Month: August 2011

Everybody Is a Journalist!

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit handed down a decision yesterday that makes it clear that one doesn’t need to be employed as a reporter to be granted First Amendment protections. This is a great day for every blogger and independent news-maker and commentator:

Moreover, changes in technology and society have made the lines  between  private  citizen  and  journalist  exceedingly difficult to draw.  The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events  come  from  bystanders  with  a  ready  cell  phone  or  digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper.  Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.

Reporting and discussing the news is no longer the province of the few. These activities are now open to all of us, and it’s wonderful to see the court system recognize this new reality.

If You Ban Smoking in Bars, You Have to Ban Animals, Too

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

Finally, bars in New York are being prohibited from allowing animals to be on the premises:

The health department issued 469 violations for live animals in food-service sites from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, though the agency did not provide a breakdown of the different kinds of offending animals. During inspections, many owners said they were surprised to learn that dogs were not allowed even in outdoor seating areas. Neither does a bar’s dearth of actual food products provide any cover. “Beer, wine and spirits have always been classified as food,” a department spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. Only service dogs are permitted in spaces that serve food or drink of any kind.

The idea that smelly, panting dogs who shed hair and are likely to assault customers at any time should be imposed on paying patrons just because of the selfishness of a few “dog-lovers” always seemed strange to me. As usual, these “doggie-parents” are equally cruel to other humans and to their own animals. Can you imagine a dog who’d actually want to be stuck in a bar rather than run around in a park?

Since bars have outlawed smoking on the premises for health reasons, it made no sense to keep allowing animals in. Each of us surely has their own vision of whether it’s more exasperating to have a smoker or a dog hanging around while you are trying to relax. I passionately dislike dogs and have a dog-phobia, so my answer is clear. For those who don’t hate dogs, a smoker’s presence can be a lot more annoying. Smoke makes one’s hair and clothes stink and can aggravate existing health conditions, such as asthma and others.

In terms of health, however, the damage inflicted by second-hand smoke is cumulative. A dog (or any other animal) can spread germs or assault a customer instantly. This is why I believe that if you ban smoking in bars to make the environment more customer-friendly, it makes no sense whatsoever to let the dogs in.

Is the US Participation in the Libyan Conflict About Oil? Again?

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

I just found a fascinating article by Conn Hallinan that refutes Juan Cole’s suggestion that the US participation in the Libyan conflict is all about stopping “massacres of people” and establishing a “lawful world order.”  Hallinan ridicules the idea that the US really cares about anybody’s massacres from an altruistic point of view and attracts out attention to the importance of Libya’s supply of oil as an explanation for the Americans’ interest in the country:

The charge that this was about Libya’s oil is “daft”? Libya is the largest producer of oil in Africa, and the 12th largest in the world. Its resources are very important for NATO’s European allies, and over the past several years there has been competition over these supplies. The Chinese have made major investments. During the war China, Russia, and Brazil supported the African Union’s call for a ceasefire and talks, and pointed out that UN Resolution 1973 did not call for regime change. One of the first statements out of the Transitional National Council following Qaddafi’s collapse was that China, Russia and Brazil were going to be sidelined in favor of French, Spanish, and Italian companies. Quid pro quo? The war was not just over oil, but how can anyone dismiss the importance of energy supplies at a time of worldwide competition over their control?  The U.S. is currently fighting several wars in a region that contains more than 65 percent of the world’s oil supplies. Does he think this is a coincidence?

I know there are Juan Cole’s fans reading the blog and I’m not aiming to hurt their feelings. However, Hallinan’s non-sentimental discussion of the US’s involvement in the conflict in Libya sounds a lot more convincing to me. Like Hallinan, I don’t think that this is exclusively about oil. It is, however, one of the factors that condition the US involvement in the area. Stopping massacres is not because it has never been.

How Come Tattoos and Piercings Are Suddenly a Women’s Issue?

