July 2004 Archives

Well, the Senate may not have stepped up to the plate when black Americans needed it - I wonder if the shame from that fed their resistance to Bush on this one? Senate Blocks Bush Move to Ban Same-Sex Marriage.

It seems to me that I recall Vice-President Gore actually asked members of the Senate NOT to sign the complaint about the election results in Florida and the disenfranchisement of African-American voters there (shown in Fahrenheit 9/11).....something about the constitutional crisis it would throw the country into, no precedent or mechanism in place to deal with what that would mean. :-( Obviously an egregious error in judgment, whatever the reason someone should have signed along with a House member anyway. But it does cause me to wonder, now, about the cyclical nature of things and the distribution of bones to groups vying for legitimation by the powers that be.

~ article posted by Sonny Suchdev to the social justice listserv

What a blast! I was the solo interpreter at a mixed (deaf/hearing) community event and spent most of the time with three ASL-users and one non-signing deaf person, simultaneously encouraging and interpreting their interaction. It'd get tricky when I had to also interpret for hearing people - going back and forth among spoken English, ASL, and mouthed English for lipreading. One can't work in any kind of formal interpreter role in this setting - lots of facilitating and group management. I probably wouldn't be so bold in a setting where I didn't know the people so well, but these are people who LOOK at each other practically every day and never get to converse. So the social scene allowed for connections that never become possible any other way. So I deliberately interpreted all those comments directed at me and got them talking with each other. When I noticed one or another of them watching hearing people, I'd pop over to the hearies and ask if they minded, then I'd interpret and get the hearies and deafies talking with each other. I have to say there was a fair amount of actual interaction! Lots of teasing, too. :-)

Social events are among the hardest to work, I think, because even in same-language groups folks are often awkward and uncomfortable. In a mixed language setting, no one is "in charge" or telling folks what they ought to do or whom they should speak with, so the inevitable drifting into segregated groups occurs usually quite rapidly. The unique demographic tonight was the oral deaf with the signing deaf and their curiousity about each other which is rarely (if ever) bridged. Once they were talking with each other, I was working, and it was much easier to extend that work to include the hearies. I had plenty of the 1:1 stuff that feels so good, but not at the expense of cross-cultural interaction.

Anyway, I laughed A LOT, and that is always a good thing. :-)

Sarbjeet and I made it out yesterday evening into a warm, misty rain. We were cowards of potential lightening so didn't stay out too long, but we did it! Hopefully, it's the beginning of a trend.

Have I had a few fleeting glimpses of happiness lately? My old joyful self re-emerging? It could be true. Then I woke up at 4 am (go figure). ;-)

I haven't come across any hue and outcrys over online voter registration - and here's an easy way to do it. It does highlight the digital divide - easier for those with access/resources to do it than those without.

your vote matters

If you're not registered - hurry up! :-)

~ via Eric Hamako and the social justice listserv

I articulated something today that has been on my mind a lot but I hadn't quite put into words. I've been doing this thing where, while I'm interpreting, I mirror the instructor's movement in the class - sit when she sits, stand when she stands - and I think it is actually helping the flow of the interaction.

Here's my idea. When we (interpreters) sit down and establish a position, we become an anchor for the talk. Whatever people are saying - in all its flexibility and inherent movement - is "rigiditized" (yes, I just invented this term!) because it has to come to the interpreter in order to go through us. In other words, our stationary position actually impedes the flow instead of facilitating it. Our training (to be unobtrusive) is counterproductive in this way, because in our effort not to be "too present" we establish a physical presence that requires the communication flow to accommodate to us.

What's been happening as I move with the instructor now, is that the students are hardly aware of me and yet I'm So there! But they've adjusted to my physical movement as part-and-parcel of the communicative movement and it is unremarkable. Instead, they focus on the issue under discussion, and everyone is included. The Deaf student comments freely and openly, the hearing students look at the Deaf student regularly, and the instructor always notices when he wants to say something. In fact, today one student started speaking at the same time that the Deaf student rustled some papers and the hearing student stopped himself instantly, "Am I interrupting?" No, he wasn't - but he was so sensitive to the fact that he might have been! There is a really quite nice flow going on here. :-)

