Hate

Last night, I went to bed in Minnesota. This morning, I woke up in some other state. Minnesota's legislature voted last night to put on the fall 2012 ballot a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

What is wrong with people? Why do heterosexuals think that the institution of "marriage" is something only they should have?

I just don't get it, especially because the latest Gallup Poll found that the majority of Americans support legalizing same-sex marriage.

Oh wait, I *do* get it: politics. Republicans make a power-play to beat-up-on the Democratic governor.

Republicans seem to be the party that's protecting the patriarchy: Suzanne Pharr's "Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism" explains so many of the Republicans' moves for social control. They want to limit anything to do with the feminine, continue to keep women in subordinate positions, preserve the privilege of the patriarchy.

Fight back against their power to show that might does *not* make right.

Bernays

Tonight, I'm going to be talking about a bit of Edward Bernays's Propaganda. I found this clip from a BBC documentary The Century of Self. It's scary.

Cyber Bullying

At the MnCUEW keynote on Friday, John O'Brien presented a bunch of slides he'd complied to to illustrate his point that technology is changing how we communicate.

One video was about cyber bullying, and I re-post it here because it's direct - and uncomfortable:

Upton Sinclair would be proud

I want to preserve this video for the next time I teach The Jungle: people don't seem to realize that we could fall back to those brutal days (they certainly exist in other parts of the world).

Technology glitch

Stretch

What *real* active learning space might look like - not what we have at Century.

Where Good Ideas Come From

Double-click to make this video big enough to watch (it's good!)

Stillness and Movement

Worth watching, listening, reading, resting:

On another note

I have been considering whether or not to post the YouTube video of a bunch of boys (some quite young) harrassing a man after Sunday's Pride festival. Now that MPR has written a news story about it, I'll pass it along.

If you check out the original YouTube video, you'll see that some of the commenters just turn their hatred on the Somali boys: as if two wrongs make a right.

And one comment confirms Suzanne Pharr's assertion that homophobia is a weapon of sexism: the comment reads "you have to feel sorry for the guy, but in the few times you see him speak, he's handling himself like a 14-year old girl." Clearly, acting like a 14-year-old girl is NOT a good thing. Right.

Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where acting like a 14-year-old girl was a COMPLIMENT? Something to aspire to? To admire?

*So-o-o-o* last election cycle

Will anyone even get the jokes in this video any more? Do we remember what these candidates said, stood for, did?

Important video

I've been trying to figure out how to embed this video in Century's Q&S Club Facebook page. If anyone can help me, that would be great.

It's made by a gay teen in northwestern Pennsylvania, an area I know well, documenting the torment he and another teen endured in high school. They both decided to do something about the harassment.

Excellent Movie

I highly recommend Gus Van Sant's Milk. See it immediately. Tell all your students to do so, no matter what you teach (hey, you remember that you teach *students* don't you?).

The film's content still resonates 30 years after Harvey Milk's murder. His message of hope is familiar to us, of course, but so, unfortunately, is the message of hate spread by some "religious" people. What I especially like is Milk's insistence that he wasn't the important thing: the movement was the important thing, the simple force of the simple *rightness* of the simple equality of all people. It's a simple, powerful, necessary message.

Video Your Vote

Check this out: PBS has teamed up with YouTube on a project called "Video Your Vote." They're inviting voters to take cameras when we vote, using them to record what our experience is like. Long lines? Confusing ballots? Broken machines? Video what we see and submit the videos to YouTube.

Wow - what an intersection of technology and democracy. What a *great* way to empower citizens, to document real experience, to reveal the material conditions of people around the country.

Can you imagine what Florida in 2000 would have looked like if folks had videoed their experiences with the "butterfly ballot" (does anyone even remember these)?

Technology: extending the speed and reach of humanity.

What could students learn

I'm fascinated by the interplay of images and text. This video via The Margins of Error impresses me on so many levels, but how can I use it in class? Ideas welcome.


Oh, yeah, and then there's this kind of visual argument: this comic is a brilliant way to teach so many things.
via xkdc: A webcomic of romance,sarcasm, math, and language. Click to enlarge and see the message.

Will this work?

Here's a video aimed at young people. I'm intrigued.

The reverse psychology reverses. I'm wondering how young people will respond. I'll have to ask.

I was inspired to do some online research about rhetoric after attending the CPTSC Conference today at the University of Minnesota: an excellent way to spend my day. Of course I had my laptop, so I was able to engage my online tech writing students while I was there. Teaching isn't what it used to be!

Thinking Ahead

Wow, this new school year is going to be action-packed. Today's sessions filled me in on lots of new, cool stuff going on -- I can't say I was exactly "inspired," but I was eager to get in on projects.

One initiative is the Common Book Project, of course, and we're reading Field Notes From a Catastrophe this year. Author Elizabeth Kolbert is even coming to campus on March 10, 2009!

This video, from The New York Times blog "By the Numbers" by Charles M. Blow, will be of use, I think: it's called "Vampire Energy."

"Brilliant!"

This BBC3 video comes via The Garance.
What if Facebook was our real life? What if it already is?

Not New, Still True

And funny! I've posted this video before: The The Impotence of Proofreading by Taylor Mali.

More Morrison

It's a complete cliche to say that Toni Morrison's novels stun and jolt and amaze the reader -- I mean, she's a Nobel Prize winner -- but it's completely true: the early two, The Bluest Eye and Sula, are teachable (and frequently show up on reading lists, in online paper mill repositories, in Cliff/Sparknotes) because they're more-or-less chronological, focus on young people, and have a clear, if unsatisfactory, ending.

The next two, Song of Solomon which I read in college and Tar Baby which I reread last week, are less . . . what: I wrote "tidy" and realized that's not accurate, then "packaged" which gets at what I mean a little bit (they're not "coming of age" novels in the way the first two are), but ultimately the next two are not as concerned with youth. And I like that: I'm tired of the first two, having read each at least four times so that I can teach them well each semester I teach American Women Writers. But let's see Morrison's progression as an artist.

Then we get to Beloved, the novel that knocked me out for two days after I read it; I was such a wreck emotionally that I'm afraid to read it again, but I suppose it'll impact me differently this time since I don't have young children any more.

To follow Morrison's chronology, Jazz is next, which I just finished this week for the first time. What a perfectly-named novel. And I'm thinking I'd like to teach it in conjunction with Gatsby: same time period, basically; same city (Harlem vs. Long Island); same iconic American story, author, genius. I should have paired them this semester, but I didn't know Jazz. Next time.

Next is Paradise, which I'm currently rereading having forgotten I'd read it, a lovely set of chapters like beads on a chain but brutally broken. Brutally. Then I see her next novel is called Love, and then this year's A Mercy. If these titles are any indication, we can expect more intense emotionality. Pathos in spades.

Listen to her read - and to her friend the poet Reynolds Price - at Duke University. I heard her speak once at the U of Minnesota, in Northrup Auditorium. She wasn't sweet, was strong and brave and irritating. She made us uncomfortable and energized. We need these voices.

Marjane Satrapi

Last night, heard Marjane Satrapi at Century: what a treat.

She's such a wonder, such a good speaker for our campus: intelligent and funny, worldly yet approachable, creative and opinionated. She sat and talked to us, a ready-made "speech" delivered extemporaneously with grace and good humor, genuine thanks.

Here's a trailer from her movie Persepolis made from her two books: