants (regardless of documentation), who have attended elementary and high school in california, to receive in-state tuition at state universities. all of us, in my program at UCLA, are trying to find ways to directly improve the chances of students. i'm imagining a study where i go to the school, as a sort of freelance college recruiter, and simply tell the kids about their options (community college, cal state, UC), costs, and programs to help them. as of now, too many go on to walk the same orchards their parents do. professional college recruiters, they prefer Palm Springs, you know? we reveal our values through our work, i think. every educator giving his/her attention at Palm Springs, Beverly Hills, or Malibu - they work for their chosen cause: more opportunities for rich white kids.

it is still so hard for many Americans to understand: immigrants are people, too -- humanity is not defined by a piece of paper --everyone deserves an education. the people in Indio, they grow the food you eat, they pay as much tax as you do (and never receive a refund). why can't people admit they deserve to go to school? when our irish and scots-irish ancestors arrived to work (or join the army), they were issued green cards right off the boat. now we want Mexicanos to do the work, but expect them to wait 7 years for a green card? when your family is hungry, are you going to wait seven years to "enter legally," as lou dobbs (irish-american) wants everyone to do? legal entry, today, usually means you are rich. and could already feed your family anyway. the rich didn't have to fight during the U.S.-Mexico War, and they don't fight in the Terror Wars. today, our military recruiters trick undocumented immigrants (mostly Latino, but some Irish still!) to sign up, with a fake offer of citizenship -- which only arrives if the soldier or marine gets killed (there's a sales pitch: if you want to be a citizen, die!).

we never made it to the after-party that night. Amalia did wake up early, and we got her to work at 9am or something crazy. that counts as a st. patrick's day miracle, far as i'm concerned. with how far behind i was last week, the fact i've finished all but one of my class projects is another miracle. miracles are good. demos gracias a Dios. may i have another?

not me, but my character (v2)

2007-03-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

again with the movies. is it really possible to derive life lessons from them? who cares, i do it anyway.

-

update: we've just returned from 300. it is stunning and meaningless. you get more feeling for the spartans' life and times from a wikipedia entry. there are zero jokes in the movie (by "joke" i mean it makes somebody in the theater laugh). imagine a gorgeous video game, except you can't get the controller to move the characters around. everything in it is beautiful. you want beautiful beheadings, beautiful jabba the huts with sword-hands, beautiful sweaty leather speedos? then this is the fim for you. mi pobre novia, once she got over the shimmering 6-pack abs, she had a hard time ignoring the lack of plot. that's saying a lot, when you take into account the deafening soundtrack. i put inof velvet goldmine back home, just to cleanse the palate, really. ella me dijo que pareci' y aun parezco a maxwell demon. i'd never make a 300 casting call, but not so bad, really.

-

the science of sleep. Gondry. an odd romantic fantasy we watched (she had seen the beginning somewhere). this boy, he's old enough to be a man, but self-centered like a toddler. his ideal: a dream world where he can control what everyone does. in real life, i guess he means well, but he says mean stuff to people. and he lets them down, maybe just for fun, maybe because he's just incompetent. his cruelty sabotages the only real connection he ever had. selfishness is a poison.

i like the boy, and he's handsome and all (Gael Garcia Bernal), and he has beautiful, thrilling dreams. Amalia wasn't sure what to make of how it ends. but i think the boy is just stuck in his juvenile state of awake/dreaming. the girl is sad because he will never appreciate her, and he is sad because he will never be able to script/manipulate people in the real world (though he will surely try).

-

watched joe versus the volcano. a joyous movie that she showed me for the first time 2 years ago. remember? remember how it felt, to kiss a person you hardly know but implicitly trust? i know sometimes we all have to just jump. place faith in a miracle, and trust in someone trustworthy. give up things we might want, compromise, let that miracle happen, whatever it is. not necessarily die (as joe tries to do), but just act on our priorities. may we give up what is irrelevant. and the things you have given up, know they are appreciated.

(i agree with joe's assessment of LA: "it looks fake. i kind of like it.")

location is not my priority, and it isn't joe's either. but we all worry, right? joe leaves Waponi Woo as a projectile, and ends up stuck on a raft with Patricia, "hundreds of miles from nowhere." though he has discovered he does not have a brain cloud, he still worries about how they'll figure a way to shore. he just lived through a miracle, and now he's worried about needing another one. Patricia is having none of it. "it's always something with you, Joe" (am i quoting that right?). set your priorities. go where you have to go. don't try, just make it happen. but keep in mind, it takes 2 people to work.

that's a cheesy happy assessment of a cheesy happy movie.

-

Malick's the new world, i'm writing an essay on it. we watched it this morning. 15 pages, due monday. looking at representations of the Powhatan (Native American) and the English invaders/colonists. one of the odd things he does is to make a movie all about the princess Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher), and then never say her name the entire movie. they do call her "Rebecca" once she starts wearing starchy frumpy English clothes, but come on, that ain't her name.

john smith really embodies everything that goes wrong in the relationship between Native Americans and Europeans. even good intentions, which he has a few times, turn out bad for Pocahontas and her whole tribe. the weirdest part, maybe, is john smith dressed up Powhatan, dancing with them, acting like he empathizes. again, john smith is passionate and handsome (Colin Farrell - "hey," as Amalia says). he puts on a good show, lies convincingly, and then betrays her before the first snow. she loved him completely, and he couldn't have hurt her more if he had planned it out. the crazy thing (or not so crazy thing, depending on how you feel about unhealthy love) is Pocahontas was ready to throw away her husband, and pledge her love anew, if only john smith would be a "kind" man (he wouldn't of course). that's crazy love, in the best and worst sense. to trust a person who proves over and over how immoral he/she is.

U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs was built on such relationships. they got white guys like Kit Carson to win the trust of individual elders or tribes (Carson had Cheyenne and Arapahoe wives). make false promises, manipulate, and ultimately destroy the mental and physical well-being of Sioux, Cherokee, Apache, Modoc, et al. our government policy was effective and unforgivable.

"I think I might have sailed past them." i hadn't thought about it before, whether i was one of the characters. but maybe you're right, maybe i am. have to get back to you on that, principessa.

-

please god, not more NALIP stuff

2007-03-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

ten dollars to make all your drinks come true
someone's gotta win, hope it’s me, not you
buy your loteria
lo lo lo lo loteria
lo lo lo lo loteria

as i said, Amalia and i sold most of the loteria tickets ($1400 worth). she’s a marketing genius. She wrote this jingle. but i at least wrote part of this verse, and we sang and laughed out way through it. harmony. i hit most of the notes.

some photos from NALIP:

these photos: us selling loteria, Edward James Olmos reaming Latino execs, Adam and Freddie Rodriguez, Joe Hernandez-Kowlski taking a photo of us, Eduardo & Beva, Haldun w/Amalia.
(as you might figure out, i was like the only white boy there).
gotta go, pick up Frances from the Getty. Nicolas arrives tomorrow...

surviving NALIP

2007-03-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

after picking up Amalia's photos, i was driving down to newport beach. and in too much of a hurry. i rear-ended a 2005 BMW. it was all my fault. my first car wreck since 1994. the guy wasn't pissed, just surprised. named Mario Lopez, but he was not Zack's best friend on Saved by the Bell. anyway, i screwed up my car's hood, bent it so it wouldn't open. my radiator was hissing. so i pound of the hood to flatten it out. it actually opened, and i got my radiator to stop leaking. but the hood won't close completely now. and my front license plate is at a 10 degree angle.
-
gotta respect my little car. i smash up some fancy convertible, and it still runs fine. so i kept driving and made it. my girlfriend was able to get her headshots to some people, and performed great at the "cold reading showcase." very proud of her.
-
we both volunteered almost 8 hours saturday. so tiring. but the gala ball was badass. i dressed up fancy, and looked pretty good. but Amalia was absolutely gorgeous. Edward James Olmos asked me, "How you doin'?" (Holy crap, it's Eddie Olmos!) (i understand he didn't actually care how i was doing). he has that gravelly, quiet but forceful voice. also Dolores Huerta (nuestra idol) Hector Galan, Freddie and Adam Rodriguez (not related). and the sometimes-funny Joey Medina. we were selling loteria tickets, and the boletos had places to write your name and contact info, but also a question: "if you win, what will you do with the money?" Medina bought two tickets, he asked what most people wrote for this, we told him _______ and __ (very non-humanitarian answers). but also about the woman who wrote "build a school for an AIDS orphan charity in Sudan." Medina said he hoped to combine evil and noble intentions, and wrote "fly to alaska, club baby seals, use the fur to make coats for the homeless." i played along: "this way, you're solving two problems, the overpopulation of baby seals, and cold among the homeless, which is really the number 1 concern for homeless families in Los Angeles."
-
what was the point of that story? we saw a bunch of San Anto friends, too. Beva & Eduardo, Frances, Robb, Lisa & TJ, Laura, Jimmy & Faith, Haldun, i don't remember who else. the filmmakers and executives of NALIP gave an award to Edward James Olmos (Holy crap, it's Eddie Olmos!). he talked about community work, and positive representations in media, and made accusations against the Latino film industry people. "you guys would rather give me an award for doing the right thing, than bother doing the right thing yourselves." maybe they won't change their lives, but at least they'll feel a little guilty next time they exploit someone. Eddie Olmos rocks.
-
at the ball, DJ played mostly salsa, but a bit of cumbia and an almost-ranchera, per Amalia's request. we danced, drank (at the marriott, the "special discount" rooms were $192, and bud light was $7), laughed, then watched a movie screening which was marketed as "including a free tequila shot" (this turned out to be true). 2 friends stayed with us last night, Amalia's making papas con huevo. good weekend, a pesar del choque. looks like i'll still get a bit of work done.

TOP NALIP

2007-03-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

just finished administering the ucla Test of Oral Proficiency. this is the test international grad students have to pass if they want to TA here. it's a weird and conflictive authority to have. there's a very smart electrical engineer from taiwan who won't have a teaching job because we didn't like her final phonemes or rhetorical organization.
-
now, running to Hollywood, to pick up Amalia's headshots. it's gonna be hard to make it there, then down to the conference in time (way off in Newport Beach). i swear i'll try to make it there. my film class group wants me to go help them edit this afternoon. whatever, i'll see them tuesday. same goes for my "minority education" class group, they'll get my powerpoint slides on immigration, pero mas despues.
-
at the NALIP conference. we saw Illegal Tender last night. produced by John Singleton and directed by Franc Reyes (Empire). it was good and violent as hell. in the talk afterwards, the filmmakers mentioned how for so many Latino/a actors, the only options are hos and thugs. watching this movie, a friend pointed out that these college kids were learning to act like thugs (while protesting "i'm not a gangsta"), and how exactly is that an expansion of the possibilities? yet it was a good film. well made, well acted, interesting plot and dialog. a strong, badass female lead. and i suppose there are some "moral" lessons. i worry that what people will remember, though, is the bling bang.
-
after the screening, went to a late night eye-talian place with Amalia and Frances. ate huge plates, there was a cover band that played - not in this order -
Journey, "Any Way You Want It," "Open Arms"
Rod Stewart, "Maggie Mae"
Rolling Stones, "Honky-Tonk Woman"
and a Cuban song i can't remember the name of.
their version of Journey was very close. we swayed together, i sang along and mangled the vocal line:
"She says Ho-ol-don! ho-ol-don! ho-oh-oh-oh-ol-don!"
Amalia hits all those notes better than me. always has, always will.
-
but when they did Honky-Tonk Woman? damn. speaking as a white boy, they played a version so white, it made the original - which was performed by white boys - seem like it wasn't white at all, by comparison. it was like if pat boone had done Rolling Stones (in addition to Little Richard). i'm glad that cover band didn't try to do soul music or something. i would've had to leave if they'd butchered Al Green or James Brown. we all have limits. you gotta know your limits.
-
then i left, at 2am, drove back to inglewood. and got way too early for the damn T.O.P. at least i get paid for it. so we can afford a hotel tonight.

DVD martini juju

2007-03-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

Amalia and i volunteered at the nalip office early, then tried to get costumes for the historical ball - but all we ended up getting was a $40 parking ticket (at least she thinks i look good in a three-corner hat). back home, i designed a new cover for Amalia's DVDs. she needs a bunch for the conference next week. this is it, with a paul gregory photo. she's happy with it. she looks hot.

mira: lightscribe discs, which burn pictures directly onto the disc. badass. they're expensive, $1.50 each. but they come out more professional and stuff. so we'll probably use these instead of printed labels. the price drops under $1 each if i buy a bunch.

eventually to Edgar's house - turns out he lives just 2 blocks away. martinis with a bunch of people. then we all went to a private $10 party (w/Garth Trinidad, LA's "Chocolate City" dj). called juju. also in our neighborhood. paintings and posters from the Black Arts Movement. if you passed by on la brea, you'd have no idea that hundreds of people were gettin down and drinking crazy clove/cayenne/mint/pineapple concoctions. i danced some, though i know it's not my forte. i'm not trying to win any contest. mostly, amalia and i just chilled listening to sloppy freestyle. the vibe at Juju was so open, so positive.

i was embarrassed by my filthy car, cuz i gave Edgar and Maria Elena a ride. they didn't complain (out loud at least). i owe them one.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

2007-03-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
[presentation I gave, in Douglas Kellner's "Cultural Studies" seminar, feb 27]

Blade Runner movie (windows media)
Philip Dick book

Philip Dick's name is funny. That's not what this presentation is about.

As a fan of Blade Runner, what is obvious about Dick’s novel is the content missing from the film. The book alternates between deadly serious and comic. Central to the book is the concept referenced in the title, of not only fake humans, but fake animals.
Voiceover
The original, director’s cut of Blade Runner did not have a voiceover. Ridley Scott was opposed to it, as was Harrison Ford (who attempted to sabotage the voiceover with a cheesy film noir voice). They wanted the sense of confusion, alienation. Yet the studio insisted on something more, to guide the audience. The book, with an omniscient narrator, feels more like the studio version. One difference is the book’s protagonist thinks about silly things. Irrelevant things. And he especially obsesses about purchasing an animal. None of this fits well into a sci-fi noir movie. Side note: I like the Blade Runner director’s cut better, without the pedantic voiceover, and recommend it to anyone. It is a bit too serious, though.
Fake animals
Rick Deckard is owner of an electric sheep. This sheep is programmed to replicate the behavior of a real sheep. Deckard used to have a real sheep. Animals are actively traded around the world. Few exist outside of zoos and private homes, so there is a known market, which operates strictly based on supply and demand. Books are published and consulted for trading, books which have recorded every negotiated sale price. Deckard was unable to buy a replacement sheep because of the sheer cost. He has a fake sheep, programmed with “an oat algorithm” so his neighbors do not realize the truth.
Special
In the future, not only have most people abandoned earth, most animals are extinct. In an exaggerated mutt combining today’s environmental warnings with daily casualty reports from Iraq, the book’s television reports include daily updates of which specias have become extinct. This creates a sense of impending doom among people. Coupled with government warning about the dangers of staying on earth (as opposed to leaving for a space colony), people have real fears of their own extinction. Nobody sees this as a problem to solve, exactly. Their responses are purely remedial. They were lead-lined codpieces, to protect their reproductive abilities, and reluctantly make plans to leave earth.
All the while, they hope to not be exposed to so much fall-out radiation or toxin as to be classified “Special.” Deriving from today’s schooling category of “special education,” in this future, a special is a person whose brain has been damaged by radiation. This is perhaps the only thing worse than death. People are tested often to assure non-special status. A Special is not allowed to hold a normal job, and is actively discriminated against in all aspects of life. Even at a space colony, the Special would be hated. A Special seems to be viewed as almost contagious, as if the damaging isotopes are being re-emitted. Conversations in the book are abandoned mid-sentence when a normal realizes the other person is Special.
Religion
He wants people to not know it’s fake because of the dominant religion, Mercerism. They believe that to achieve enlightenment, a person must feel pure empathy. That means caring for people, but also caring for an animal. Only by providing food, shelter, and love to a helpless creature will the believer be saved. Almost everyone follows this tenet, though it logically requires that most people are spiritually doomed, because the animal population is much lower than that of humans. Of course, while Deckard is concerned for his own salvation, he seems to worry more about how is perceived by others. Hence, the electric sheep is a reasonable temporary replacement.
So as the book deals with the question of how to tell whether an apparent human is an android or not, we also learn the differences between real and robotic animals. And the principle difference is spiritual. Yes, the fake animals behave different in some ways, but this is irrelevant. The important thing is the “soul,” which cannot be faked.
Implicit is the suggestion of a human soul, which androids lack, which ultimately makes it okay to kill them. Mercerism says that androids cannot feel empathy, so they are inherently evil. It is not a sin to kill an android, because the android can act only out of self-interest.
Advertising
Advertising is important in the book. Advertisements are everywhere, and explained in the prose. In the film, television commercials and billboards are everywhere, too, but they seem to blend in to this post-apocalyptic world. We are numb to them, as we are to the advertisements in our world. With the book, though, there is something fundamentally different. The author calls your attention to an object, essentially forcing you to read it or listen to it. The point here seems to be the ridiculousness of our objects now, and the problem of our numbness to them. Though the reader is highly aware, the characters of the novel barely notice advertising. They are bombarded with messages, mostly ones warning them about the health hazards of remaining on earth, yet there is no rush to move to the space colonies. Just as in our world, the effectiveness of commercials seems to decrease as the quantity and variety increase.
At the same time, everything is clearly commodified. Even things that seem like people turn out to be products. Rosen Corporation makes money by creating fake people, and Deckard makes money by destroying fake people. Isidore, a Special, makes money by repairing fake animals, and the Happy Dog Pet Shop makes money by distributing them. Whoever runs Mercerism makes money by selling billions of Empathy Boxes, the required devotional tool. Everything, even spirituality, is an object with a price listing in a book. Small references are made to this pan-objectification. Deckard talks about “the tyranny of the object,” with things being only as real as measurements indicate. I'm not sure what that means. Any ideas?