I think its not only attributable to my physically moving around. (I also move to a different location when the instructor sets up "debates." Her intention is to get the students interacting with each other, so I move to the "side" opposite whichever "side" the Deaf student is on, so that the focal point is no longer the front of the classroom and the instructor, but the discursive action taking place among the students and the two sides of the debate.) Another factor is that I was highly "visible" by being directive - just once! - in the very beginning of the class. Folks might suggest that I acted without tact, but I reminded the instructor - in front of the students! - that she needed to look at the Deaf student when speaking with them. Not only has she never forgotten since, but all the students also know to look at the Deaf student - and they do! My hypothesis is that my degree of involvement in the beginning (which made my presence so palpably obvious) contributed to some clarity about the communication process which has lead to more inclusive dynamics. And now, even though I am doing my thing in full view/plain sight, I'm not the center of attention because everyone's clear on what part it is that I am doing.

"[Informant] Thomas Speigal['s] warning about judging the past from the perspective of the present, about the simultaneous solidification of boundaries and blurring of distinctions between victims and perpetrators" (p. 217).

This quote continues her analysis of the commemoration parade, in a chapter she calls "Dis-membered Border". This seems (to me, smile) to parallel my relational struggle - we are contesting who was/is "victim" and who was/is "perpetrator." I see the ways in which both of us did both, AND my "20/20 hindsight" perceives the discursive evidence (what was said and what was not said) in much sharper relief than I heard at the time. I need to learn to hear/interpret differently (or at least with other possibilities in mind) and I think this is the crux of acting into a new discursive future when one recognizes a PM.

Berdahl's work doesn't ground the discursive "collision" in any specific microsocial instant of real interaction - she juxtaposes what people said in one context with what they say in another context. This is what I hope to do with the critical discourse analysis paper that I intend to write analysing the key new finding (a discovery!) from the workshop in Alaska. At any rate, I'm also wondering if there is something here that might lend itself to James' and my history paper. I've been struggling with the Churchill/Bush examples and need to work out more clearly why I don't think they will work....or at least, that they represent a very different strategy/approach than anything we've done previously.

Robert Jenson alerts us to Fahrenheit 9-11's subtle racism, such as the images shown of nations depicted in the 'coalition of the willing' (which did make me uncomfortable) and it's overemphasis on the Bush administration as if US national policy hasn't always been to subvert any government that doesn't agree with "us" using any means necessary.

Thanks again to Eric Hamako on the social justice listserv.

An ol' compatriot from the social justice program has gotten her dissertation published:

Teaching and Learning in Diverse Classrooms: Faculty reflections on Their Experiences and Pedagogical Practices of Teaching Diverse Populations.

ByÝCarmelita Rosie Castaneda

As I just mentioned, Tom Atlee was on online voting a long time ago, watching the curve of developing events. I appreciate his perception (and his recent willingness to publicize recognizing his own vulnerability and biases). Here's a taste of the lawsuits to come.

Sam says its more intense than "fun" but that everyone needs to see it. He also said I was brave for taking him out - NOT! Of course, I did almost pitch him faceforward onto the sidewalk in front of the Latchis ([the FP] envisioned him rolling into Main Street), but no such accident actually occurred and we had a grand time. He's not that hard to get around as he can still use his legs just enough to help one get him up and pivoted in the desired directions.

:-)

Tom Atlee's been sharing stuff about online voting for the past six months or so (maybe more). I've posted several things in here previously. Now, the latest on the threat to postpone the elections - I hope this is the final straw the "illegitimate president" (Donna's infamous label) will play to tip the tide of outrage and propel a new leadership into the white house.

Only Cowards Cancel Elections by William Rivers Pitt.

This book by Berdahl is amazing. I think it has some gems that James and I could use for the history paper. And the parallelism with/for me and [the FP] is serendipitous, to say the least. Check this out:

"..memory is an interactive, malleable, and highly contested phenomenon...asymmetrical...and the interplay between local and extralocal processes of remembering" (p. 207). And this quote from an informant in the study: "The further we come away, the more we scrub ourselves clean" (p. 215).

Berdahl is exploring the change between the lived day-to-day experience of residents of this small town on the border between East and West Germany and their later commemoration of it after �the Wende� � reunification. Many things have occurred in the larger national discourse that allows these residents to discursively position themselves as victims (and accuse others of perpetration)�.the parallels I see are simply around how each person constructs memory and how the telling of events builds toward stories which can become reified. The deepest level of struggle now, for me, is to resist the momentum of my own discursive story and find a way to hear and take in another story without overlaying an habitualized interpretation upon it. Just to allow the possibility would be a significant change�

Been hearing about George Soros lately - his anti-Bush campaign. Came across this link regarding his views on reflexivity.

