Meanwhile, in a serious crackdown on violent crime....

The DC Metro Police have made sure we're all safe from thin men in wheelchairs. Thank God for that. Here's the story from the Post:

In a statement issued Sunday, Metro said the man was spotted Thursday by Metro officers patrolling at the U Street NW Metro station. The statement said the man declined to leave the area and refused to have a citation issued to him, whereupon he was told that he would be arrested.

In that statement Metro said the man resisted arrest, resulting in a fall from his wheelchair. The man was charged with assault on a police officer and drinking in public, Metro said.

Well, that's one perspective. I don't know...I might decline to leave an area if I hang out there often. You see people hanging out around the Dupont Circle Metro all the time. What turns this from everyday police harassment to police brutality is what happens next, despite Metro's obnoxious and ridiculous claim that the man "fell from his wheelchair."

Here's the video from You Tube. The man "fell" from his wheelchair if Metro defines "fell" as "forcibly picked up then shoved to the ground," which isn't exactly the standard definition:



I've talked before about how poisonous the comments sections of most internet media outlets are. This article's comments are no different, with many people -- notably those who self-identify as Virginians (although I have trouble taking seriously the moniker "VATrailerTrash" as an honest self-description) -- acting as though the guy in the wheelchair deserved this treatment or was a symptom of the District's rule by Democrats (apparently because assault on a wheelchair-bound intoxicated man would be a badge of honor if Republicans were in charge?? No, it doesn't make sense to me, either).

The Post of course tiptoes around the evidence in describing the video this way:

At one point in the video, the officers appear to be lifting the man from the wheelchair, and shortly afterward, the officers and the man are prone on the sidewalk. The video shows blood near the man’s head.

Um, it's a continuous motion...there's no "shortly afterward." There's also no "appear," unless you think the whole thing was a staged Pro-Wrestling Affair, with the Metro Police and the man in a wheelchair acting out some street drama. Let's at least report what the video says, and if you are so chickenshit scared of the cops ticketing your double-parked cars on 15th Street, then preface the entire thing with "the video appears to show" -- don't sprinkle the weasel words throughout the description.

It remains to be seen if anyone will give a rat's ass about this thuggery. If nothing else, advocates for the handicapped ought to be putting the heat on the scumbags from Metro. Maybe Jim Graham should take note.

Oh Noes It's The New Woild Order!

So I began this morning looking for something quick to celebrate Bob Dylan's 70th, and no I wasn't checking under the couch for a half-smoked joint. I was up on You Tube looking for a decent video to share with my good friends on facebook. However, having found said video, I became trapped in the You Tube Maelstrom, that whirling vortex of connectivity that drags you in and holds you for an hour or two.

I noted first how many links there were to Bob Dylan covers. OK, great, but not what I was seeking out. Then there were several links to Bob Dylan selling his soul. Interesting stuff from a whacko standpoint, so I made a note to come back to the link, which I did after I found a great video from the Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

Bob Dylan selling his soul led me to all sorts of selling one's soul and all sorts of anti-christ musings, which are very interesting given our recent brush with the Rapture on May 21. What impresses me most is the seamless way in which anti-government hysteria is linked with apocalyptic religious readings.

Apparently, in addition to the evil that the UN represents, and especially because the UN has turned out to be more bumbling idiot than despotic overlord, we need a more scary adversary in the area of New World Orders. The UN, admittedly, has failed miserably as a frightening force for world unity. Enter the North American Union!

It's scary.

It's come to take your cars out your garages!

And best of all, since it doesn't exist, it can be all things to all people! It can cause abortions! It can turn your son gay! It acts in secret because it knows it can't get elected!

Seriously. Do a you tube search on North American Union. Apparently any sign of cooperation among the three North American nation states of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico is evidence of this nefarious collaboration. Whether it's formal agreements such as treaties or less formal photo opportunities, it's all a sign of something underhanded.

In fact, discussion "North American borders" is the same thing -- the exact same thing -- as erasing national borders. Did you know that? Well, now you do! In fact, joint military exercises and trainings are nothing more than the creation of a North American military that will overthrow out sovereign nation! Keep that in mind next time you see a smiling Canadian -- that Maple Leaf is red for a reason, Comrade!

All this mayhem would be disturbing enough if it were only national sovereignty at stake, but the real goal of the NAU -- or should I say the real purpose of the NAU -- is to prepare the way for the AntiChrist and then my friends it's not only your passport label at stake: it's your eternal soul.

Don't mind the dire predictions of all this happening under Bush's watch (Bush I as instigator and Bush II as the Realizer) -- it's still valid. Who knows, your neighbor could be a spy for the NAU. Be careful out there.

So as Bob Dylan said so many years ago, "you've got to serve somebody." But not in the clip below:




Happy Birthday, Bob.

It's Friday and I have a list.

I just finished Don Delillo's Point Omega. It's a thin little book, so it wouldn't take anyone too long to read, but it's one of the more beautiful books I've read in a while. It's a novel about narrative, language, the truth, and alienation. These are all connected to one another. The visual narrative , the use of language to create narratives that obscure the truth, our alienation depending on narrative perspective and the stories we tell ourselves. It's a good candidate for inclusion in a future course.

Delillo's book was the first one on my list of post-semester reading. The second one will be to finish (finally) a novel I started last year but had to shelve because I was buried in reading and writing. That novel is Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. I'm halfway through it. Sure it was written in this century, but it goes back to the antebellum years to investigate one of the points of slavery that often gets lost in either a focus on the physical brutality and dehumanization of the system at large or the courageous stories of resistance and rebellion, which isn't to say that Wench is devoid of these events or issues. However, the focus is on the practice of well-to-do slavers to maintain slave mistresses and to take them on "vacation" as it were. As the resort in question is in a northern "free" state, the novel also raises the issue of the polite collusion of the North in the continuation of slavery. This novel is not a "see how well some slaves were treated" apology such as you would get from Margaret Mitchell; it's a serious depiction of the compromises, sacrifices, and dehumanization that attends even the "favored" slaves.

Behind that book, I have Brock Clarke's latest queued up: Exley. I'm looking forward to reading this one mainly because I find Clarke's voice so intriguing. He writes unlikeable characters in very compelling ways. Sam Pulsifer, the narrator of An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, is a perfect example of his ability to create the unlikeable but still interesting character that you continue to listen to despite your dislike.

So my list so far:
1. Wench by Perkins-Valdez
2. Exley by Clarke

With any luck, I'll get through these before summer classes start and/or inundate me, and then I'll be able to squeeze in another novel between grading and reading for the summer course.

Googling around and finding the internet is fueled by stupidity.

I spent a little time this morning following the google links from one place to the next. I eventually ended up on a relatively poorly thought out blog named "Western Hero" or something like that. Like most right-wing blogs (and right-wing pundits on mainstream outlets), critical methodology isn't WH's strong point, including such risible jems as describing links to stories in such ways as the descriptions bear little resemblance to the story itself. A good example of this mistake can be seen if you want to search for "debunk Iraq death count Lancet" + "Western Hero" -- you'll get a piece from 2009 (don't ask me how I got there...I was looking for information on Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's Academically Adrift) linking to a BBC article that, WH claims, "debunks" the Lancet report.

Unfortunately for WH, the article does no such thing. What it does do is discuss how the lead researcher refused to give research information to the American Association for Public Opinion Research, leading that body to censure him. It says nothing about the validity of the claims made in the Lancet, and in fact makes a point of noting that AAPOR doesn't comment on the accuracy of the research...only that the researcher has not been forthcoming in providing material. The BBC article, by the way, is here. There are plenty of other examples on the site, if you care to dredge through some of the most poorly supported writing and self-congratulatory echo-chamber comments you can find concentrated in one place.

In a way, the results of that search did connect to Arum and Roksa's work, because it's clear -- or perhaps more accurately I should say that it appears from anecdotal evidence of googling serious issues -- that colleges and universities are producing a large amount of fools who can't evaluate evidence or engage in much critical thinking. If a student of mine had linked that BBC article as an attempt to prove anything about the Lancet's Iraq War civilian deaths, he or she would get a nice note about support needing to do what you claim it does. If the paper were about questions raised concerning research methodology and transparency in statistics gathering, the article has relevance; as a debunking of the research, it is silent.

Later today, I'll be listening to Arum at a luncheon keynote. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to say, but I haven't read through the book -- I've only digested the digested version available on the Chronicle of Higher Education site. I have questions about what's being measured as learning -- questions I'm willing to bet the book (which is as of this morning sitting on my desk) goes some way to answer -- and more importantly how do we quantify something I find to be inherently unquantifiable: the co-curricular and extra-curricular (intentional and more often unintentional by the way) components of those four years spent in college? As a recent Pew survey has found, 84% of college graduates are satisfied with the cost of their education relative to the benefits. While that survey question doesn't speak to learning (I can be plenty satisfied without having learned anything if I achieve a favorable outcome like getting a good job), the survey as a whole seems to ask about some of those "unquantifiables."

The internet flattens distinction.

If you ever want to get depressed about the state of the world, spend some time reading comments on articles on the internet. Now on your regular sites like CNN, you expect a certain amount of stupidity, because most of the people commenting there are stupid. Sorry, but they are. They couldn't think through anything more complicated than a value-meal menu at a drive-thru.

You can call it smug elitism if you want, but when Glenn Beck is a highly-rated talk show host and best-selling author, I'd call it something closer to the truth.

On your more esoteric sites, like the Chronicle of Higher Education, you might expect the comments to be more thought-through. However, you'd be horribly, horribly wrong. The magic of the internet is that a mere link can join us together, and so it takes only a small piece of html code to direct knuckle-dragging half-literate asshats, whose main connection to higher education is that they once went to a party at the college where their second cousin was enrolled, to the Chronicle of Higher Education articles and comments.

Take the recent article on Francis Fox Piven, the professor of political science and sociology whose currently in Glenn Beck's rhetorical doghouse. The article went up on February 10th and comments are now closed, I suspect in part because of the absolutely useless nature of the "dialogue" that the 75 comments represent.

From these comments, I have "learned" the following:

1. Piven is really the bad person here, because she advocates violence. Apparently, calling for mass mobilization is advocating violence because her examples, like the Greek anti-austerity protests, have resulted in violence. In other words, if violence is a possibility, or if violence has ever occurred as the result of mass mobilization and civil disobedience, then you are an advocate for violence, which pretty much makes every single mass movement a violent movement.

2. If someone uses a word in their organization's name, then they must adhere to the meaning of that word. Since Beck is so prone to bringing up Hitler, it was only a matter of time before the name of the Great Evil One was evoked in the comment section, which led to the incredible claim that Hitler was in fact of the Left. Here, "physicsprof" supplies the analogy, while throwing in a little dig at the social sciences:

The difference between Newtonian mechanics and political science is that the former is an exact science while the latter is open to interpretation (=BS). Surely the left would like to disown Lenin and Hitler and would readily twist the evidence, but the facts are simple, both parties had exactly the same name (NSDRP vs NSDAP, with R and A standing for the same word, labor, written in Russian and German) and carbon-copied programs. [comment 36]

Ah, so their acronyms are very similar and in fact the words based on the acronyms are similar. I see. Apparently, to disown Hitler, the Left has to twist evidence. Evidence like Hitler taking over the NSDAP and removing or killing any of the actual socialists involved in the party or maybe evidence like Hitler imprisoning or killing leaders of socialist and communist parties. But it's all in the name...you see, the Nazis really were Leftists because they used "Socialist" and "Workers" in their name. In much the same way, the German Democratic Republic was in fact a democratic republic.

3. It's often best simply to repeat what someone says and act like you've made a point:

Beck lacks much in the way of common sense, but acknowledging his past and background it makes sense. He can be thankful that he lives in a democracy that allows him to spout off his stupidity. [comment 67]

(followed by...)

Fox Piven lacks much in the way of common sense, but acknowledging her past and background it make sense. She can be thankful that she lives in a democracy that allows her to spout off her stupidity.

Too easy. [comment 69]

Well, of course it's too easy to let someone else do your thinking for you. We call it plagiarism in my freshman English courses. However, I'm not blind to the underlying point #69 was trying to make, but trying to make a point and actually making one are two different things. Beck is a moron with very little understanding of history, and what he does know proves the maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. He consistently fails to account for changing contexts, cannot understand that a multitude of factors impact events and actions, and is prone to equating nearly everything with Hitler. It's easy to make #67's statement about Beck; it's not so easy to see it applicable to Piven.