~ Clarissa ~ 15 Comments

It’s very frustrating when people take issues that concern women and men equally, erase men from them altogether, and just concentrate on the female part of the equation in order to present themselves as feminists. Body acceptance issues are one example. Men and women suffer from poor body image and fatphobia equally, yet there are folks who insist that this is an exclusively female problem.

Now it turns out that there are attempts to read tattoos and piercings in the same gender-skewed manner:

I’m not saying that teens only get tattoos as an act of rebellion; it’s obvious that there are as many reasons for getting tats or piercings as there are people who get them. But there’s no question that the desire to mark the body as one’s own (rather than one’s parents, or one’s peers, or the fashion industry’s) is a huge part of the appeal of permanent body modification. But tattoos or piercings aren’t for everyone. Without judging or criticizing those who do choose to tattoo or pierce, we need to work harder to give young women alternative strategies for taking public ownership of their bodies. Whether inked or not, every girl deserves the reminder that her body belongs to her alone.

Note how “teens” and “people” are suddenly transformed into “young women” and “every girl” who need to be given strategies (obviously by some benevolent paternal authority that is there to rescue these poor damsels in distress.) Men of all ages get tattoos and piercings everywhere, yet somehow they are completely erased from this discussion. Is the suggestion here that men’s reasons to engage in these practices are different from women’s? Or is it, rather, that they are not worthy of attention? Is that because women are a perennial mystery that needs to be solved or eternal victims to be saved from “society”?

This is the kind of quasi-feminism that does nothing but perpetuate the gender divide and present men and women as coming from entirely different planets.

Committee Work: Autistics Win

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

Now that I’m starting my 3rd year on the tenure track, I have finally figured out how to fulfill service obligations in a way that isn’t a waste of time and is actually fun. I managed to get elected to the university-wide Research and Development committee that distributes $375,000 in research grant money each year to scholars at our university. This way, I will see many grant proposals and learn what makes an outstanding proposal. This is a very valuable committee that everybody wants to be on because it does real work. It isn’t just some mindless paper-pushing. This is really crucial work that will benefit our entire university.

So now I’m on one College of Arts and Sciences committee (that also does really fun, important work) and this university-level committee. They both only occupy one’s time during the Fall semester and leave you completely free (yet still on the committee lists) in spring and summer. Nobody can possibly ask me to do any more service than this, and I’m really enjoying myself in the meanwhile.

And don’t think this was easy. I had to resist certain amount of pressure to assume other, boring, useless and time-consuming service obligations while I was waiting for these two fun committees to open.

The moral of the story: it’s sometimes hard for young scholars to resist the pressure and they end up being pushed into way too many service assignments. However, we have to remember that everything we do has do benefit us in the long run. The person who will come out winning is the one who is the least prone to allowing senior colleagues to guilt trip her into doing things she doesn’t feel like.

Being autistic really helps because it liberates you from wondering if people will still like you if you keep saying “no.”

Weekend Plans

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

I have managed to get through the first week of classes and the first two weeks of committee meetings while being sick with the flu and an ear infection. I feel better now, but I still can’t hear anything in my right ear and feel constantly exhausted. So my plans for the weekend are:

  • sleep a lot
  • read for fun
  • take very long baths
  • blog
  • cook
  • drink a lot of tea
  • eat tons of raspberries and peaches
  • watch at least 2 very silly shows on television
  • go for walks with N.
  • do absolutely no work of any kind whatsoever

I’m sure that after 2,5 days on this regimen I will be as good as new on Monday.

Am I Being Disrespected?

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

A post on College Misery titled “Yes. I’m a Woman. No. I’m Not His Secretary” suggests that being engaged in the following dialogue by a student means you are being disrespected on the basis of your gender:

Student: Do you know if Professor Zhou is in his office?
Me: I don’t know. Why don’t you knock to find out?
Student (knocks and is silent, walks into my neighbor’s empty office)
Student: Do you know where Professor Zhou is?
Me: I’m afraid not. He comes and goes as he pleases.