a good party

2007-02-24T02:09:00.000-08:00

just went to a good party. we hung out, talked to lots of people. LA people, good people. and friends old and new of San Anto. all doing interesting things, independent film and music. we hung out, laughed, danced, Amalia, Lisa, and i talked about tampons and ate chili and an entire bowl of moras.
so at that party, bought jewelry for mi reina, some of it made by Ana. Amalia put on the new earrings and a necklace. so impressive.
Maria Elena talked to us about some of the poetry scenes here. and hair dye. met Branda and Gustavo, very cool filmmakers, we're going to meet up with them in 10 hours, at NALIP orientation. Amalia and i told them about the cat/forrest gump movie i made, and the John Lawrence documentary i'm working on now. gave Daniel a ride to Boyle Heights after. a little abuela next door to him was outside, locking (or checking the lock of) her gate. walking so slow. she glanced at us with uncertainty. it was very late, abuelas should be in bed.
i went to a few parties like this, in the fall. but while Amalia was out of town. when she is back from performing or whatever, sometimes she only feels like eating raw fish or seeing a movie. hardly need to say that this is the kind of party we should have been going to 5 months ago.
it isn't 5 months ago anymore.

be the movies

2007-02-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

i guess it's because i've been watching too many movies about relationships. or that most movies are specifically about relationships ,and i've just been watching too many movies. whatever: recently the screen seems to invade my imagination. too often.

i thought maybe i was a character from Closer. only in a few scenes, not the whole thing. "there's always a moment." in my film class this quarter, we read shit about the overwhelming sense of realness in film. how and why it can surpass literature, visual art, stage, and tv. nothing can manipulate as effectively. it controls time and perception (you cannot go back and re-read a page at a movie theater - but i'm re-reading a book stanza now).

And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury

other forms often suggest to us that "we are there," in a moment. but the experience of directed gaze at a photo or painting, this is limited to 1 sense, and we are responsible for moving our eyes. film gets inside our heads, moves our eyes for us. and the experience of imagining the scenes and characters of a novel, film does this for us, as well. the film's images step in the middle, the point where our imagination usually is, and take over. when we say a film is "not as good as the book" we often mean that the way we imagined it actually looks better, and, if filmed, would be a more convincing movie.

the disorientation after a good movie is like being startled from a dream, or hearing terrible news. we perceived the world in a certain way just a moment ago, and now, the basic assumptions have become irrelevant.

Alice Ayres is not strutting down a street in manhattan (it was just a movie).
there are not actually bugs crawling all over us (it was just a dream).
our brothers or cousins or lovers really have died or abandoned us (that phone call was real/this will not be undone).

Ask the Dust last night. watching an asshole protagonist, rooting for him to be a better man, even though we knew he's senselessly cruel. what is it that makes such a man seem rebeemable, even momentarily? if you and i saw a man doing these things in reality (harassing and shoving a Mexicana he calls "greaser") would we root for him to "get the girl"? or would we call the police, or a domestic abuse hotline? would we want to see our good qualities arise in him, as we hope that we, too, can "get the girl"?

what makes someone worth a second chance? a face like Colin Farrell? A talent for writing? vague promise of a future? that burn of passion, which knows no logic and cannot be denied?

Romanzo Criminale sunday. a fun hour flipping through a record store, another hour in line at that damn italia film festival. mann's cinese theater, making fun of the french bastards who cut in front of us. i'm sorry for the time it took. but "il Lebanese" was badass, right? really, i just wanted to slide through the screen, to Rome in 1972, and walk those curving streets holding hands, then make espresso with the machine you gave me.

just a couple days before that, saw The Factory Girl avec vous. i used to think Warhol was cool, but i was amazed by Dylan. he was smart, snooty, principled, frightening, juvenile, and profound - all at the same time. not that i ever thought i was his equal. i listened and read so much on Dylan, i just understood him in a way that meant he was no longer an idol to me. merely human. sometimes a force of good, sometimes just a dick (especially to those who loved him).

Warhol is different, right? maybe because he covered up his past so much? but no - they both changed their names, invented a persona. Robert Zimmerman, nasal Jewish-school beatnik of Minnesota, becomes Dylan, protest voice of a generation. and Andrej Warhola, effeminate sickly child of Polish peasants in Pittsburg, invents Pop Art and the postmodern conception of Fame. They both head for new york, escape the past, spread romantic gossip about themselves.

destined for greatness? yes. kindness? no. nobody moves to new york - or los angeles, for that matter - to learn how to be kind. my theory, you better know that already. some people, the better they know you, the easier they can destroy you. Edie Sedgwick, Joan Baez, Sara Lownds Dylan came back again and again (misery doesn't care if he was a Beatles Man or not).

anyway, Dylan's charm isn't so charming when it's turned agaisnt you, i thought during Factory Girl. when i was 17, i wanted to be a new Bob Dylan. and since Dylan was his own invention anyway - an extended pose - who's to say i wouldn't have come close? as far as Warhol goes, i've never been anything like him. i've never exploited people like that, vampire-sucked their dreams, acted like i was too good for anyone. now i sound defensive.

by age 22, i wanted to be Hank Williams. his love songs are just more sincere (plus i can look a lot like him, si vous plait). but by age 29, Hank Williams was dead. now, i don't need a movie to hijack my visual cortex. and i don't need a character to "be." you know how to "be" people, but that's not what you need.

i won't have Fame like you, but you and i will "be" a force of good. i swear. you are not an eternally miserable character from Closer. maybe - just maybe - you are an eternally loved character from The Fountain. who can say? i am grateful for all love and support shared. a pesar de todo.