Besides, repetition is a tactic often employed by my five year old against my ten year old. It's effective largely because it posits no position and is irritating much in the same way that a poorly wiped anus becomes irritating.

Now one of the real lessons that should come out of all of this perusing the comment board at CHE is that many commenters have no actual association or familiarity with higher education. They may have graduated from college, but they certainly don't know anything about the professional culture of universities or the academic culture of departments and disciplines. One moron even spoke of the "simple French philosophers." I'd like him or her to point me to that one, because I have yet to read a French philosopher who was "simple" in any use of the word (although right wing -- and even analytic philosophy's -- caricatures of figures such as Derrida for instance would make his work appear simple-headed...but that comes from not reading very carefully or not at all).

So they are trolls. They have no interest in higher education other than to see it cohere to a lockstep point of view (something they accuse the Left of doing...because the Left apparently is so well organized) in which their history of America is the only valid history. It can be summed up in a statement made by Rick Santorum at the recent CPAC get-together that America is perfect (which if you think about it is quite a proud statement from one who supposedly believes in the concept of Original Sin and we are all sinners etc.). To point out areas where the U.S. perhaps made errors or didn't live up to its promises is to of course hate America. Although, the best response to Santorum's statement might be to ask, "If America is so perfect, why are you so angry with it?"

For these souls, history was given. It wasn't a site of contestation, but sprung fully-formed from the head of Reagan. Or Goldwater. At any rate, for these people living in the eternal present, America is perfect because we no longer have slavery and we no longer allow children to work the mills, etc., and forty years from now, these same hate-filled bigots -- having learned the same lesson their present day counterparts have learned about race -- will stand in front of crowds and talk about how perfect America is because we no longer condone the lynching of homosexuals.

This post is already very long, but just imagine another few paragraphs on the interesting rhetorical moves that the Right employs to turn their hatred and intolerance back at the Left. It generally goes along the lines of "every voice is equal," thereby employing the rhetoric of equality to suggest for instance that repeated studies and the considered weight of scientific research and opinion is equal to Glenn Beck saying "no it's not" on the subject of climate change, or in this case to suggest that somehow there's a level of equality between the academic and intellectual credentials of Noam Chomsky and Rush Limbaugh. Where do you even start with such ridiculous assertions?

Conundrum.

What's a conservative to do? He or she despises the federal government and all those wasteful agencies like the United States Postal Service, but damn the USPS is going to issue a stamp of the greatest President who ever walked this earth, Ronald Reagan.




Shudder. Do you rush out and buy as many of these stamps as you can, knowing that you can use them "forever," regardless of postal rate increases, or do you resist the USPS's shrewd attempt to co-opt conservatives into propping up this socialist organization?

It's a nice portrait. My only complaint is that the background should have more to do with his Presidency, like maybe showing his administration officials shaking hands and exchanging gifts and reconnaissance photos with Saddam Hussein, or American factories closing, or his beloved Contras blowing up hospitals and schools. Or at least a set of faces in the background, in Mount Rushmore style, of Pinochet, Hussein, and P.W. Botha.

Is it a bad sign to fall asleep ten minutes after you start reading?

I have been having trouble lately staying awake -- whether afternoon or night -- when trying to read. In my profession, that's a very bad thing. I'm hoping it's mostly because I have been conditioned over the last few years to view reading as a bedtime activity -- as of late I've been reading The Magic Tree House series to our daughter.

Then I'm digging through Emerson.

Tomorrow, or rather later today, I will teach Emerson to a group of students and I'm not exactly sure where the class will go. That's a fairly enjoyable thing for me. I have more examples and points of emphasis than will fit into 1 hour and 15 minutes, but they're simply markers to connect to the class's direction.

I do know we will talk about foolish consistencies and Emerson's very interesting observation that the discontent of the multitude, while easily manipulated, is more consequential than the discontent of the "cultivated classes," whose opposition he belittles as "feminine rage."