Students in my service learning sections of comp this term have been writing about Paul Loeb's book The Soul of a Citizen, a book that's critical of the limits of volunteerism but hopeful about the possibility of community. Largely the best work the students have done all term. My sense is that part of the reason why is that we devoted significant amounts of class time to discussing and doing some low-stakes writing about the book. They've been engaging with the text for weeks, and I think the writing reflects that longer-term engagement.
But what interests me as much as the quality of the work the students are producing is the fact that we're using a whole book. The whole text "movement"--if there is such a thing--probably relies too heavily on nostalgic and mythic arguments (e.g., students don't read). And yet I've felt called in recent years in this direction. Part of it is a general dislike for textbooks. Also, I'm just tired, after a decade or so of teaching writing, of "readers." Too many excerpts. Too much canonizing of "essays," a genre so disparate and big umbrella that it's lost meaning.
While I don't buy into the nostalgic elements of the pro-whole text arguments, I do buy into the value of engaging with book-length pieces of non-fiction. Books can create sustained discussions (I know, so can a series of excerpts on a common theme). Books resist the imperative to take small bites of texts and writers.
I'm inclined to keep experimenting with whole texts in just about all of the undergrad classes I teach. So far I've seen benefits in terms of creating a space that's intellectual and discussion-oriented. A piece of non-fiction like Loeb's book models lots of rhetorical devices and presents lots of writing opportunities.
11/10/2008
11/09/2008
what's the deal?
I'm very new to the facebook world, but I'm already wondering how they target particular advertisements to particular users. Apparently I'm in need of dissertation and weight-loss help.
11/08/2008
i can tell that we are gonna be friends
Hey, I'm on facebook now. If you are too, then send me a message.
11/06/2008
election night
After teaching on Tuesday, I headed for my local Obama office and did get-out-the-vote canvassing for seven hours. Holy macaroni, my feet were yelling by the time the sun set over Berkley. In 2004, I spent election day coordinating phone banks, so I was indoors. This year, two words: The. Pavement. In addition to trying to convince people to vote their way, campaigns spend months gathering more and better information about voters. Then, on election day, that data gets put to use. We had lists of "likely Obama supporters" and "definite Obama supporters" and did anything we could to get them to the polls. Free rides. Reminders. Incessant knocking on doors. Hey, and I got a free t-shirt out of the deal. Things started to get surreal around 6:00, after the sun went down, and while walking the neighborhoods, you could look in windows and see EVERY television tuned to the news. Sean Hannity. Katie Couric. Those airbrushed faces projected onto the cool Autumn streets.
Polls closed at 8:00. Headed home, took a quick shower, had a quick sandwich, and Nicole and I went to a County Democrat party. Expensive cash bar, kind of boring and stuffy, too loud to hear the televisions. So we headed to a results-watching party in Berkley organized by a judicial candidate who we'd supported actively. His whole crew was there, along with lots of members of our town's democrat club. Clearly the better party. Plus, cheap beer and burgers. Woo-hoo. Several recounts of absebtee ballots resulted in a lot of nail-biting, but in the end, Jamie Wittenberg (a classmate of Nicole's) is our new district judge. Less nail-biting over President-Elect Obama. How good does it feel to type those words? We were all kind of freaking out, in a pensive and cautious way, when they called Pennsylvania so quickly. Then Ohio. Then Florida. As soons as west-coast polls closed, McCain gave his very gracious and thoroughly classy (and already malaligned as wimpy by Limbaugh et al) concession speech.
What's that line that Garrison Keilor always uses about doing good work? That's what kept running through my head, as I thought about the prospects of an optimistic, progressive, ethical leader for our country. Now do good work. And the rest of us: Hold Obama accountable. Hold the democrat-controlled legislature accountable. Insist they keep promises. Insist they maintain the integrity, the optimism, the reform, and the legislative agenda they've preached. Health care. Lower taxes for working and middle classes. Troop withdrawal. Better support for education at all levels. Anybody going to inauguration? At midnight on Tuesday night, I text-messaged by nephew at Georgetown and threatened to crash on his dorm floor if need be!
Polls closed at 8:00. Headed home, took a quick shower, had a quick sandwich, and Nicole and I went to a County Democrat party. Expensive cash bar, kind of boring and stuffy, too loud to hear the televisions. So we headed to a results-watching party in Berkley organized by a judicial candidate who we'd supported actively. His whole crew was there, along with lots of members of our town's democrat club. Clearly the better party. Plus, cheap beer and burgers. Woo-hoo. Several recounts of absebtee ballots resulted in a lot of nail-biting, but in the end, Jamie Wittenberg (a classmate of Nicole's) is our new district judge. Less nail-biting over President-Elect Obama. How good does it feel to type those words? We were all kind of freaking out, in a pensive and cautious way, when they called Pennsylvania so quickly. Then Ohio. Then Florida. As soons as west-coast polls closed, McCain gave his very gracious and thoroughly classy (and already malaligned as wimpy by Limbaugh et al) concession speech.
What's that line that Garrison Keilor always uses about doing good work? That's what kept running through my head, as I thought about the prospects of an optimistic, progressive, ethical leader for our country. Now do good work. And the rest of us: Hold Obama accountable. Hold the democrat-controlled legislature accountable. Insist they keep promises. Insist they maintain the integrity, the optimism, the reform, and the legislative agenda they've preached. Health care. Lower taxes for working and middle classes. Troop withdrawal. Better support for education at all levels. Anybody going to inauguration? At midnight on Tuesday night, I text-messaged by nephew at Georgetown and threatened to crash on his dorm floor if need be!