you sell me short

2007-02-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

[new. a dark country song.]
-
you sell me short
when i look away
you hedge your bets
cut short your stay
you take the loss
cast off the port
you cash it in
you sell me short
-
i'm the one worth waitin' for, babe
all the rest ain't worth a damn
i'm the one can make you happy, babe
i aint lyin' 'bout who i am
-
no deep dark secrets i'm coverin'
here's my cards for all to see
it ain't a perfect hand
ah ain't a perfect man
but i'll be perfect as a man can be
-
----------------- but
you sell me short
when i look away
you hedge your bets
cut short your stay
you take the loss
cast off the port
you cash it in
you sell me short
-
i see you cuttin' yer losses, babe
before we finish the first round
i feel you ready to resign
when the cards are still facedown
-
ain't suggestin' i never faltered
but ah never done you wrong
some show their love
with screams and shoves
ah show my love in a song
-
---------------- still
you sell me short
when i look away
you hedge your bets
cut short your stay
you take the loss
cast off the port
you cash it in
you sell me short

baby, this ain't the end
don't sell me short

Rwanda judiciary film

2007-02-08T02:42:00.000-08:00

In the Tall Grass

went to see a documentary shown by UCLA African Studies. about the Gacaca -- the traditional forum of Rwandan community justice, which has been modified to process tens of thousands of war criminals. pronounced "ga-chach-a." basically, the genocide ended (or slowed, depending on your definition of genocide) in 1994. there were at least 700,000 murderers and war criminals to deal with, almost all of them Hutu. the government had been destroyed only a year earlier, in civil war. there was no possible way to arrest, hold, feed, or provide trials for them all. the government was barely able to keep order in the countryside. and not even a huge system like america's or russia's could handle an influx on 100,000 prisoners, nevermind 700,000. even if they could afford to imprison almost 10% of the population, how could a government with a million homeless refugees justify giving food and shelter to criminals?

so the new unity government sent teams out to talk to the people about "divisionism," the Kinyarwanda word for ethnic hatred, which threatened to boil over. all across the nation, in disparate communities, the people talked about Gacaca. Gacaca had faded away while the Hutu and Tutsi were enslaved by european colonists. the Rwandan independence movement in the 1960s focused on building a "modern" (i.e. european-style) judicial system, which would handle crime as well as the civil disputes which had formerly been the domain of local Gacaca. but the people did not forget their indigenous justice system. the new "post-ethnic" government, in 1994, listened, and reinstituted these community justice forums.

Gacaca has notable differences from a so-called "modern" judiciary. the goal of our judicial system is to protect individual rights and punish the guilty. there is no elevation of "truth" per se, only doubt. because of the law negotiation process, the result of a case (especially a settled case) is compromise, not truth. determining punishment is very central to the enterprise.

in contrast, the goal of the Gacaca is not to punish, but to find truth. truth is considered most valuable, and leniency is offered to those who tell the truth when confronted by a community at a Gacaca. whatever the crimes, if the person owns up to his/her guilt, and then asks for forgiveness, the punishment (even for something like murder) could be community service. the interethnic community of Hutu and Tutsi want reconcilation, not vengeance. it is common and useful, in their eyes, for the remorseful guilty person to stay and repair trust relationships little by little. but if the person denies guilt, and the adjudicators think he/she is lying, the crime of lying - perjury - is severely punished. the person may be ostracized by the community, as they all feel lied to. the person will be given a verdict of guilty, but for sentencing, he/she is sent to the national criminal system. in this case, their national system is the International War Crimes Tribunal. which at that point decides what punishment(s) are appropriate. the sentence is more likely to be death penalty than community service. so liars, proceed at your peril.

in the film, the members of the community elected a board of adjudicators. those elected are respected in the village/neighborhood, but have no educational background in law. they aren't paid, either, and they do not campaign for the seats. they are male and female, young and old, rich and poor. once elected, these adjudicators (i don't remember the rwandan word) receive a short training course on procedure - mainly to have a standard form of Gacaca, which used to vary according to province, tribal history, etc. as for how to actually decide guilt or innocence, this is not taught; they rely on their grounding in the moral tenets of their communities, which has been ratified by their neighbors' votes.

the people in the community gather around a table where the adjudicators sit. there is one person standing. this person acts as something of a host - he reads about the crime which has been brought to the attention of the Gacaca. he asks the seated community if any of them would like to talk about the crime. typically, the person victimized will walk forward and speak. in the Gacaca i saw, Joanita came forward. she explained how she saw her next-door neighbor Anastase kill her husband with a machete to the neck. she grabbed her children and immediately tried to escape. but the deth squad, including anastase, lead the 3 children away. Joanita said she saw anastase and others hit the children. She believed they had been dead for 12 years, but could not mourn accurately because she did not have their bodies to bury.

anastase, who had long been aware of what he is accused of, was sitting, listening. joanita, stoic, sat again. the host asked if anyone could corroborate Joanita's story. Joanita was one of only a few Tutsi who survived the genocide in that community of 1500 people. she no longer trusted any of her Hutu neighbors, and was worried no one would say anything. she believed somebody knew where her children's bodies were, but no one had told her.

but a Hutu woman did come forward. she said she heard Joanita's husband scream, then immediately called to her brother to run with her to see what was happening. Joanita's husband was dead, she saw. and the Hutus, including Anastase, had already seized the children by then. they immediately tried to recruit the neighbor's brother to assist with killing Joanita's children. The neighbor said that was all she knew, she didn't actually see the children dead.

because Anastase had been placed at the scene by two witnesses, the host asked him if he would like to say anything. Anastase admitted to being a member of that death squad, but denied actually swinging the machete that killed them. anastase said he had gone in first and advised the man to hide his national ID card, so the death squad wouldn't have proof of his ethnicity. but Anastase said the other men came in too quickly, found the ID card, and immediately killed him. Anastase concluded he didn't want anyone to die, he was really trying to save a life by hiding an ID card.

at this point, because it was late, the gacaca recessed so the farmers could finish their coffee harvest for the day. they met again the next afternoon. Joanita was invited to rebut the story of Anastase. She made a few detailed observations about that day, directly asking Anastase about contradictions in his testimony. anastase denied all guilt still. another, different woman comes forward. she says she knows something about what happened. she says a group of men led by Anastase were dragging the children down the road. She says one of the other men hit the oldest child with a nail-studded club. She said anastase carried a machete, which he admits to having taken from the hand of Joanita's husband. she followed from a distance and saw them take the bodies of the three children, and throw them into a shallow grave surrounded by banana trees. she said 2 of them were still alive as the death squad, including Anastase, filled in the dirt.

the people of the community listen intently, then talk to each other. when anastase again denied his guilt, and refused to even apologize for deing a member of the death squad, the people mutter their disapproval. looking around at people, many of whom are his close friends, Anastase felt deperate. he could tell they did not believe his version, and this was not a good sign for his future.

the story continued in the documentary, and continues still. Gacaca will not solve all the problems; it might not "solve" anything. but it at least has created a forum to speak of the unspeakable. Gacaca is a remarkable institution, which allows rwandans to come to terms, village by village, with an ugly ugly past. they get to more truth than a high-stakes, contentious courtroom ever could. community pressure becomes the policing force, which is a good thing to promote, as much of the genocide was enabled by those who looked the other way. many of the 700,000 genocidal murderers perform commuity service and have worked to rebuild the country, something they would never do if they had been imprisoned (or executed). and the survivors seem to be satisfied with what would be called light punishment. they feel better to receive an apology, and greatly desire a situation that gets them over the hurdle of Justice without resorting to vengeace and retribution.

america may still be a bit too "Eye for an eye" to try something like this. on the other hand, americans do not (en mass) go on killing sprees within their neighborhoods the way many of the Hutu did. for some things, we want blood; for others no.

cats on film

2007-01-21T15:46:00.001-08:00

i'm taking a class that involves making movies. get the details, if you want to know about combining theory and practice with media technology. i couldn't think of a pretentious title for my new website, so i called it "Film Naïve."
anyway, i think what you really want is to watch my first movie, starring a cat.

"Our Founding Illegals"

2006-12-26T22:19:00.000-08:00

"Our Founding Illegals"
by William Hogeland
New York Times, December 26, 2006

[not only are we a nation of immigrants - we are a nation of illegal immigrants. undocumented workers. including our "greatest" european ancestors.]

America’s pioneer values developed in a distinctly illegal context. In 1763, George III drew a line on a map stretching from modern-day Maine to modern-day Georgia, along the crest of the Appalachians. He declared it illegal
to claim or settle land west of the line, all of which he reserved for Native Americans. George Washington, a young colonel in the Virginia militia, instructed his land-buying agents in the many ways of getting around the law.
Although Washington was not alone in acquiring forbidden tracts, few were as energetic in the illegal acquisition of western land...
Washington harbored no fond feeling for breakers of laws that he too had recently flouted. “It is hard
upon me,” he lamented without irony, “to have property which has been fairly obtained disputed and withheld.” He went to court to have the squatters evicted, complaining that they had “not taken those necessary steps pointed out by the law.”