This is the beginning of the semester, which means that many new students are wandering around the campus trying to figure out where everything is located. Today, two students came to my office to ask me where the lab is located. One inquired about the Registrar’s Office. One asked about the cafeteria. And three were looking for a bathroom.

All of these inquiries must mean I’m being horribly disrespected. I just can’t figure out whether I’m being asked all these things because I’m a woman, an autistic, a blonde, a Ukrainian, a Jew, a blogger, an immigrant, a temporarily hearing-impaired person, a younger person, an older person, or a person wearing red shoes with sparkles (all listed attributes are currently true). Such an opportunity to feel self-righteously downtrodden and I’m missing it because I have no idea what I’m being discriminated for in these instances.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

~ Clarissa ~ 33 Comments

I just discovered here that in the US there is opposition to the Convention which guarantees that most basic rights of children. These rights can be summarized as follows:

Children have rights to life, identity, nationality, knowledge of and care by hir parents, self-expression, thought, conscience, religion, free association, privacy, access to health care, access to resources to allow children with disabilities to fully participate in the community, education, and leisure. Signatory governments have obligations to protect children from neglect and abuse as well as to provide financial, development, and psychological support.

Do you know of anybody who would object to any of these rights being granted to children? I think that all these things are so obvious and so basic that no reasonable individual can possibly object to adopting the convention and practicing it in full.

 

An Online Degree for Autistic Students

~ Clarissa ~ 7 Comments

This sounds like a great idea:

For some students with autism, the idea of operating in the social environment of a college classroom can be so debilitating as to derail the pursuit of higher education at all. For those who do enroll, their condition can make it difficult to succeed in a traditional classroom setting.

But Dana Reinecke, in the department of applied behavior analysis at the Sage Colleges in Albany, N.Y., said she realized that through online learning, students with autism can overcome those barriers. “It allows them to learn from their most comfortable environment, whether it’s home, a library, a friend’s house, a treatment center, their psychiatrist’s office,” she said. “It takes away that need to be in a room full of people that they might be uncomfortable with.”

I just hope that the program will be limited to those autistic students who specifically choose to participate in it because that’s what they (not their parents) want. I also hope that autistic students who prefer to receive on-campus instruction will not be steered away towards online learning.

I just walked down our building’s hallway and noticed how many disabled students there are in the classrooms, in the hallways, in the computer lab, in the cafeteria, etc. At the other universities where I taught, I never saw such a significant number of people who are visibly disabled on campus. A society that expects its disabled citizens to hide from view so as not to disturb the sensibilities of the able-bodied folks is a fully fascist one. And I’m sure everybody knows by now that I don’t use this word lightly.

If autistic students decide they don’t feel like being on campus, I believe they should definitely be accommodated. However, those of us who want to be on campus should be recognized as valid inhabitants of the academic world who can freely do so.

Blogger Getting Weirder by the Minute

~ Clarissa ~ 9 Comments

I can’t stop celebrating the brilliant idea to move this blog to WordPress that I got in May of this year. After all the issues it has had and all the multiple ways in which Blogger has let its users down, it has now come out with a policy of deleting the following kinds of blogs altogether:

– Affiliate marketing.
– Content created with scripts and programs, rather than by hand.
– Content or links referencing referral-based activities such as GPT, MMH (“Make Money from Home”), MMF (“Make Money Fast”), MLM (“Multi-Level Marketing”), PTC, or PTS.
– Content scraped from other blogs / websites.
– Copyright Infringement.
– Large blogs with multiple, unfocused / unrelated subjects.
– Links to Illegal Downloads / Streaming / Torrents.

God keep us all from some ignoramus at Blogger deciding what consists copyright infringement. Also, this potentially endangers every single blog that linked to absolutely any website whatsoever. How am I to guarantee that a website I linked to 2 years ago hasn’t had an “illegal torrent” (whatever that even is) placed on it in the meanwhile?

And what about “large blogs with multiple, unfocused / unrelated subjects”? My blog is large because I post like crazy. I also address any topic that catches my fancy at any given moment. Who will decide if the blog is “focused” enough for Blogger’s standards?