Threes

Three things I need to do to my car:

1. Get the cracked windshield replaced
2. Get the tires checked.
3. Get my 30,000 mile checkup.

The last three movies I've seen:

1. Disturbia
2. Fracture
3. The Last Mimzy

The last three Netflix rentals:

1. HBO's Elizabeth I part I
2. HBO's Elizabeth I part II
3. Deep Space Nine Season 6 (I have yet to see the episode where Dax dies.)

Three books I'm trying to read:

1. Creating Significant Learning Experiences, by Dee Fink
2. Terrier, by Tamora Pierce (actually I'm listening to the audiobook)
3. Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies, by June Casagrande

Last three albums I purchased (yes, I still pay for them and I still call them albums):

1. Year Zero, by Nine Inch Nails
2. The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, by Citizen Cope
3. Sahara, The Soundtrack

Three things I'm grateful for:

1. The teaching training I got from the Center for Teaching Enhancement at USF and from Marsha Vanderford.
2. Audiobooks from Cracker Barrel.
3. Biscuits from Cracker Barrel.

Today and yesterday were great teaching days. We are in the argumentation section of the book. I explained to students that this was hard but that I was confident they could get it. After the lecture and a couple of examples of each type of argument, it did seem like they were getting it. I was happily surprised. One student said it was the easiest thing we've learned all year. The only other time a student said that was when I was going over the mistakes that the class made collectively on their speeches and exams. So I got to thinking, what do these two teaching days have in common. The answer: In both cases, I deviated from the book. I'm now wondering to what extent I'm focused on "covering the material" vs. learning. I gave up covering the material for active learning ages ago, but for some reason I can't seem to let go of it this semester. Perhaps because I have three new course preps, and it's the first time I'm teaching five classes (since the Women's Studies days at USF), I'm just in the "get through the semester" mode. I bought the book that Clopez recommended, Dee Fink's Creating Significant Learning Experiences, and I'm working my way through it very slowly. It reminds me a lot of the approach that Teach Baton Rouge takes in that it's very holistic. I think I am going to spend the summer designing my courses now that I've been through them once. I just hope I remember all the little details that I need to remember. If I had been smart, I would have kept a teaching journal. Or I even could have worked on stuff during the long boring ten hours a week I spend in office hours. It just didn't occur to me. Silly me.

Emboldening the Enemy

Ever since I saw Jon Stewart's spiel about emboldening the enemy on the Daily Show, I've been hyper-conscious of the word. A quick google search yielded this nifty entry on emboldening the enemy at Source Watch. So when I saw this headline at MSNBC, it caught my attention: Abortion ruling emboldens opponents. "Emboldening" is a word I associate so closely with "terrorists" now that it's not hard for me to read "Abortion ruling emboldens opponents" as "Abortion ruling emboldens terrorists." Well, they -are- terrorists, but that's beside the point. Or is it? Maybe it's just a vast liberal conspiracy. I wish there were such a thing.

Follow the dollar

Counterpunch has an article today on how much money Cheney and other war profiteers have made off the Iraq war. It's so appalling; I can't believe that this sort of thing doesn't make headlines in the mainstream news. For instance,

In addition, Cheney's son-in-law, Philip Perry, Cummings says, was appointed to serve as general counsel to the Department of Homeland Security, and he had been a registered lobbyist for Lockheed who had worked for a law firm representing Lockheed with the Department of Homeland Security.

According to Cummings, less than a month after 9/11, in October of 2001, the Pentagon announced a $20 billion contract for Lockheed for the development of the Joint Strike Fighter, called the F-35. At the time, Edward Aldridge was Undersecretary of Defense for acquisitions, technology and logistics, which was responsible for the approval of the contract. Aldridge left his government post in 2003, and he now just happens to serve on Lockheed's board of directors.

This sort of wheeling and dealing is making my stomach hurt. We really need to stop this war.

Which raises the question about my loyalty to Hillary and where I stand on the Hillary vs. Obama situation. I used to have a bumper sticker that said Hillary in '96. I've been a Hillary fan for years and years. And despite Obama's charisma, I think Hillary would make a better president. I think Obama would make a great vice president. He doesn't have the experience to be president. And, of course, NOW has endorsed Hillary, which has disappointed Codepink. But dayum. We really need to get out of this war, and Obama is the only one that seems willing to be staunch about that. In the end, though, I just feel guilty for not doing anything myself to end the war beyond reading Codepink and True Majority mouse-click politics. I deserve my stomach ache.

Gratitude

1. I am grateful that none of my students are psycho gun-wielders.
2. I am grateful that it's almost the end of the semester.
3. I am grateful for a Wendy's small vanilla frosty.

Bowling for Va. Tech

Like the rest of the country, I am spending the morning reflecting on and reading about the shootings at Virginia Tech. As one article on Michael Moore's website puts it, all the usual suspects have lined up along predictable rhetorical lines. Anti-gun control folks say that letting citizens have handguns on the college campus would have enabled students to stop the gunman before he mowed down 32 people. The logic in that boggles me. Gun-control advocates trot out their legislation. Nonetheless, even in the face of all the evidence about gun violence in America, I remain ambivalent about gun control. This is primarily due to a comment my friend, Carolyn DiPalma made after watching Bowling for Columbine. She said something to the effect of if you make all guns illegal, then only the government has guns, and what's to stop a situation where the government is pointing guns at you and you have no way to defend yourself. Look at Tiananmen Square (incidentally, they've been declassifying documents about what happened).

I'm a new old hippie & Doc Martens

Netscape had this great link this morning about a woman who used to be a punk rocker and now is a 44 year old mother. Boy, did I identify with that article, especially when I listen to Willow playing her music, which is music I used to listen to. Admittedly, she has some rather eclectic tastes, but my point still stands, as evidenced by her desire to copy my Sahara Soundtrack, which contains classic rock from my high school days. The comments on the story are great. One specifically says that old punk rockers are the new old hippies. Not that I was ever a punk rocker.

I listened to more New Wave than punk, but the point still applies to me and my 20 year old Doc Martens, which is apparently up and running again after it went out of business. Actually, now that I'm reading Wikipedia about it, DrMarten didn't go out of business, it outsourced. The irony of this outsourcing is just depressing. In the history section of the Doc Marten's homepage, there is a screed about branding, which I have excerpted below:

The late 1960s and 1970s saw the boot adopted by – not thrust upon – nearly all the tribes’: Mods, glam, punks, ska, psychobillies, grebos, Goths, industrialists, nu-metal, hardcore, straight-edge, grunge, Britpop …

Then pop started to eat itself.

The internet spread like an epidemic, reaching fifty million users in eighteen months – a feat that took radio forty years. The first mobile phone text was sent in 1992; within three years, email was like oxygen.
Everything had changed.
There were no tribes anymore. At least, “not like they used to make ’em.”
You don’t see one tribe fighting another anymore, a haircut does not define a person to four albums by three bands.
The tribe is down to one person.
You.
A one-man army.
The personal revolution manifests itself in a million ways. So-called ‘indie’ and ‘punk’ record labels of the 1970s and 1980s were created to cut out the suits. They were called ‘labels’ because of the round adhesive label smack bang in the middle of the
vinyl.Vinyl?CDs?Now, you don’t even need a label.Record, mix, master and post on
the web from your own empire.Hit the charts from downloads alone.
There is no one left to cut out. It’s all down to you.
Of course, just because we can all now ‘create’, doesn’t mean we are all actually any good. But the cream floats to the top, whatever the mode of transport.
Same with Dr. Martens.
Decades have come and gone, brands have exploded and then imploded, but the 1460 is still there, unique, individual, original. Anti-fashion defined in eight
holes. What’s seen as information overload to the older generation is just
everyday surfing to the new generation. In one weekend edition of The New York
Times, there is more information than a seventeenth century man was exposed to
in his entire life. Dr. Martens haven’t been around since the 1600s, but in
terms of ‘brands’ that mean something, that last, that reinvent and evolve, they
pre-date pretty much everything.