11/05/2008
freaks and geeks
This term I'm teaching one of my favorite classes, English 327, an advanced writing course for education majors. The class presents a cool opportunity to talk about writing in a variety of contexts including the context of K-12 schools. And while I never teach the class as a methods class, I do try to make assignments flexible enough to encompass concerns and issues related to public education, child development, and the like.
For example, we just read a novel (more or less, a piece of "young-adult lit") called "Twisted," an angsty and interesting narrative about a suburban high school kid who finds himself in a culture of violence, first as a victim of bullying and later, as...well, I don't want to give it away. Read the book. Well worth your time. Students have designed some interesting writing projects connected to the text, some opting for more traditional kinds of textual analysis and others looking at the book critical and popular reception among various audiences.
They've been working pretty hard, so tomorrow we're going to spend half of class watching an episode of "Freaks and Geeks," the canceled-before-its-time show which presents some neat connections to the novel. The show follows two cliques in a circa-1980 suburban Detroit high school: stoners and nerds. Much of the action centers on Lindsay, who decides to leave the world of mathletes and try to become a "freak."
I've never seen anything on tv as well-written. The premise sounds "after school special" but always transcends those cliches, opting instead for one relentlessly awkward representation of adolescence after another: the stoner serenading his girlfriend with Styx's "Lady," the peanut allergy that results in an ER visit, gym class scenes, and the geeks watching a stag film.
The show was clearly headed for cancellation and the last few episodes really expand the thin-line-between-stoner-and-nerd theme begun with Lindsay's clique switch. One of the freaks gets caught with dope and has to join A/V as punishment, subsequently realizing how awesome Dungeons and Dragons is. In the series finale, Lindsay blows off academic camp in Ann Arbor and runs away with deadheads for the summer. A perfectly surreal-yet-banal ending to the series. The school's hippy guidance counselor turns her onto the Grateful Dead, loaning her a copy of "American Beauty" he thinks will speak to her angst. It does. I don't even like the Dead very much, but when she puts on "Box of Rain" in her bedroom, it's a moment of transcendence:
For example, we just read a novel (more or less, a piece of "young-adult lit") called "Twisted," an angsty and interesting narrative about a suburban high school kid who finds himself in a culture of violence, first as a victim of bullying and later, as...well, I don't want to give it away. Read the book. Well worth your time. Students have designed some interesting writing projects connected to the text, some opting for more traditional kinds of textual analysis and others looking at the book critical and popular reception among various audiences.
They've been working pretty hard, so tomorrow we're going to spend half of class watching an episode of "Freaks and Geeks," the canceled-before-its-time show which presents some neat connections to the novel. The show follows two cliques in a circa-1980 suburban Detroit high school: stoners and nerds. Much of the action centers on Lindsay, who decides to leave the world of mathletes and try to become a "freak."
I've never seen anything on tv as well-written. The premise sounds "after school special" but always transcends those cliches, opting instead for one relentlessly awkward representation of adolescence after another: the stoner serenading his girlfriend with Styx's "Lady," the peanut allergy that results in an ER visit, gym class scenes, and the geeks watching a stag film.The show was clearly headed for cancellation and the last few episodes really expand the thin-line-between-stoner-and-nerd theme begun with Lindsay's clique switch. One of the freaks gets caught with dope and has to join A/V as punishment, subsequently realizing how awesome Dungeons and Dragons is. In the series finale, Lindsay blows off academic camp in Ann Arbor and runs away with deadheads for the summer. A perfectly surreal-yet-banal ending to the series. The school's hippy guidance counselor turns her onto the Grateful Dead, loaning her a copy of "American Beauty" he thinks will speak to her angst. It does. I don't even like the Dead very much, but when she puts on "Box of Rain" in her bedroom, it's a moment of transcendence:
Look out any windowAnyway, great book and great show. And those 327 students have earned half a casual class.
any morning, any evening, any day.
Maybe the sun is shining
birds are winging
rain is falling from a heavy sky
what do you want me to do?
11/04/2008
go make history everybody
Nicole and I completed our election day ritual of getting to our polling place before opening time. Angell Elementary School in Berkley, Michigan, about 6:50 a.m. About fifty people lined up, one of whom had passed out. She was on a stretcher, being loaded onto an ambulance when we arrived. Delicious, warm cup of Abuelita ("little granny," a Mexican hot cocoa) in hand, I took my spot and waited about thirty minutes to vote, feeling for the first time since 1996 like I was voting *for* a person instead of just voting *against* another person. I bid farewell to Nicole, my wife/precinct captain, and headed to campus for an abbreviated teaching day. Soon it's off to campaign headquarters for an afternoon of labor (getting out the vote, kicking out the jams, etc.), then an evening of parties. Hopefully celebratory parties. Please, please, please go live history, everybody. You know what my man Howard Zinn said, 'You can't stand still on a moving train.'
10/30/2008
wow
Two items of interest, both from the 'republicans seem to be imploding' file:
First, ABC's Elizabeth Vargas asks Sarah Palin is she has aspirations for 2012. Her response: "I'm not doing this for naught."
Second, and this one deserves to be quoted at length, George Will's column today, the headline of which reads "John the Careless." Will hits hard the missteps of the McCain-Palin campaign, and gets at what he sees as the problematics of both of their attitudes and agendas.
First, ABC's Elizabeth Vargas asks Sarah Palin is she has aspirations for 2012. Her response: "I'm not doing this for naught."