A quote to entice my SOM colleagues: "I am in fundamental disagreement with the prevailing wisdom. The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend towards equilibrium, and on the whole, discount the future correctly. I operate using a different theory, according to which financial markets cannot possibly discount the future correctly because they do not merely discount the future; they help to shape it."

And one for Marta in particular: "Thinking participants cannot act on the basis of knowledge. Knowledge presupposes facts which occur independently of the statements which refer to them; but being a participant implies that oneís decisions influence the outcome."

I agree with him: "There is an active relationship between thinking and reality, as well as the passive one which is the only one recognized by natural science and, by way of a false analogy, also by economic theory. I call the passive relationship the ìcognitive functionî and the active relationship the ìparticipating function,î and the interaction between the two functions I call ìreflexivity.î Reflexivity is, in effect, a two-way feedback mechanism in which reality helps shape the participantsí thinking and the participantsí thinking helps shape reality in an unending process in which thinking and reality may come to approach each other but can never become identical."

He's applying this to financial markets, mostly; and I've applying it to human relationships, mostly.

He's been a hell of a lot more successful than me! %-)

I just read an amazing piece about the social/cultural movement to save Tibet, and the entire time I was thinking about the Deaf community. (cite below)

I donít know much about what has happened since Deaf Majority Now, but Iíve heard that Deaf folk like the new superintendent more than they thought they would. I can also see that the path of development for Austine continues toward becoming a speciality school for deaf kids with disabilities (article in the Reformer about the return of the ìChallenge Programî). While this isnít bad in and of itself (thereís a definite need), it doesnít bode well for cultural survival over the long term.

The article is about how the Dalai Lama committed to and has pursued an international campaign that uses the cultural distinctiveness of Tibetan Buddhism as its cornerstone. This has pros and cons, the pros being that it ìfitsî into a Western logic about politics and marketing, the cons being that it reinforces stereotypes, such as all Buddhists are monks. Despite all the dangers of cooptation, the author, Meg McLagan, concludes: ìimmersion into First World media technologies and publicity circuits does not automatically imply co-optation of Tibetans or the Tibet issueî (2002:106).

My argument for the Deaf Community has been that it needs to similarly ìfitî into mass media campaigning, and Iím encouraged that McLagan thinks it is possible to do without necessarily giving up autonomy. The Dalai Lama is an extraordinary character, of course, but I think the ìstarî of a Deaf cultural difference campaign would not be a person, it would be the language, ASL. Hearing people LOVE IT. They donít know how to approach Deaf people about it, but interpreters hear (!) about it all the time. Instead of focusing on the ineptitude of heariesí cross-cultural communication skills, maybe the Deaf community could see the other side of this phenomena as an incredible opportunity.

I understand all the historical forces which have led the Deaf to protect their language and culture by focusing inward - but Iíd argue that the way to save themselves now is to get it on display! I think Austine and the Deaf community in Vermont are extremely well-positioned to make the most of this cultural capital. Brattleboro is a progressive town, full of people who really do care, even if they donít always know how to channel this care. Weíve got to show them by reaching out and enticing them in.

This is the essence of collaboration ñ imagine a town where interpreted performances were routine. What a boon to the arts that would be! How many more people might be drawn to the area because of the unique intermingling of cultures? Weíre talking economic development here ñ for the region. More Deaf people would come, more interpreters would follow, more employment ñ an enlarged tax base ñ more local money circulating locallyÖand those parents who desperately want bicultural children who are citizens of both worlds would see not just a self-contained school but an entire community comfortable with negotiating and interacting across linguistic and cultural difference!

Ok, so I can get carried away. It just seems so possible to me.

ps - this thinking is not new!

Spectacles of Difference: Cultural Activism and the Mass Mediation of Tibet by Meg Mclagan in Media Worlds.

Meanwhile, while political and moral discourses feed racism against American Indians for their economic success at providing gambling venues, Big Y (a grocery store chain) now promotes gambling when you check out! (The linked article doesn't specify the gadgetry I encountered yesterday, but you can see the connection.) Nice little computerized gambling option when you pay your bill - if you "win" you get a reduction in what you owe. If you lose....well, your bill doesn't go up, but your privacy takes a hit. While the US isn't using rfid - radio frequency identification chips - yet, there are numerous ways that our habits as consumers are getting pegged to us as individuals. Business is all for them, with a journal dedicated to so-called objective information (aka advertising). private citizens....? Katherine Albrecht says we need limits. I agree. An article in Wired Magazine quotes a marketer for rfid:

I've been working on this email to Meem - the ostensive "mother-in-law". It's been a terrific intellectual and personal exercise. I'm seeing much more clearly how my own communicative reactions have fit an historical trajectory, as well as getting a grip on how discourses (viewed as a metacommunicative phenomena) can collide in interpersonal, microsocial interaction.

Saw Being John Malkovich (finally!). Wild. If such were truly possible - my consciousness transported into someone else's body - I don't think my subjectivity would be unaffected because everyone would relate to and interact with the new body differently. I would have entered a new intersubjective field and this would affect my own perception of self...

The film centers on (the character) Craig's obsessions - puppeteering and Maxine - not his whole intrasubjective experience. It makes me wonder if externally perceived and/or internally experienced individual "uniqueness" can be so reduced - a sort of "law" of subjectivity?

Biked from Amherst to Northampton this morning with the crew from India. We probably did about 14-15 miles. My knees hurt! But I've got to get in shape for Ms. Hannah Mae, whose record is currently 22 miles! Is she trying to show me up or what?!!

This just in from the Women of Color Resource Center, their own Declaration of Interdependence.

Thanks to Eric Hamako for posting this to the UMass social justice listserv.

This is a lengthy recent email from Tom Atlee detailing his personal transformation as a result of a dialogue between leaders of the conservative right and leaders of the liberal left. Interesting!

An excerpt:

"On June 11, 2004 I was privileged to join in a fascinating meeting of Left and Right organized by Lets Talk America and the Democacy in America Project. This unusual gathering was funded by the visonary Fetzer Institute and generously hosted at their wooded Seasons Retreat Center in Kalamazoo, MI. When we said our good-byes three days later, I knew my worldview had been changed forever....

...The organizers had invited leaders of the liberal and progressive Left as well as some of Joseph's longtime friends and associates on the Right. ... a couple of former Clinton administration officials came -- Shirley Wilcher of Wilcher Global LLC and the National Congress of Black Women, and Carl Fillichio of the Council for Excellence in Government -- and a number of other folks who have roots in progressive politics, like myself, Mark Satin of THE RADICAL MIDDLE newsletter, and Michael Toms of New Dimensions Radio. Among the pillars of the conservative movement who attended were David Keene, Chair of the American Conservative Union (the largest grassroots conservative organization in the U.S.); Bill Thomson, National Field Director and a leading spokesperson for the Christian Coalition; FBI veteran Gary Aldrich, founder of The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty (and author of UNLIMITED ACCESS); and columnist and radio talk show host Bob Barr, former US Congressman from Georgia and a board member for the National Rifle Association.

Other participants included Laura Chasin of the Public Conversation Project, Lawry Chickering of Educate Girls Globally (and author of BEYOND LEFT AND RIGHT), Joe Goldman of America Speaks, Barbara Marx Hubbard of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution (and author of CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION), Ethan Leib (author of DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA), Jeff Peters of We The People, Ginny Sloan of the Constitution Project, Pat Spino of the Democracy in America Project, Donna Wiesner of BrainTrain, Zoe Schonfeld of the NY office of the Legal Aid Society, and Jeri Barr of Cobb Family Resources....

...we signed the following declaration:

"We the people, gathered at the Season's Conference Center, Kalamazoo, Michigan, June 11-13, 2004, seeking to form a more perfect Union now in 21st Century America, declare:
* We cherish our country and the founding ideals and institutions on which it stands.
* We respect our differences and recognize America needs every one our viewpoints, ideas and passions - even those we don't agree with - to keep our democracy vital and alive.
* We recognize that meeting here and across our land for dialogues across differences builds trust, understanding, respect and empowerment - the conditions necessary for freedom and democracy to live in us and around us.
* And therefore, each still grounded in our own considered views (conscience and convictions), we commit ourselves and our communities of interest to foster dialogue across the many divides in America, in large and small groups, to build trust, insight and inspired action towards the more perfect union we all desire.
* And we support the work of Let's Talk America and Democracy in America Project - and other efforts - to bring Americans into conversations that are inclusive, non-partisan, respectful and open - guided by hosts and ground rules that allow all the voices of 'We the People' to be heard."