By the mid-1990s, Dr. Martens had festered in the minds of youth without a single penny of ‘marketing spend’, longer than the majority of global brands had even existed. There is no comparison. This is not a brand, it is a way of thinking, a mode of expression. The problem with ‘brands’ is that they dictate. They might offer the must-have item of the season, but they design it, shape it, form it and sell it. You have no say, other than handing over your money. Look at the word: ‘brand’. That’s what they do to cattle.

Rebel.

So, Doc Marten's brands itself in its rant about branding. How very postmodern.

Anyway, back to the new old hippies. One of the comments on Mom was a Punkrocker explains the way that punk rockers are the new old hippies. Here is an excerpt:

Old Punks are the new Old Hippies. Think about it:

...

OLD HIPPIE:Things weren't as cool as they were in the late '60s.
OLD PUNK:Things weren't as cool as they were in the late '70s/early '80s.

OLD HIPPIE:Wears tye dye and jeans as if they are still underground.
OLD PUNK:Wears leather jackets and jeans as if they are still underground.

OLD HIPPIE:Clings on to the same few artists as gods (Hendrix, etc), and insists that their music is the best artform.
OLD PUNK:Clings on to the same few artists as gods (Ramones, etc), and insists that their music is the best artform.

OLD HIPPIE:Despite being middle-aged, they insist that they still have their finger on the pulse of the new youth culture.
OLD PUNK:Despite being middle-aged, they insist that they still have their finger on the pulse of the new youth culture.

Punk no longer means anything remotely transgressive. Being a punk just means you're an aging geezer who's about as offensive and nihilistic as an old granny with a grocery cart. Most punks still grow up and have kids and get married and move to the suburbs just like every other meat-and-potato-eating American-flag-worshipping "normal" person. The only difference between punks and soccer moms are their music tastes, their fashion choices, and their choice of soy versus real milk. Underneath the dye and leather, they're all the same. Punks=suburbia. (Pun intended)

I think I need my eye cream.

More on BRCC

So I had lunch with Gary Reeves, the chair of my area at BRCC, and he told me that what I've experienced with my students not showing up is the norm, not the exception. That made me feel relieved in one regard. I have always believed that students vote with their feet and that low attendance was a reflection on me. He said it was a big problem for the school. I am experiencing culture shock, I guess. I need to come up with some creative ways to reach these students. I'm open to suggestions.

Crazy Cat Stuff

Here's a cute story about a cat who rides a bus three times a week. Crazy stuff.

Ann Coulter on Imus

I swore I wasn't going to give her any more press, but here I go again. Ann Coulter on Imus

CSPAN

It never occurred to me to visit C-SPAN before. I've only recently become a C-SPAN fan, watching the morning call-in show, the Washington Journal, whenever I get an opportunity. It's the best way to cover the news, imo. They project newspaper excerpts right on the screen from a variety of sources, so it's nice coverage. So I visited the website today and I was really impressed with the various offerings. It was cool. This morning the topic was stem cell research. The guest was the CEO of the Parkinson's Action Network. So I learned about the two senate bills concerning stem cell research and more about the controversy. The Parkinson’s Action Network supports Senator Reid’s bill (S. 5), which would reverse the ban on federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells created after Aug. 9. 2001. They do not support S. 30, which will make no new inroads into stem cell research. Apparently even the Bush appointees to the NIH support stem cell research. The NIH has a great page explaining what stem cell research is.

BRCC

Today and yesterday have been disappointing days for me at BRCC. I assigned informative speeches to be delivered the day after spring break and no one showed. Perhaps that was my mistake and I will remember to try something different next spring. However, it has happened consistently for each of the speeches we've done so far. It was just particularly bad this week. Of the students who did come to class, very few of them were prepared to deliver their speech. Students are fully aware that this costs them a letter grade on their speeches. I don't understand why students don't do their work. Consistently, students don't show up for their speeches, or show up unprepared. Gary Reeves was right when he said I didn't have to worry about grade inflation. I'm worried about my students passing the class. What do I do?

104 The X

Here is what The Fish wrote back:

we play evanescence, flyleaf, veruca salt, the cranberries, mazzy star, sneaker pimps...that's the ones I can recall off the top of my head. Fiona Apple, Poe, Liz Phaire, Courtney Love (we play sometimes) are possibilities!check out THE CARDIGANS and the GATHERING!

Of course I've heard of the Cardigans, but I haven't heard of the gathering. Looking them up, I see they are a Dutch Metal band. Which of course raises the question of Kitty. We'll see if my email made a difference. I'm gonna start checking out their playlist and seeing how often they play women.

104 The X

I emailed The Fish at 104 the X today. Here is what I said:

Why don't you ever play any chick groups or groups with chick lead singers. The only one you play is Evanescence (over and over). Why don't you play someone like Courtney Love, or Avril Lavigne, or Pink, or Cheryl Crow, Fiona Apple, Poe, Liz Phair, Joss Stone, L7. Seriously. I could go on and on. Where are the chick's voices?

If you want to mail The Fish too, his email is: thefish@104thex.com. I think on Monday I might call the programming director and lodge a formal complaint. Woo. I'm such an activist! Ha!

June Casagrande

I was surfing around the net and coincidentally ran into a book written by an old friend who I haven't talked to in years. Her name is June Casagrande and her book is called Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies. I can just hear her voice saying that. She's so expressive. Anyway, in an interview for Powells.com, she said something about why she writes that struck me:

Because I feel an impulse to write. There is no other reason to. Writers spend a lot of time asking each other, "How do you discipline yourself to write? How do you force ourself to sit down and just do it?" And my answer to them is a loud and resounding: Don't. My policy is that I never have to write another word again as long as I live. Period. And that's why I'm about to start another paragraph.

I wish I felt that way. It's an interesting way to reframe writing.

More Proof of Bush's Lies

Saddam Hussein's Prewar Ties to Al-Qaeda discounted. Now there's a surprise. *eyeroll*

I'm getting old

I just put on some eye cream because my eyes were tight and my skin absorbed it like a sponge. :(

Hillary is NOT THE FIRST

People need to realize that Hillary is not the first woman presidential candidate. Many people keep making this mistake. Victoria Woodhull ran for president in 1872.

Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman on a democratic party ticket, yes. But that is not the same thing as being the first woman "on a U.S. presidential ticket." Check out here for other women who ran for president in the U.S. including Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Pat Schroeder, and Sonia Johnson. I think it's because only two parties count: Democrats and Republicans.Victoria Woodhull didn't run on a "major" party ticket. Ah well.

Second Life

About a year and a half ago, someone told me about Second Life, the mmorpg. I got a character there and I even bought a new video card to play there. I was very psyched about joining. I spent a couple of weeks learning how to get around and building my character. But after that, there was nothing to do except go shopping or build things, and if you're not into code, building things is kinda boring and frustrating. So I stopped going even though I have several VR friends who go there. It seemed to me that people don't really RP there the way they do on mushes, so I just wasn't interested. It reminded me a lot of Furrymuck. But now Second Life is really huge and I keep seeing stories about it popping up in the press. For instance, someone named "Stroker" just sold his "Amsterdam" site on Second Life for $50,000. Wired has an interview with Stroker that's sort of interesting. Last year, Reuters opened a virtual news bureau office on SL. Most recently, Sundance has held a virtual screening of a film from the festival. Maybe I should go back.

Emailing students

Academic Coach says:

I generally recommend that professors NOT respond to student emails as soon as the messages arrive, even if it will take less than two minutes to respond, because it leads undergraduates to expect immediate feedback. If you routinely reply to student queries within minutes, later in the semester, when you don’t answer the 11pm cry for help the night before the exam, your students will become disgruntled at your “lack of responsiveness.” Don’t train them to expect service 24/7.

Good idea! I find myself responding immediately and I think this is a habit I am going to break. Especially since it is spring break.