Second, and this one deserves to be quoted at length, George Will's column today, the headline of which reads "John the Careless." Will hits hard the missteps of the McCain-Palin campaign, and gets at what he sees as the problematics of both of their attitudes and agendas.
From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism. Tuesday's probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign's closing days.
Some polls show that Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain's saddle than his association with George W. Bush. Did McCain, who seems to think that Palin's never having attended a "Georgetown cocktail party" is sufficient qualification for the vice presidency, lift an eyebrow when she said that vice presidents "are in charge of the United States Senate"?
She may have been tailoring her narrative to her audience of third-graders, who do not know that vice presidents have no constitutional function in the Senate other than to cast tie-breaking votes. But does she know that when Lyndon Johnson, transformed by the 1960 election from Senate majority leader into vice president, ventured to the Capitol to attend the Democratic senators' weekly policy luncheon, the new majority leader, Montana's Mike Mansfield, supported by his caucus, barred him because his presence would be a derogation of the Senate's autonomy?
Perhaps Palin's confusion about the office for which she is auditioning comes from listening to its current occupant. Dick Cheney, the foremost practitioner of this administration's constitutional carelessness in aggrandizing executive power, regularly attends the Senate Republicans' Tuesday luncheons. He has said jocularly that he is "a product" of the Senate, which pays his salary, and that he has no "official duties" in the executive branch. His situational constitutionalism has, however, led him to assert, when claiming exemption from a particular executive order, that he is a member of the legislative branch and, when seeking to shield certain of his deliberations from legislative inquiry, to say that he is a member of the executive branch.
Palin may be an inveterate simplifier; McCain has a history of reducing controversies to cartoons. A Republican financial expert recalls attending a dinner with McCain for the purpose of discussing with him domestic and international financial complexities that clearly did not fascinate the senator. As the dinner ended, McCain's question for his briefer was: "So, who is the villain?"
10/29/2008
cooking continues
Last night, after a long day at work, I made a potato and leek gratin, based loosely on a recipe in the NYTimes last week. Another good fall dish. I used a lot more cumin than the recipe suggested, decreased the salt, and subbed skim milk. Not bad. Creamy, rich, and bitey from the leeks and garlic.
Plans have come together for a Halloween party this Friday. My parents, Anna and company, and miscelaneous friends and neighbors. Menu: walking tacos, Brier Hill pizza made by my folks, some baked fish with fresh lime for anybody not wanting to dig on the tacos, and some version of the salad I usually make when my sister comes over (romaine, hearts of palm, walnuts, and tart apples with a yogurt dressing). Agenda: hand out candy; go check out over-the-top, scare-the-local-kiddies yards in our neighborhood; and who knows what else? Should be fun.
Also cooking (not in the kitchen): Tonight is election town hall down on my campus, to be televised locally on public tv. Many of my students are attending, some are participating, and I told them I'd be there. Almost caught up on paper grading. I can't recall feeling so overwhelmed by the paper load in years. What's going on? And on a serious note...shout out to Bill H. from my Peace and Justice group who's giving a kidney to another parishioner at our church this afternoon. Be well!
Plans have come together for a Halloween party this Friday. My parents, Anna and company, and miscelaneous friends and neighbors. Menu: walking tacos, Brier Hill pizza made by my folks, some baked fish with fresh lime for anybody not wanting to dig on the tacos, and some version of the salad I usually make when my sister comes over (romaine, hearts of palm, walnuts, and tart apples with a yogurt dressing). Agenda: hand out candy; go check out over-the-top, scare-the-local-kiddies yards in our neighborhood; and who knows what else? Should be fun.
Also cooking (not in the kitchen): Tonight is election town hall down on my campus, to be televised locally on public tv. Many of my students are attending, some are participating, and I told them I'd be there. Almost caught up on paper grading. I can't recall feeling so overwhelmed by the paper load in years. What's going on? And on a serious note...shout out to Bill H. from my Peace and Justice group who's giving a kidney to another parishioner at our church this afternoon. Be well!
10/28/2008
fall food
Fall is my favorite time of year: moderate weather (ok, it's freezing in Detroit), the opportunity to meet new students, my birthday. Oh yeah, and the food. Local markets start to carry honeycrisp apples. We make the annual trip to our local cider mill.
I've already made what Nicole and I consider the ultimate fall dish: pumpkin pasta. A delicious combination of diced bacon, fresh pumpkin, sage, chicken stock, parmesan cheese, and a little heavy cream, served over rigatoni.
We also had walking tacos. I'm not sure if this is a fall thing or not, but we made them on Sunday and they tasted great. Never had a walking taco? Take a single-serving bag of frito's and put taco fixins (seasoned ground meat, veggies, cheese, sour cream, whatever you like) right into the bag with the chips. Stir and eat with a fork while walking around. Walking taco.
I've already made what Nicole and I consider the ultimate fall dish: pumpkin pasta. A delicious combination of diced bacon, fresh pumpkin, sage, chicken stock, parmesan cheese, and a little heavy cream, served over rigatoni.
We also had walking tacos. I'm not sure if this is a fall thing or not, but we made them on Sunday and they tasted great. Never had a walking taco? Take a single-serving bag of frito's and put taco fixins (seasoned ground meat, veggies, cheese, sour cream, whatever you like) right into the bag with the chips. Stir and eat with a fork while walking around. Walking taco.
10/27/2008
W
A cold fall weekend in Michigan. Get Out The Vote canvassing for Obama on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Paper grading. Pouring through a couple more episodes of The Wire Season 1 (for such a non-sentimental piece of work, the show almost choked me up when Keema got shot). Our niece Jenna spent the night on Saturday night. She didn't like Mongolian BBQ at all. What kid doesn't like to choose his/her own raw meat or fish and veggies and then watch college kids make your stir-fry while flipping huge, metal grill sticks and yelling uninteligible things? Seemed like a sure thing, but was a bust. Jenna did seem to like driving around our town to check out the Halloween decorations and going to see High School Musical 3.
I couldn't bring myself to watch HSM3 (and yet I can bring myself to type the abbreviation?) so while Jenna and Nicole dug on the musical I wandered next door at the multiplex and saw 'W,' the Oliver Stone pic about our current prez. W--the film that is--had no discernible point, no consistent vision, no sustained insights into W or his inner circle. W amounted to two hours of actors doing (mostly very good) impressions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. More an exercise in mimicry than a narrative or even a character sketch, the film was, in short, pretty bad.
Thandie Newton's performance as Condi Rice was bizarre. She just kind of sat there and quaked a little bit, neverously and robotically glancing around the room. She looked animatronic, like she belonged in the Hall of Presidents at Disney World. Anytime I've seen her on television, Rice has looked confident and stoic, so the portrayal made no sense to me at all.
And I didn't think the film was a hatchet job on Bush either. At least a hatchet job would have had a clearer vision. The representation of W didn't strike me as skewed or distorted. If anything, it struck closely to a well-documented mythology of W that is very familiar to even casual observers of the political process. W. didn't do particularly well in college or in the business world. He drank way too much when he was in his 20s and 30s. He struggled to please his dad. He became an Evangelical Christian and fell in with a social movement bent on moving the GOP away from fiscal convervativism and toward a family values-driven agenda. He surrounded himself with more experienced folks and gave them more power than vice-presidents, cabinet secretaries, and deputy chiefs of staff usually have been given. If you haven't seen the film yet, I just ruined it for you. I left the theater with an overwhelming sense of "no shit, Sherlock."
I also left the theater wondering about the film's target audience. Lefties and Bush bashers? If so, I should have liked the film more. A heavier-handed or more salacious film--one that showed W doing hard drugs or foregrounded the illegalities of pre-emptive war and U.N. violations, for instance--would have had a more affective, rally-the-left-base relationship with its audience. Undecided voters as audience? Maybe, but I don't think anybody stuck in the middle of this presidential election would be swayed by anything in the film. There's little if any polemic. This isn't a Michael Moore film. The best comparison would be The Queen (about Queen Elizabeth II during the week that Princess Diana died), a much, much better film that managed to reveal something in the psyches of its main characters. In addition to containing more internal landscapes than W, The Queen also concerned itself with public figures who had enigmatic characteristics. By virtue of media exposure and scrutiny from the left as well as the superficial nature of his own personality and intellect, there's not much we don't know about W. There's nothing to peel back.
I couldn't bring myself to watch HSM3 (and yet I can bring myself to type the abbreviation?) so while Jenna and Nicole dug on the musical I wandered next door at the multiplex and saw 'W,' the Oliver Stone pic about our current prez. W--the film that is--had no discernible point, no consistent vision, no sustained insights into W or his inner circle. W amounted to two hours of actors doing (mostly very good) impressions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. More an exercise in mimicry than a narrative or even a character sketch, the film was, in short, pretty bad.
Thandie Newton's performance as Condi Rice was bizarre. She just kind of sat there and quaked a little bit, neverously and robotically glancing around the room. She looked animatronic, like she belonged in the Hall of Presidents at Disney World. Anytime I've seen her on television, Rice has looked confident and stoic, so the portrayal made no sense to me at all.
And I didn't think the film was a hatchet job on Bush either. At least a hatchet job would have had a clearer vision. The representation of W didn't strike me as skewed or distorted. If anything, it struck closely to a well-documented mythology of W that is very familiar to even casual observers of the political process. W. didn't do particularly well in college or in the business world. He drank way too much when he was in his 20s and 30s. He struggled to please his dad. He became an Evangelical Christian and fell in with a social movement bent on moving the GOP away from fiscal convervativism and toward a family values-driven agenda. He surrounded himself with more experienced folks and gave them more power than vice-presidents, cabinet secretaries, and deputy chiefs of staff usually have been given. If you haven't seen the film yet, I just ruined it for you. I left the theater with an overwhelming sense of "no shit, Sherlock."
I also left the theater wondering about the film's target audience. Lefties and Bush bashers? If so, I should have liked the film more. A heavier-handed or more salacious film--one that showed W doing hard drugs or foregrounded the illegalities of pre-emptive war and U.N. violations, for instance--would have had a more affective, rally-the-left-base relationship with its audience. Undecided voters as audience? Maybe, but I don't think anybody stuck in the middle of this presidential election would be swayed by anything in the film. There's little if any polemic. This isn't a Michael Moore film. The best comparison would be The Queen (about Queen Elizabeth II during the week that Princess Diana died), a much, much better film that managed to reveal something in the psyches of its main characters. In addition to containing more internal landscapes than W, The Queen also concerned itself with public figures who had enigmatic characteristics. By virtue of media exposure and scrutiny from the left as well as the superficial nature of his own personality and intellect, there's not much we don't know about W. There's nothing to peel back.
10/24/2008
more miscelaneous
Lute Olson retires from Arizona. I never heard a bad word about Olson during my years in Tucson. An icon. I wonder how the Wildcats are going to do without him.
'Get out the vote' canvassing on both Saturday and Sunday with our town's democrat club. Not since '96 have I felt like I'm voting for a guy, as opposed to voting *against* the other guy.
Great line from The Wire (I'm almost through season one on dvd): "In this town, there's a thin line between campaign poster and photo array."
My students in the two service-learning, pilot sections of comp start their group projects this weekend, researching and writing neighborhood field reports for the Homeless Action Network of Detroit. Gearing up for the first round of research, the students seemed genuinely excited about doing something real. They're designing GIS maps, conducting interviews with neighborhood merchants, and writing reports that will hopefully help HAND in its census efforts.
Must get back to reading student papers...
'Get out the vote' canvassing on both Saturday and Sunday with our town's democrat club. Not since '96 have I felt like I'm voting for a guy, as opposed to voting *against* the other guy.
Great line from The Wire (I'm almost through season one on dvd): "In this town, there's a thin line between campaign poster and photo array."
My students in the two service-learning, pilot sections of comp start their group projects this weekend, researching and writing neighborhood field reports for the Homeless Action Network of Detroit. Gearing up for the first round of research, the students seemed genuinely excited about doing something real. They're designing GIS maps, conducting interviews with neighborhood merchants, and writing reports that will hopefully help HAND in its census efforts.
Must get back to reading student papers...
10/23/2008
another unfocused post
Nicole got me tickets to see Neil Young (opening act, Wilco) in December. Great birthday present, and I know it's mere coincidence that a) one of Young's signature songs is called "Old Man," and b) the tickets were a gift commemorating the fact that I'm halfway to 70. The only other time I saw Neil Young perform, I was 19 and the drive to the concert resulted in a minor misdemeanor in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The show itself was great, though, featuring Booker T and the MGs as Young's backing band. I remember the encore: "Rockin in the Free World" and "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay." Good stuff. Here's hoping for a show equal in power. Here's also hoping for a less eventful commute to the show this time around.
Maybe the best birthday present yesterday was being called a good writer. Our writing faculty gave a "strategic vision" talk to our dean and her executive council, outlining our long-term plans, hopes, etc. My piece of the talk: how the field of writing studies developed and evolved over the past few decades. A lot to cover in five minutes, so to conserve time and stay organized I used the old "read the presentation right off the paper" method, eliciting several compliments. Thank you, people who are deciding whether to give me tenure in this next new months.
I can't bring myself to care much about the cost of Sarah Palin's wardrobe. I'm not sure why anyone is outraged about this, unless maybe if you gave money to the RNC and don't think a six-figure wardrobe is a good use of your donation money. Right now I'm wearing a pair of pants I bought for two bucks at a thriftsore, a sweater that I think I got for Christmas one year when I still lived in Arizona (98-02), and a pair of tennis shoes with holes...and I wouldn't know one designer dress from another if my life depended on it. I wouldn't opt to spend any sizable amount of money on clothing, but why do I care if Sarah Palin's "people" do? I'm not paying for it. I think many of her political positions are reprehensible, but her clothing isn't. In fact, the more energy expended on criticizing her clothes, the less energy expended on criticizing her reactionary political beliefs. Come on, ya'll.
Maybe the best birthday present yesterday was being called a good writer. Our writing faculty gave a "strategic vision" talk to our dean and her executive council, outlining our long-term plans, hopes, etc. My piece of the talk: how the field of writing studies developed and evolved over the past few decades. A lot to cover in five minutes, so to conserve time and stay organized I used the old "read the presentation right off the paper" method, eliciting several compliments. Thank you, people who are deciding whether to give me tenure in this next new months.
I can't bring myself to care much about the cost of Sarah Palin's wardrobe. I'm not sure why anyone is outraged about this, unless maybe if you gave money to the RNC and don't think a six-figure wardrobe is a good use of your donation money. Right now I'm wearing a pair of pants I bought for two bucks at a thriftsore, a sweater that I think I got for Christmas one year when I still lived in Arizona (98-02), and a pair of tennis shoes with holes...and I wouldn't know one designer dress from another if my life depended on it. I wouldn't opt to spend any sizable amount of money on clothing, but why do I care if Sarah Palin's "people" do? I'm not paying for it. I think many of her political positions are reprehensible, but her clothing isn't. In fact, the more energy expended on criticizing her clothes, the less energy expended on criticizing her reactionary political beliefs. Come on, ya'll.
10/21/2008
"The Art of Disappearing" by Naomi Shihab Nye
I read this poem, a favorite of mine, to all three of my classes today. I love the line "nod briefly and become a cabbage." Here's Nye reading to Bill Moyers.
10/20/2008
crazy: an unfocused post with the most
Much, much, much happening. I spent part of the morning at the Secretary of State, where Michiganders must go for vehicle registrations, driver's licenses, and the like. Lines aren't as heinously long as they were in the early-90s, I'm told, but the SofS is a concentric circle of you-know-where, to be sure. I need a new driver's license and new license plates by Wednesday, when I turn 35.
On campus, then, for a meeting of the steering committee of the Civic Engagement Project, which means free lunch. Yay. Next, must mark a big fat stack of papers that I should have read over the weekend. Oh, and an article that must be peer-reviewed by Wednesday. Also happening Wednesday: tenure-track members of the composition discipline must give a presentation before the executive council of the dean's office. We're working on a "strategic vision" for the college. I'm responsible for preparing the part of the presentation where we talk about how the discipline of "writing studies" developed and subsequently went through various paradigm shifts. I've got two minutes to tackle that topic. How about that? And, and, and a hundred other things.