For another perspective on this gathering, see this report in the (a href="http://www.radicalmiddle.com/x_fetzer_conference.htm">Radical Middle Newsletter.

__________________________
Tom's current signature quotation:

"Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards." -- Theodore Zeldin

--

I was telling Sarbjeet about the "one worst year" that Koreans believe in, and he upped the ante. In India, a folk belief (which he professes not to believe) is that everyone has a 7-year spell of not-so-great luck. Some years within this period may be worse than others, but overall the seven years suck. Once you're through THAT, then your life begins to pick up.

Lucky for me I'm surrounded by so many optimists, eh? :-)

Reading this amazing book, Where the World Ended: Re-unification and Identity in the German Borderland by Daphne Berdahl.

She quotes Gupta and Ferguson (1992:18): "we want to contend that the notion of borderlands is a more adequate conceptualization of the 'normal' locale of the postmodern subject" (p. 6). Berhdahl continues: "In this view, the borderland is as much a metaphor as a physical space, or what Roger Rouse has called 'an alternative cartography of social space' (1991:9).

"[The borderland] is a site of cultural confrontation, articulation, and, to a large extent, penetration, where struggles over the production of cultural meanings occur in the context of asymmetrical relations between East and West" (Berdahl, p. 9).

While Berdahl is studying a particular and specific geophysical location (the town of Kella), the concepts upon which she founds her analysis could apply to cyberspace and other locations as well.

James' idea for revising the history paper includes using two historical examples of PMs - one when Churchill finally sways the War Councel not to make any appeasement type approach to Hitler, and another one involving Bush and the whole terrorism/Iraq business. After watching F 9-11, I started wondering about the meeting with Richard Clarke on September 12. I'm prepping for the online class' session on democracy and the internet, but came across this article summarizing Clarke's interview with 60 Minutes.

The other night I was (foolishly?) inspired to post some messages on two Dean blogs (Dean Nation; Change for America) about Kerry's vice-presidential choice (as if my last minute personal opinion might actually sway anything!) I included a link to my webblog (which I haven't really tried to publicize very much) and within six hours I'd gotten nine porn comments inserted in various places. Just deleted them all, but wondering, if I did decide to enter more public cyber-conversations....I could spend hours/day just getting rid of the crap! How do other bloggers prevent this?

The other day, the new professor, Emily West, was in town and Carolyn hosted her, Leda, and Erica for dinner. I hung out with them for a bit, through a bit of clothes shopping and lemoncello....Erica was teasing herself about something she'd said or done (which for the life of me I can't recall), and made a comment to the effect of how it could be taken out of context as part of a rumor mill. I said, "I could help with that! The benefits of living in Carolyn's house." A silence befell the group. The conversation struggled to get going again, and I soon excused myself.

Pure speculation, but whaddaya wanna bet my comment reminded them of my status as a graduate student, eliciting a collision between a faculty discourse of colleagial teasing and the threat (which I never intended to be taken as real) of a student discourse which could verge on the disparaging...? I meant to tease, and I was invoking my student status, but I didn't anticipate that it might strike a nerve of .... doubt? :-) (Raz "The Romanian Case" - near the end of these conference abstracts - would say something like, "Steph can find a PM anywhere!")

"Love is a ticklish sensation around your heart that turns out to be a pain-in-the-ass."

Visited with Sam yesterday, post-birthday (June 28). His room was profuse with flowers (Lee�s doing?) and about 30 birthday cards from around the world. He was in good spirits, although markedly slowed down. No evidence of aphasia, but time moves at a completely different pace for him and one must be able to adjust in order to communicate smoothly. He's felt a loss of energy that he brought it up with his doc last week, who told him that he had a lot more energy now than he did 2-3 months ago. He seemed more alert and engaged to me than he did during my winter visits.

Sam wanted to know if I'd been in touch with Lee (not for awhile), or anyone else. I thought I had a recent letter from the Vecchiati's (his Brazilian family) with me but the ones I had were old � I have to scour my inbox and see if there's one I didn�t manage to get printed yet. P&L are forewarned of a dental bill. Jennifer is wished well. Sam was trying to find a letter from Manjeca to share with me but we were unable to locate it. Very sorry to hear that she's having a rough time these days.