[the article makes several oversimplifications, and does not consider what happened to enslaved Africans and Native Americans. yet hogeland makes valid points. we have always been a site of struggle between the haves and have-nots. the question is, does "america" stand for meritocracy (martin luther king) or hereditary wealth (paris hilton)? do you believe in equality, or artificial lines to preserve privilege?]

"The upper Ohio was rife with illegal immigrants, ancestors of people who, in country clubs today, are implying a Mayflower ancestry."

[most of us "white" people are not descended from pilgrims, or even from England. in fact, when our ancestors arrived, they didn't count as "white" and didn't learn English for 3 or 4 generations. today's Mexican and Asian immigrants learn English much faster.]

"Those of us whose ancestors risked everything as illegal immigrants, and in the process helped found a nation, owe our forebears a debt of gratitude, too. Without their daring disregard of immigration laws, we might not be here today."

[the main point for me here is that laws themselves are not inherently good. it was hard for some people to wrap their heads around this a hundred fifty years ago (when slavery was legal), and the same is true today. do you benefit from the fact that your hard-working ancestors arrived illegally -- which they did, unless you are Native American? isn't it hypocritical to condemn the work of today's immigrants? isn't it hypocritical to eat the food immigrants provide, then tell them to go home?]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/opinion/27hogeland.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

thesis

2006-12-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

The Alamo 2004: Everybody in Texas is Going

my master's thesis has been bound and shelved. it is in the University of Texas at San Antonio library. you know, in case anyone might want to read it. here is the global cataloging link:
worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/75182820?tab=details
it has my abstract. which is, i hope, easy enough to understand. i tried to avoid jargon and theory crap (difficult with this sort of topic, but i think most people know most of these words).

ABSTRACT
The Alamo narrative tells Texas’ creation myth, and has in the past been a symbol of unity for “Americans” by displacing San Antonio’s Mexican/Tejano origin. After September 11th, Disney’s The Alamo was conceived as a blockbuster epic to reshape history. It would unite all Texans, justify and glorify war, and entertain families. Though a dozen films of the Alamo have succeeded, Disney’s 2004 version flopped. This thesis examines Tejano marginalization, bicultural society, anti-Mexican stereotypes, and American identity, illustrated in scenes from The Alamo involving four characters: Juan Seguín, Jim Bowie, Santa Anna, and David Crockett. As public history, Hollywood’s Alamo films are sites of struggle between academic history and myth. In this case, an incompatibility between inclusionist revisionism and ethnocentric stereotype creates incoherence. Ideals of history and inclusion are ultimately abandoned to re-inscribe Alamo myth. During the War On Terror, Disney and director John Lee Hancock created a movie that not even Alamo fans wanted to see. The Alamo film shows this divisive symbol is losing relevance altogether. Constructions of the nation as a linguistic, ethnic, or cultural monolith no longer work. San Antonio and America deserve better public history, and a better symbol, than the Alamo.

borat - social context review

2006-11-21T16:42:00.000-08:00

it was very funny. and repulsive. and, somehow, sweet. that's the schtick: this guy is so sweet, seems so sincere (even when he's spouting hate against Jews and women), that people want to give him the benefit of the doubt. and then he pushes it to far over the edge of acceptability, people are forced to reject him anyway. the concept exploits people's tendency to think the best of people. on the other hand, some of those he talked to, egged on, are hateful motherfucks who deserve to be revealed for what they are and ostracized. my feeling is that most of the audience understood that borat's hate speech was a put-on, and they didn't take pleasure in the hate itself as much as in seeing people's discomfort.
whether it is socially a "good" thing or not is open to debate. the jewish couple in the film, they are so friendly and nice, it is obvious Cohen chose them for this reason. and the anti-semites and gay-bashers in the film talk like morons (the rodeo guy, the USC frat boys). it is thrilling to see old-world and new-world menaces bonding. and it would be difficult for anyone to cheer for those frat boys. and the confederate gift shop, borat literally trashes the place. ultimately, borat marries a black prostitute - the last person you'd expect a white supremacist to choose. and it's, in general, a good idea to expose the farce of pentacostal, cult-of-personality megachurches.
but for Kazakhs themselves, and the former soviet union in general, the character may come close to an anti-slavic minstrel show. everyone in the village seems insane and/or evil. they've got a "town rapist"! but two entire regions - eastern europe and central asia - would like to pretend that anti-semitism, racism, and misogyny are not their problem. now, at least, they are forced to talk about it. notice it doesn't matter that the scenes were shot in romania; if hollywood says this is kazakhstan, it's kazakhstan (romanian is the language heard in the village, as they went on the assumption that most people can't tell the difference between a romance language and a turkic one).
strangely enough, i'm taking a class right now on international education that has one woman from Romania (Ligia), and another from Kazakhstan (Svetlana). they sit next to each other. they are both experienced and published scholars of educational methods. but as Svetlana begins a story with "In Kazakhstan..." my mind wanders to borat. unless teenagers are less juvenile than me, these images are what an entire generation will picture every time someone mentions Kazakhstan.
But Svetlana mentioned the fetishized view of the West in her home country. she said that young, aspiring Kazakhs of previous decades wanted to shed the superstitions of the past in favor of Russian language and culture. and that now, the kids all want to shed the superstitions of the past in favor of American language and culture. they often have no real undersanding, just a general impression, which is - as she has discovered during her time at harvard and UCLA - often incorrect. that is the major theme of borat, and also describes americans' understanding of Kazakhstan. at the very least, many kids realize that Kazakhstan is not, in fact, the same as Afghanistan. or the same as russia. that's a point most geography classes fail to convey.
and a few (only a few) might absorb borat's lessons: that our first impression of foreign people is often incorrect. and america is as messed up a place as any.

the Text

2006-11-17T02:00:00.000-08:00

did a presentation on Douglas Kellner's book, Media Culture. focus on what is called - by Cultural Studies writers, at least - "the Text": any creation that can be watched, read, listened to, or otherwise consumed in a cultural (rather than nutritive) way. movies, sitcoms, the news, fashion magazines, videogames, hip hop, action figures, and cappuccinos* are all Texts.

- The Text: Kellner's Multiperspectival Reading (presentation slides)

Texts are things with legible cultural content, which can be "read" for intentional as well as ideological messages. there is always context. everything created was created by somebody, and their understandings of culture can be expressed - and everything consumed is consumed by somebody, and their understandings of culture can also be expressed. example: the song "Dixie" was, it turns out, quite possibly written by the Snowden family, popular Free Black performers in Ohio, during the Civil War era. they never intended the song to promote Thurmondesque segregation. but it certainly carries that message now: "opponents of integration and black rights would sing 'Dixie' as a kind of counter-song asserting white privilege and white supremacy" (University of Missouri historian Charles Reagan Wilson).

* cappuccino is consumed in two ways - people drink it for the taste and chemical content, but also for what cappuccino is in terms of culture. that would be sophistication, affluence, even a political philosophy. and the venison jerky my uncle makes has entirely different politics. few foods are culturally empty (but many foods are nutritionally empty). cultural studies is largely about learning to read the Text of our world.

4uarter

2006-10-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

fall quarter started. exciting and overwhelming. so many books to read. fanon, freire, hooks, mukudi, solorzano, kellner... if i'd read douglas kellner before my master's thesis, i would've used him as a source. he gets at the way media -- especially film -- fits into ideologies about nation and power. ni modo, tengo bigger fish to fry.
went to san francisco (or as eddie izzard mockingly calls it, "the city... so what's oakland, just a collection of houses??"). first time. saw "what are you doing tonight?", a play starring a bunch of my talented friends. best performance so far was at Teatro Campesino. Amalia and Nicolas do this broken relationship scene based on militarizing the border, and i almost cried. then we went to get rowdy at the only bar in San Juan Bautista.
now it's ucla. even for fun: last night Amalia and I went to a ucla salsa party. with legendary cuban drummer Francisco Aquabello. i didn't step on her toes, but i clipped her jaw on a fancy spin. still got some work to do.

inglewood

2006-09-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

we now live in north inglewood. drove out from san anto, stopped to visit Amalia's brother Jose, in el paso. moved in, a cute little guest house. tight but sufficient. rest of our stuff in storage, returned the rental truck only a few hours late (70 bucks extra). got lost on 110, 101, 10, and 5 in the late afternoon.

migas likes her new home, good places for a cat to walk. we like it too. hope i figure out a good way to campus. here goes nothing.

welcome to beautiful los angeles

2006-07-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

we went to los angeles, to scope it out, see the sights, maybe find a place to live. instead, someone broke into my rental car. stole my computer, amalia's books and CDs (including a zora neale hurston voodoo book she just bought). i had a backup CD with all my files on it. in case my computer crashed, you know. better safe than sorry. well, i kept that backup in the same computer bag. for being smart, i'm not so smart sometimes.

the computer was a compaq presario 2104US. it was likely stolen by these guys Amalia and Lamar saw, outside a pawn shop, 3100 block of santa monica blvd. so if you're checking out LA pawn shops and see a presario, send me an email. god knows the LAPD doesn't care. they wouldn't even send a car out, i had to drive to the police station to get a copy of the report for my insurance. and LA detectives don't work weekends (budget cuts), so i would've had to wait a few extra days to even get them to investigate (not that they would seriously do so).

my computer was valuable, at least to me ($2000!). for LA, though, i might be white, but i'm very poor and easy to ignore.

other than that, the trip was fine. saw a vincent valdez show, and we were supposed to see a willie perdomo reading. but the taco shop poets filled in at the last minute. ni modo. our amiga Ana was an excellent host. so many things to do, it'll all have to wait. i gotta re-type my master's thesis from a paper copy. how exciting.

ice house

2006-06-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

i wrote/acted in an impromptu play last night. at the guadalupe theater.
cruz ortiz, juan ramos, and adriana garcia went to an ice house. they each drew something on a napkin. then, i joined marisela barrera, lisa anaya, and adriana to adapt these ice house ideas into a fifteen minute play. we wrote it in 90 minutes. 3 scenes. it needed more work, of course, but was fun. we got some good evaluations (and some mediocre ones). the first scene was titled "his chorizo is after everything." it involved true-ish stories from each of the women. in each, i played the role of the schmuck. the second was a myspace-based blind date, which ends after only 7 seconds. the last scene is four friends on their way to an ice house, stuffed into a honda hatchback. i have a history monolog:

A hundred fifty years ago, san anto was HOT. Not like today, no, no. because today there’s always air conditioning to look forward to. Ahh. It’s late june, you’re walking through HEB, and you got goose-bumps. But in 1856, by june, nobody could remember what a goosebump was. you were just hot.

But there was ice. Like Vaqueros, Texans lassoed glaciers in Greenland, dragged ‘em to Galveston, and blocks as big as your house were brought on trains to warehouses in each city. San Antonians lined up at the nearest “ice house” to buy their very own chunk of sub-zero ecstacy. sometimes, they just hung out beside that massive block of ice, to bask in radiating coolness.

Fast forward fifty years. Ice was now made in factories, shipped to multiplying ice houses throughout the city. San Antonio had German immigrants, who weren’t great architects, but knew a thing or two about BEER. Ice house owners bought that beer, added tables, chairs, and groceries. Ice houses sold to Tejanos, Anglos, and Blacks. See, Jim Crow segregation never caught on at some ice houses – our racist lawmak-ers didn’t know whether to classify it as a “place of revelry” or not. If all you really wanted was to drink, you went to a cantina. But if you preferred to socialize, the ice house was for you. This was the place to gossip, laugh, and pick up chicks.

Prohibition pushed cantina-goers into unventilated speakeasys. But with the summer heat at 100 degrees, people still came to ice houses, which survived by selling Cherco-Cola and Coca-Cola – which had co-caine until 1929, which is, in my opinion, at least as dangerous as beer. Anyway, if you knew the pass-word, the best ice houses offered top-quality pilsner and lager, smuggled in from Mexico’s finest breweries.

During the Depression, alcoholism at an all-time high, they gave up on the prohibition idea. Moonshiners went out of business, while ice houses thrived. In the end, not even air conditioning could kill the ice house. Because nobody goes to walgreens to hear chisme. and nobody goes to Piknik to watch the spurs game. names and owners change, but Bexarenos still gather to relax, hear music, gossip, laugh, and pick up chicks. An ice-cold chela in one hand, an ice-cold chula in the other. !Viva la ice house!

ucla

2006-05-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

i was accepted into the Cultural Studies in Education Ph.D. at ucla. that's very good, i wish it wasn't expensive. one of my professors suggested i have a phobia about money. because i am not happy about taking out tens of thousands of dollars to pay for this. because -- and here's the crazy part -- i could get a Ph.D. at a less prestigious university and actually MAKE money on the proposition. i don't know. ucla, it's going to be hell the first year. they charge an extra 14000 per year just because i'm out of state. this is only the first year, i'll get residency after that. but still. 14000? that's what my entire master's degree cost. i'm just afraid of getting ripped off. and afraid of being in debt. i don't like owing anything to anyone. i owe lots to my family and friends, of course. but in a non-monetary way. that's best, because money causes sadness and strife.
so i wish i could avoid it, and i wish ucla would jsut pay for everything. but supposedly they're the 2nd best college of education in america. my professor says i'd be crazy to pass it up. either way, i can admit: i am afraid. that doesn't make me a wuss, it makes me sane. why would someone want to go into debt 30 thousand dollars? there's gotta be a better way.

UTSA commencement

2006-04-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

I am receiving my master of arts on saturday, may 13. here's my online graduation announcement and party details.

i took my written and oral comprehensive exams - and passed. with honors, even. so tired. these last two weeks are perrón.

About 18,000 protestors march downtown

2006-04-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

what did you do monday? here's what i did.

when my ancestors got here, all they had to do was get off a boat, and POOF! they got legal status. America became great by being the land of opportunity. not a xenophobic Fatherland. today's laws are unjust. unless you're rich you must wait years before even getting your application read (new slogan: "America, land of opportunity for transnational executives").

Native Americans and immigrants are the most American of us all.

if the Sensenbrenner bill passes, my job, teaching English to immigrants, will become a crime. (why do our representatives want to punish immigrants for learning English?)

we are all immigrants.

About 18,000 protestors march downtown
04/10/2006 07:21 PM CDT
Express-News

An estimated 18,000 protestors, irate over Congressional proposals addressing the country's illegal immigrant population, took to the streets of downtown San Antonio on Monday afternoon, hoisting Mexican and American flags, while calling for justice and peace.

The local rally and march was San Antonio's answer to the simmering and divisive debate over what should be done with the estimated 12 million illegal migrants in the United States. Across the country, protestors rallied in more than 100 cities on Monday, called a National day of Action on Immigrant Rights.

Among the local group were religious leaders, day laborers and students, some of whom walked out of classes hours before the late afternoon event took place.

White T-shirts, symbolizing peace, were being sold and the League of United Latin American Citizens handed out placards that read, “Justice and Dignity for all U.S. Immigrants,” and a familiar rally cry was “Sí se puede,” which translates to “yes, it can be done.”

Before marching through downtown, protestors rallied at Milam Park.

Among the protestors were about 15 students who left Alamo Heights High School at 9 a.m., after their principal warned that the day would count as an unexcused absence and students would be required to serve a day of in-school suspension or attend Saturday classes.

"We want to support our people," said Vicky Silva, a 15-year-old sophomore from the school. "We want people to know about us."

Iungo Magazine

2006-04-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

at the premiere party for Iungo magazine (goiungo.com) last night. lot of fun, there were music and poetry performances, food and good coffee. it was at the new Ruta Maya on the river downtown. i loaned them my computer for site/video demonstrations. i wrote one article for the first issue, and i'll probably contribute more later. but for the next month, it's thesis, comps, graduation.
i was accepted to UCLA's Ph.D. in education.

quasi-annual miss southtown pageant

2006-03-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

saturday april 1 is the 14th(?) quasi-annual miss southtown pageant. miss southtown, the only all-gender pageant in texas.
i may or may not be a member of the planning committee. i did produce and edit a short video (3 minutes), based on the ourvoir (how you spell that?) of a certain singing cowboy. don't wanna give anything away, think of it as a qualitative analysis of supressed sociocultural issues within mass media.
the pageant is at Oscar Alvarado's "Wiggle Room," on south presa. between the tracks and the HEB. what time? maybe 10pm. sepa la mo. pero be there and be square.

Jump-Start Performance Party

2006-01-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

i was asked - last minute - to play at Jump-Start theater on saturday. no problem. i can play guitar and sing with little preparation. i just don't not very often. too many commitments. ni modo. it went well, dressed up like eddy arnold and played country stuff. a minor key variation on "comin' round the mountain." this was my grandpa's favorite song, but i changed lyrics asi:
_________________she'll be
drivin' six white hosses when she come.
drivin' six white hosses when she come.
drivin' six white hosses, menfolk
filin' for divorces. she'll be
drivin' six white hosses when she come.
_________________yeah we'll
all come out t' meet 'er when she come.
all come out t' meet 'er when she come.
all come out t' meet 'er, lak a
whisky-soaked saint peter. yeah we'll
all come out t' meet 'er when she come.

you get the idea. it was fun. i also did "en tu birthday te diste mi troca," (for your birthday you gave yourself my truck) which is a san anto song. san anto people seem to like it. i didn't want to only play spanish stuff, i was glad to get enough time to do two. because Jump-Start audiences tend to be english dominant. fortunately, with Urban015 and Guadalupe Dance Co., they were a bit more bilingual this time.
the rest of the show was outstanding. Amalia and Maria did a hilarious scene about trying out for Westside story. great conjunto from "Dos Generaciones," Ed somebody doing funny bad magic, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Kevin Evans (jazz), Amanda and Anthony Flores doing "hold your tongue, poet." the strangest ones were both in the 3rd act: an outstanding contemporary japanese theater thing (which i didn't understand), and Roy Thomas doing offensive drag (which i understood, but didn't care to).

PhD-rivative

2005-12-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

this week i had so much -- finished analysis of my Alamo tour guide ethnography. i had 11300 words of data. that's quite a bit. in a nutshell, the Alamo is struggling between two paradigms: to celebrate the heroism of white people (the old model), or present accurate evidence while promoting inclusion (the new model). they truly used to avoid things like "history." and now, some people are trying to avoid racist (anti-Mexican) language while pronouncing the spanish words correctly. especially with Latino tourists. interesting situation. i'll put my powerpoint up here.
also got Ph.D. applications turned in this week. surviving the process should be worth course credit. to three programs so far. they're all interesting, y con clima razonable, but i can't go unless they offer some funding. i need to look at contingencies. i like teaching, i could be happy as a public school teacher-- were it not for the standardized tests. no hay que hacer.
es tan facil endurar dia tras dia sin destino, y tan dificil planear en donde quedarse. pero it's been over, ya no quiero la vida aguantable - demando la vida tremenda.

palatka/ocala, florida

2005-08-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

just back from a planned, yet unannounced, trip to florida. my parents house, to introduce them to my girlfriend (y vice versa). lots of fun, middle of the swamp palatka crescent beach san augustine (mobile) ocala -- my grandparents' farm. "stancil's pineywoods farm." the road that was a dirt road until a few years ago, named "stancil avenue." cuz it only went to grandpa's sandpit and my cousins' trailer, nothing but stancils.
anyway, they're widening it to four lanes, eminent domaining a large chunk. the future se viene. uncle harold had to run fence along the new edge. and the entrance, with a wooden sign my grandpa hung there 60 or 70 years ago. being moved. because too much traffic. they (my mom, her brothers) don't want to sell the farm./ but it makes no money, no money in florida cattle anymore. no money in hay, all the farms do horses now. import special stuff from canada.
and the city is coming. every month more. every year the tax assessment grows, so they have to start selling it. and not sellnig it to make money. they're selling it to get cash to pay the taxes. it's shrinking with no ROI. of course, they could sell the whole thing, there'd be profit in that, but loss in equal measure. bunch of developers want to put bighouses with toy horse farms all over ocala. that or strip malls.
can't stop time. but ni modo, can't touch memories either. nos vemos en otro lado, grandpa.

impuro slam

2005-07-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

i read at Amalia's new "Urban Verses" poetry night. at urban-15, my neighborhood. it was fun, i heard stuff by a few new people. i even liked eduardo's stuff. and oliver grimball was lots of fun to hear (but no, i cannot agree that he's the absolute best in the city). there was a casual slam, i won. a travel litebrite.
actually, i had a real busy day. got a new website database idea to work for the bicultural/bilingual website. started the new afternoon class with unam, worked on writing ideas (mythology vs. history) for my thesis. then evening class at unam. tried to sort out some financial stuff for when i gotta pay for my computer and tuition next month... not looking forward to that. in fact, i'm uncertain how i'll make it work, maybe another student loan?

revolution/revelation

2005-06-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

talent or lack thereof aside --
i'm performing in MadMedia's theater production
Revolution/Revelation at the guadalupe theater. saturday 25th of june. i'm doing some social issue "poetry". and an extended solo piece -- called

"revolutionary pedagogy: the psychometric invalidity of high-stakes testing in Texas". it's a comedy. yes that's true. i play an educator giving a cheesy powerpoint at a conference. then kind of goes off -- about systemic ethnocentrism and overthrowing the testing corporations. it gets pretty weird, should be fun.

meanwhile i'm working 3 jobs while theoretically starting my thesis.

860 dollars

2005-05-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

thats what i gotta pay to work on my thessithis summer. just to work on it. meet with a professor once a week. get guidane. la profe would do it for free, but if i'm not enrolled, i couldn't graduate in december... i need to take 2 semesters of thesis, and sequentially, not simultaneously. and i couldn't keep my G.A. position if i don't enroll at least 3 hours. that's so they know they're getting the cash back from me.
working as a graduate student, its not so good. better than trying to not work, cuz this shiot is expensive. but i feel taken advantage of. i was recruited to work of an academic paper (Arts education) turned out i was ineligible,i end up on a relate project but doing a website. that's kool and all. but if i'm doing a website i can go private sector and earn twice as much per hour. i just hope it can balance. thing is, i'm going to be short of cash. not just a little, either. my tuition will go on a credit card i will hopefully pay off my mid july. pero quien sabe. i lost an entire month of salary when the grant was cancelled on the ethnography project i did. that's what got me.
and i'm not even approaching the benefits which are none. at 19 hours a week (that's what i get, if i work more i'm a sucka cuz me, they no pay). so i'm BELOW "part-time" by texas definition. so i'm ineleigible for anything, whether health, vision, dental, retirement, reduced tuition, parking, whadeva. el trabajo no vale nada. it'd be a drop in the bucket to the great state of texas -- but to me, a dentist would be a messiah.

poem to be started

2005-05-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

...in fermatas of longing and passion and
desires both fulfilled and
desires soon to be
when heat gets intense when we burn in glorious anthem
of senses sound touch sight
but an unknown too
that scares us and sears us
and drives our hearts
and we repeat from the top

we got spirit yes we do

2005-04-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

why does utsa have no school spirtit? football team is an obvious one, as they said. but that isn't all. many schools with no football (gonzaga, william & mary, case western, seton hall, university of chicago, uc san diego) have plenty more "School spirit". other differences:

1. time - utsa will never, no matter how much time passes, be as old as yale,
columbia, or even young schools like a&m or ut austin. can't catch up in time. a pemanent obstacle.
2. location - the campus is too far from the city. this makes it hard for non-students to connect with events (like they do when the spurs win a championship). nearly every "patriotic" school is right in the middle of the city or small town.
3. housing - students don't live on campus. only a handful, really. so there is not a core of fans who are saturated in utsa life 24 hours a day. any "spirit" schools has a huge number of on campus students, faces with spirit building activities multiple times a day, every day. things as simple as receiving a letter (with campus address) or eating dinner (in campus dining hall) become reinforcement of school identity. many schools require freshmen (with few exceptions) to live in dorms.
4. alumni - there just aren't many interested alumni. this is related to time, but it is possible, eventually, to catch up (old people die). at ohio state (my undergrad) the alumni participate in EVERYTHING - not just football. a music recital, end-of-course research presentation, and student government events always draw interested alumni. this is also related to the location, because less non-students live nearby. there are not yet many multi-generational roadrunners. going to your parent's schools more than doubles the school spirit, i think.
5. diluted attention - most don't know this. but there are more university students in san antonio than austin. the difference is san antonio's 58000 students are split between a bunch of schools (approximately: utsa 22000, st marys 13000, trinity 10000, oll 7000, uiw 6000). so resources, news, alumni, and community interaction are all split. in austin, all college news or events are for the same huge school.

possible solutions:
1. location - move the school downtown. or at least, stop building so much in the north, keep building lots downtown.
2. housing - build more housing. close enough to walk to class , actually ON the campus. not beside it. this will require things like a small grocery, gas station, coffee house, dollar store, video store. realyl a huge real estate development.
3. focus attention - this will require more funding, emphasis on program strengths, involvement in more community organizations, even initiative with a few of the other universities. more classes offered downtown will steal students from oll and uiw.
4. rivalry - the sports teams always play schools like luisiana lafayette or arkansas or something. students need an immediate, notable rivalry. against local universities. and ut austin.

but who needs school spirit anyway? will it make my life better?

balancing plates

2005-04-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

balancing plates

i'm trying to do so many things. and a few get lost by the wayside. i needed to have this book review turned in on april 5, but i couldn't get it. too complex. too long. too much to digest, i didn't feel i understood ("reclaiming the local in language policy and practice", suresh canagarajah, ed.). so how the hell was i gonna explain it to others? in a peer review journal, especially? they would send it to some profe to read, she's just gona send it back and say "what is this, written by some grad student?" and it will turn out that, yes, it was written by some grad student. on deadline. balancing many many plates. a few well balanced, a few about to spin off and smash, huevos rancheros and all, onto the grimy tile floor. that's the floor of the screen of the kitchen of the restaurant of my brain, in case you aren't psychic and had not divinado my metaphor. i'm thinking of the tables as my projects, i keep putting in orders and what cmes out is pretty close, i gotta scramble to get it all to the right place. and not forget the quirky requests --

"bring me two full glasses of coke, one of them with no ice, each time i need a refill" --
"put the same amount of cheese, but none of it inside, all the cheese on TOP of the enchilada" --
"an extra bowl of just pico de gallo, but i'm allergic to onions, so no onions" [so can i get away with picking out the onions or do i need to chop up new pico myself?]
"don't you guys have any AUTHENTIC mexican food?"
"can i substitute french fries, and can i get them baked or something instead of fried?"

so i get it all delivered, figure out the details eventually. but there's always that one plate, that one table, i just screw it all up. write off the tip, just try to get that family of norten~os ricos out of here so i can seat someone more appreciative.

when really, ya basta. all i want is to see my girlfriend. i'm sweet on her.

new meaning of energy

2005-03-21T16:42:00.000-08:00

watching DMBQ last night. at tacoland. they are in this continent, this state, for SXSW. and graced us san anto residents (we who are too lazy to make the drive to austin and tolerate the masses) with a show. and kicked my ass. they rocked like they didn't care. but i could tell they did, because the drummer was so focused. serious. stern. and she bowed so gratefully when they had finished playing, when the last song terminated with a sort of ad hoc drumset surfing over the crowd. the drummer in her chair, bending over as not to hit the ceiling. the snare, tom, cymbals arranged and floating in front of her, each guided by different hands. me, i became the vocalist with the microphone that didn't work right but had enough reverb to not matter (and even if all their equipment had failed, going a capella they would have still stunned us) the mop-hair ceiling-kicking guitarist strapped his gas mask on my face. with some sort of weird ass metal implement where the air filter goes, cord trailing to some amp or something. it shocked me, electrical current flowing through whenever i touched it, and it was just at the voltage level that i couldn't tell: was it some kind of modified guitar pickup with a bad grounding problem? or actually intended to emit shocks? as the guitar headstock hit my abdomen, as the bass player's twin headlamps scanned the crowd, i let it go. but no, not out of control. never out of control. within my control -- but just barely. like a hot hot coffee cup, almost -- but not quite -- to hot to hold. you can hold on, it only feels like its hurting. try it. DMBQ.

too perfect poetry

2005-03-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

too perfect

i know you know that feeling of something too good to be true, but you don't want to question it because you know, if you do, you'll find it's all just bullshit and that ain't so appealing, it ain't good to try and push it 'cuz revelation gets us reeling, so i don't question just who i am or if this could be it, all is taken at face value when everything's too perfect.

abcbcacabcbc

but that's not exactly right. it is a sense of understanding truth beneath prima facia. that i, we, perceive perfection because our "realistic" expectations weren't high enough. way i see it, we put up with too much bullshit in the past (flip side of that, i handed out too much of my own bullshit, too). the constant bullshit numbed our senses. desensitized insensitive senseless.

so the matter is just recalibrating, readjusting the scale. to accomodate (sp?) the fact that this is off the charts. perfect? heck no. just damn near it, and getting even nearer.

that's good enough for me. takes work to sustain, but for once the ROI is indisputable worthwhile. te lo juro, no lo dejo plantado.

against astrology

2005-02-19T00:47:00.000-08:00

[myspace] this thing lists me as an "aquarius." and yes, according to some arbitrary designation, my birthday is within the time period that fatalists call "aquarius".
thing is, it's right there with actual basic information, like my name and age and gender. aquarius is nothing about me. that's not an absolute identity, it's an imaginary word about an imaginary constellation of stars. stars that are millions of light years from each other. and which already have burned out by the time their light reaches us.
yet there it is. as if it were important. as if i chose to inform the world (or the virtual world, anyway): that among the most basic information on me, you MUST first know i am an aquarius! nevermind my personality, hobbies (cooking, guitar, poetry, politics, languages, mexico, beer), passions, job, school, or whatever. before all that, more important than everything else, i am aquarius.
i can't even remember what imaginary character traits are supposed to be revealed by my starsign. that's how long since i read a horoscope. whatever they are, i remember it was always quite vague. vague enough that a fatalist (that's a person who believes in fate instead of freewill) could "analyze" this entry and show "evidence" that i fit the classic aquarius profile. so be it.
i have a birthday, but i've decided not to have a starsign. i'll see how that works out.

a ride to the airport

2005-01-26T23:16:00.000-08:00

[excerpt from email to my sister]
about the idea of friend, this kind of forum makes a re-definition of it. reminds me a bit of summer camp, when yo become a "friend" of someone, spend practically every waking hour together, then never see each other again after camp is over.

of course that doesn't happen with everyone, and there are exceptions, but many people go through such relationships. and yes, there are people on here who (the page announces) have "200 friends!"

and according to the definition used on MySpace, sure, any of these people are my "friends". but in reality, we are not enemies, but we don't hang out together.

to me, a friend is... if i would give her/him a ride to the airport on my lunch break, she/he is a friend.

so my point is, i remember ty's friend jason. but i'm not giving him a ride to the airport.
--------------------------------------

after reflecting, i actually decided i probably would give ty's friend a ride. i've actually given strangers a ride places before. maybe i should make it more demanding, like if it was 4:30am and i had a final the next morning... would i still give her/him a ride? if so, maybe "Friend" is the right word.

"friends" re-definition

2005-01-26T01:29:00.000-08:00

[myspace] so this seems like a cheapening of the word "friend." unlike in reality, to be a "friend" on this website requires disturbingly little commitment. or recognition. just click here and -- boom, you've made a new "friend." someone i've never seen, spoken to. like walking up to a stranger and starting an intimate conversation, calling her/him a friend.

to do that in reality, well, you'd count as the freak on the bus, right? the one nobody sits next to. but do it on MySpace? you're "popular." like magic, like Brak (on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, circa 1995) telling everyone about his "imaginary girlfriend."