Yet despite the busy-ness, I must say something about Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. First, she was funny, although she mostly sat back and let others make the jokes. Still, what a good sport. Maybe the ultimate goal was for her to seem likable; mission accomplished. The NYT piece (use link above) rightly points out that she probably didn't do much to improve her reputation as a lightweight. Bopping one's head while Amy Pohler raps about shooting moose does not equal gravitas, especially nine hours before a prominent and well-respected republican like Colin Powell endorses your opponent. So you get the GOP ticket joshing around on SNL and you get the democratic ticket dominating the Sunday a.m. news shows. I'll take that weekend. Obama continues looking infintely more presidential and McCain-Palin continue looking desperate.
Curious that Palin's people consented to some of the Alec Baldwin jokes. Baldwin angrily, bitingly calls her "that horrible woman" in the bit where he pretends to think the real Palin is Tiny Fey. Baldwin's bit was almost nostalgic, harkening back to a (probably non-existent) time when SNL represented a less diffuse set of counter-cultural worldviews. "She goes against everything we stand for," Baldwin implored Lorne Michaels, invoking a mythic, post-Watergate "we" that SNL represented for about twenty minutes in the mid-70s (if at all). And the punchline of that bit: "you are way hotter in person." I'm sure her handlers figure the jokes are another way to signify Palin as the anti-feminist, the one who can "have it all" without the "radical" and "angry" rhetoric and agenda.
Driving back to Michigan last night from a weekend in Ohio, Nicole made the observation that Palin's nicely setting herself up for a job hosting a tv show and, sure enough, the NYT piece speculates on that very possibility. That Nicole, she's a smarty. In the (blessed) event of a McCain-Palin loss, Palin certainly is set up to write a book, command a huge speaker's fee on the far-right lecture circuit, and, yes, maybe go into showbiz (maybe a Fox News--an entity that's got absolutely nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with showbiz--talk show with what's-her-name from The View serving as her Ed McMahon?). She has continually looked foolish and shockingly unprepared over the past two months, but she's going to be a very rich woman regardless of what happens on November 4.
Talked to many, many Ohioans over the weekend, the vast majority of whom support McCain-Palin. Mainly due to the "Obama sounds good but how will he pay for it all?" argument. As if indefinite military comittments five-thousand miles away; newly imposed taxes on health care; and social service cuts that will result in greater poverty and greater reliance on ERs for basic services are cheap. I did notice--and this is WAY anecdotal--a generational split, with the 40-and-under crowd seeming to lean Obama. (Thank God for absentee ballots for college students!) I suppose they have more years to benefit from optimism, positive social change, and a belief in common good and more years to feel the negative effects of division and cynicism. You know, McCain's inability to look Obama in the eye or even say his name is increasingly seeming like the epitome of what election '08 represents. Maybe those of us under a certain age feel as if we're the ones who'll foot the bill--in terms of both moral cost and fiscal cost--for years and years of Iraqi occupation. We're the ones who don't want to be what the angry McCain signifies.
On a happier note, another awesome Apple Butter party at my parents' house this weekend. Good food and drink, good company, good hayride, good campfire, and a good game of football. 136 people in their backyard...what a fiesta!
On campus, then, for a meeting of the steering committee of the Civic Engagement Project, which means free lunch. Yay. Next, must mark a big fat stack of papers that I should have read over the weekend. Oh, and an article that must be peer-reviewed by Wednesday. Also happening Wednesday: tenure-track members of the composition discipline must give a presentation before the executive council of the dean's office. We're working on a "strategic vision" for the college. I'm responsible for preparing the part of the presentation where we talk about how the discipline of "writing studies" developed and subsequently went through various paradigm shifts. I've got two minutes to tackle that topic. How about that? And, and, and a hundred other things.
Yet despite the busy-ness, I must say something about Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. First, she was funny, although she mostly sat back and let others make the jokes. Still, what a good sport. Maybe the ultimate goal was for her to seem likable; mission accomplished. The NYT piece (use link above) rightly points out that she probably didn't do much to improve her reputation as a lightweight. Bopping one's head while Amy Pohler raps about shooting moose does not equal gravitas, especially nine hours before a prominent and well-respected republican like Colin Powell endorses your opponent. So you get the GOP ticket joshing around on SNL and you get the democratic ticket dominating the Sunday a.m. news shows. I'll take that weekend. Obama continues looking infintely more presidential and McCain-Palin continue looking desperate.
Curious that Palin's people consented to some of the Alec Baldwin jokes. Baldwin angrily, bitingly calls her "that horrible woman" in the bit where he pretends to think the real Palin is Tiny Fey. Baldwin's bit was almost nostalgic, harkening back to a (probably non-existent) time when SNL represented a less diffuse set of counter-cultural worldviews. "She goes against everything we stand for," Baldwin implored Lorne Michaels, invoking a mythic, post-Watergate "we" that SNL represented for about twenty minutes in the mid-70s (if at all). And the punchline of that bit: "you are way hotter in person." I'm sure her handlers figure the jokes are another way to signify Palin as the anti-feminist, the one who can "have it all" without the "radical" and "angry" rhetoric and agenda.
Driving back to Michigan last night from a weekend in Ohio, Nicole made the observation that Palin's nicely setting herself up for a job hosting a tv show and, sure enough, the NYT piece speculates on that very possibility. That Nicole, she's a smarty. In the (blessed) event of a McCain-Palin loss, Palin certainly is set up to write a book, command a huge speaker's fee on the far-right lecture circuit, and, yes, maybe go into showbiz (maybe a Fox News--an entity that's got absolutely nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with showbiz--talk show with what's-her-name from The View serving as her Ed McMahon?). She has continually looked foolish and shockingly unprepared over the past two months, but she's going to be a very rich woman regardless of what happens on November 4.
Talked to many, many Ohioans over the weekend, the vast majority of whom support McCain-Palin. Mainly due to the "Obama sounds good but how will he pay for it all?" argument. As if indefinite military comittments five-thousand miles away; newly imposed taxes on health care; and social service cuts that will result in greater poverty and greater reliance on ERs for basic services are cheap. I did notice--and this is WAY anecdotal--a generational split, with the 40-and-under crowd seeming to lean Obama. (Thank God for absentee ballots for college students!) I suppose they have more years to benefit from optimism, positive social change, and a belief in common good and more years to feel the negative effects of division and cynicism. You know, McCain's inability to look Obama in the eye or even say his name is increasingly seeming like the epitome of what election '08 represents. Maybe those of us under a certain age feel as if we're the ones who'll foot the bill--in terms of both moral cost and fiscal cost--for years and years of Iraqi occupation. We're the ones who don't want to be what the angry McCain signifies.
On a happier note, another awesome Apple Butter party at my parents' house this weekend. Good food and drink, good company, good hayride, good campfire, and a good game of football. 136 people in their backyard...what a fiesta!
10/16/2008
debate
Last night my town's democrat club met for our normal monthly gathering and then adjourned to a watering hole I don't like much to watch the debate. Shortly before the debate began, the club's chair posed the question will McCain go negative? No, says I, the negative stuff is backfiring.
I was wrong. McCain, in what seemed even to McCain supporters like desperation, actually tried to stear the conversation away from issues and toward Obama's "associations." Ugh. One of the things that made Obama effective last night was his calm but imperative statements about wanting to get back to talking about, you know, the candidates' platforms. Finally, when neither McCain nor the moderator thought that was a good idea, Obama zinged, "You've made Bill Ayers the centerpiece of your campaign." Bingo. An education professor who both republicans and democrats in Illinois frequently work with due to his expertise on school reform. I'm not on any boards, but I'm on a boatload of committees and action groups and I don't vouch for the beliefs and past actions of all the people with whom I serve.
Other McCain moment of desperation: "I'm not George Bush." Um, okay. That had to make W feel good, when his own party's candidate was so explicit about the need to establish that distance.
McCain, he of the hurt feelings, knows damn well that John Lewis wasn't comparing him to George Wallace when Lewis said that the atmophere at recent Sarah Palin events feels like a Wallace rally. How is that a stretch? People at a political rally yelled "kill him" about an African-American public figure. How is it a stretch, how is it even a personal attack, to say that such a moment is reminiscent of segregationist ideology and much worse? Unlike a lot of lefties, by the way, I don't hold Palin responsible for those comments. I don't know for certain that she heard them. I don't know for certain there's any causation between her campaign rhetoric and the "kill him" chant. If Lewis had said that Palin reminds him of George Wallace, then Palin and McCain would have a substantial beef, albeit a beef with Lewis, not Obama. McCain feigning hurt feelings = moment of desperation number three.
I would have liked to have heard even more logocentric stuff from Obama. He seems to be winning on the issues, so why not talk policy even more? He did a very good job on health care, I thought, although a conservative dude at the watering hole last night resopnded to that moment in the debate by saying "go to Canada then." I don't know if he was talking to Obama, or our democrat club. He didn't like us any more than he liked Obama.
In fact, at one point, this guy said something to our group like "shut the f#@! up so people in the thinking man's [sic] party can listen." Clever. He also threatened to take a woman in our party "outside to the parking lot." Her response: "Let's do it. I'll keep my arms at my side and watch you hit a lady, big man." On the way home, Nicole colorfully commented how her response would have involved a less passive strategy out in the parking lot. That Nicole.
I was wrong. McCain, in what seemed even to McCain supporters like desperation, actually tried to stear the conversation away from issues and toward Obama's "associations." Ugh. One of the things that made Obama effective last night was his calm but imperative statements about wanting to get back to talking about, you know, the candidates' platforms. Finally, when neither McCain nor the moderator thought that was a good idea, Obama zinged, "You've made Bill Ayers the centerpiece of your campaign." Bingo. An education professor who both republicans and democrats in Illinois frequently work with due to his expertise on school reform. I'm not on any boards, but I'm on a boatload of committees and action groups and I don't vouch for the beliefs and past actions of all the people with whom I serve.
Other McCain moment of desperation: "I'm not George Bush." Um, okay. That had to make W feel good, when his own party's candidate was so explicit about the need to establish that distance.
McCain, he of the hurt feelings, knows damn well that John Lewis wasn't comparing him to George Wallace when Lewis said that the atmophere at recent Sarah Palin events feels like a Wallace rally. How is that a stretch? People at a political rally yelled "kill him" about an African-American public figure. How is it a stretch, how is it even a personal attack, to say that such a moment is reminiscent of segregationist ideology and much worse? Unlike a lot of lefties, by the way, I don't hold Palin responsible for those comments. I don't know for certain that she heard them. I don't know for certain there's any causation between her campaign rhetoric and the "kill him" chant. If Lewis had said that Palin reminds him of George Wallace, then Palin and McCain would have a substantial beef, albeit a beef with Lewis, not Obama. McCain feigning hurt feelings = moment of desperation number three.
I would have liked to have heard even more logocentric stuff from Obama. He seems to be winning on the issues, so why not talk policy even more? He did a very good job on health care, I thought, although a conservative dude at the watering hole last night resopnded to that moment in the debate by saying "go to Canada then." I don't know if he was talking to Obama, or our democrat club. He didn't like us any more than he liked Obama.
In fact, at one point, this guy said something to our group like "shut the f#@! up so people in the thinking man's [sic] party can listen." Clever. He also threatened to take a woman in our party "outside to the parking lot." Her response: "Let's do it. I'll keep my arms at my side and watch you hit a lady, big man." On the way home, Nicole colorfully commented how her response would have involved a less passive strategy out in the parking lot. That Nicole.
10/13/2008
perennial topic
Yesterday Stanley Fish blogged about that perennial favorite, political indoctrination on campus, weighing in somewhat belatedly on the University of Illinois policy barring professors from wearing candidate buttons in the workplace, putting candidate bumper stickers on their cars, and attending partisan rallies on campus.
The place of partisan politics on college campuses. One point often lost in the debate is how the arguments, on both sides really, tend to infantilize college students and puff up professor influence. We have to mold these young minds and show them how to be civically active adults. Really? Aside from the troubling and monolithic way such an argument invokes student need, much research about civic engagement on campus suggests students engage differently (through places of worship, for instance) from professors but at no lower a rate. Others , like Fish, argue: We abuse our position of influence and neglect "real" teaching when we "bring" politics into class. I have been interested in the rhetoric of this debate for a decade and I have yet to see solid evidence establishing the influence we allegedly have over students.
College students are adults. They can make up their own minds. They do make up their own minds. They bring experiences, habits, literacies, and ideas with them. Hopefully they continue to gain new experiences, habits, literacies, and ideas. Hopefully we are effective enough to expand their repertoire as thinkers and doers. Are we talking about partisan politics this semester in my rhetoric classes? You bet. Do I have partisan bumper stickers on my car and a button on my backpack? You bet. Do I take "public" stands on issues and candidates, both on and off camps? You bet. Do I wear a button to class? No. Exercising both my first amendment rights and my academic freedom as well, I choose not to. Given my teaching style (discussion-oriented, informal, open) , I think such a symbol might distract. For some teaching styles, such a symbol might help.
The policy is bogus because it removes those aforementioned liberties and because it suggests that college students are something other than adults with prerogatives who have chosen to enter into an arena of competing and new prerogatives.
Experience-as-proof has its limits and I don't mean to generalize here, but let me invoke my own story. As an undergraduate, I knew a great deal about the politics of many of my professors. Some, not so much. But a lot of my professors displayed symbols, on their office doors for instance. And a lot of them brought not only the issues but also their perspectives into the classroom. Certainly in courses like ethics and women's studies, but also in courses like postmodern fiction and philosophies of God. I studied with a lot of outspoken public intellectuals. Many were far to the left, but not all of them. I took several philosophy classes with an extremely conservative Catholic, a member of the religious right who incorporated his views on abortion to illustrate various lessons: a priori argumentation, for instance.
Now, granted, I was at a private University. Also, it was the early 90s, the height of the campus multi-culturalism movement. But the point is: I never felt coerced, never felt victimized by indoctrination, never felt like a child incapable of making up my mind. I felt challenged to consider new things. It's called adulthood.
The place of partisan politics on college campuses. One point often lost in the debate is how the arguments, on both sides really, tend to infantilize college students and puff up professor influence. We have to mold these young minds and show them how to be civically active adults. Really? Aside from the troubling and monolithic way such an argument invokes student need, much research about civic engagement on campus suggests students engage differently (through places of worship, for instance) from professors but at no lower a rate. Others , like Fish, argue: We abuse our position of influence and neglect "real" teaching when we "bring" politics into class. I have been interested in the rhetoric of this debate for a decade and I have yet to see solid evidence establishing the influence we allegedly have over students.
College students are adults. They can make up their own minds. They do make up their own minds. They bring experiences, habits, literacies, and ideas with them. Hopefully they continue to gain new experiences, habits, literacies, and ideas. Hopefully we are effective enough to expand their repertoire as thinkers and doers. Are we talking about partisan politics this semester in my rhetoric classes? You bet. Do I have partisan bumper stickers on my car and a button on my backpack? You bet. Do I take "public" stands on issues and candidates, both on and off camps? You bet. Do I wear a button to class? No. Exercising both my first amendment rights and my academic freedom as well, I choose not to. Given my teaching style (discussion-oriented, informal, open) , I think such a symbol might distract. For some teaching styles, such a symbol might help.
The policy is bogus because it removes those aforementioned liberties and because it suggests that college students are something other than adults with prerogatives who have chosen to enter into an arena of competing and new prerogatives.
Experience-as-proof has its limits and I don't mean to generalize here, but let me invoke my own story. As an undergraduate, I knew a great deal about the politics of many of my professors. Some, not so much. But a lot of my professors displayed symbols, on their office doors for instance. And a lot of them brought not only the issues but also their perspectives into the classroom. Certainly in courses like ethics and women's studies, but also in courses like postmodern fiction and philosophies of God. I studied with a lot of outspoken public intellectuals. Many were far to the left, but not all of them. I took several philosophy classes with an extremely conservative Catholic, a member of the religious right who incorporated his views on abortion to illustrate various lessons: a priori argumentation, for instance.
Now, granted, I was at a private University. Also, it was the early 90s, the height of the campus multi-culturalism movement. But the point is: I never felt coerced, never felt victimized by indoctrination, never felt like a child incapable of making up my mind. I felt challenged to consider new things. It's called adulthood.
10/08/2008
via Metro Times part two
This news/rumor couldn't be cooler. A Gories reunion may be happening next summer. And any Gories reunion is going to include a Detroit show, right?
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