Updated Sam on my mom's recent move, he's glad she's happy but I could see it distressed him that John has declined so much. Did not tell him about my dad's recent mild stroke; time for that later. He inquired about [the BM] :-) she's a trooper, there's just no other way to describe her skills at navigating so many difficult parental dynamics - and [the FP] (we had a good talk yesterday and I left without crying, a huge improvement). He also asked about Petr. We're all concerned that either the cancer has returned or there is some other health complication. Not much good news on the health and happiness front these days. sigh

Meanwhile, Sam was upbeat and ready for an outing. I�ll pick him up Wednesday to go to the early showing of Fahrenheit 9-11. It�s an unflattering view of Bush (to say the least), but I think Moore has done a good job of NOT making it against all Republicans or even all conservatives. And he doesn�t go out of his way to make the Democrats look that great either � it�s really a critique of Bush and his close circle�s unpalatable exercise of power.

Anyway, when Sam hesitated about the movie (or seemed to � I think he was actually working out the logistics in his mind), I said he could stay there on his butt if he preferred. Got a huge grin. Of course he�s gung ho for it. :-) We spent some time talking about voting; seems he is the only resident of Eden Park who votes. That�s a sad commentary on health care, in and of itself � the reinforcement of disenfranchisement. I told him he has his work cut out for the fall. :-)

This book was an amazing distractor.

It got me interested in "Shiva, as Nataraja, the cosmic lord of the dance, who controls the motions of the universe and the flow of time" (p. 46-47).

This part reminds me of the conversation I had at Sarbjeet's the other night with Koushik and Ambarish, in which I tried to parallel social interaction from a communicational point-of-view and quantum physics. My main metaphor was Shroedinger's Cat. Here's a translation of the original paper for the seriously inclined! I think they were both a bit dismayed that such application could be made (j?), and even by respected physicists like David Bohm (not just poorly informed laypersons like myself!). Since my original exposure to these ideas comes from Shemaya and a book she and her friends discussed some years ago, The Quantum Self, I suppose I ought to salvage it from my shelf and finish reading it.

Here is how Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, describes Hinduism:

"There is Brahmin, the world soul, the sustaining frame upon which is woven, warp and weft, the cloth of being, with all its decorative elements of space and time. There is Brahmin nirguna, without qualities, which lies beyond understanding, beyond description, beyond approach; with our poor words we sew a suit for it - One, Truth, Unity, Absolute, Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being - and try to make it fit, but Brahmin nirguna always bursts the seams. We are left speechless. But there is also Brahmin saguna, with qualities, where the suit fits..." (p. 48).

and I must stop :-(

As with everything these days, I'm also reading it through the lens (or fog, as the case may be) of my current AFGE (Another F*eaking Growth Experience). To wit:

Lukacs makes the point that while Britain could not win the war, and didn't (the US and Russia won it), "Churchill was the one who did not lose it" (p. 2). While the historical implications of my struggle for continued parenthood can't possibly rate with WWII (1), I do feel that somehow this is a critical period in which I must not lose, even if I cannot "win." One of Churchill's comments summarizes my convictions (with a substitution of "daughter" for "world"):

"Nothing which may happen in this battle can in any way relieve us of our duty to defend the world cause to which we have vowed ourselves; nor should it destroy our confidence in our power to make our way, as on former occasions...through disaster and grief..." (p. 3).

Bringing to mind the current discussion about the extent (if any?) of my role in decision-making about Hannah's welfare:

"...this was how things seemed, and while what happens may not be identical with what people think happens in the long run, the two are inseparable in the short run" (p. 16).

Reflections by May Allingham, a regular British countryfolk in response to an address by Queen Wilhelmina, in which the Queen conveyed that "Courage was not going to be enough."

Then there is bit on Chamberlain (the previous Prime Minister who didn't like Churchill), describing him as not having a quick mind "which is not always a handicap" (p. 55) - I hope such holds true for moi! Certainly, I do change my mind once evidence accumulates, and yes, without changing character.

This book by John Lukacs has pointed James to a new focus for our PM paper for Rethinking History.

Some quotes: "...from macrocosmic to microcosmic history, of a sort" (p. xii).

"Tightly focused views are often useful, while there is a kind of broadmindedness that can be flat" (p. xiii).

The title of chapter one, "The Hinge of Fate" evokes a very PM-like imagery. :-)

"Any historian worth his salt knows how to eschew monocausal explanations of human events - that is, the attribution of a single motive to any given decision.* And there is another necessary distinction, the one between motives and purposes (the first a push of the past, the second the pull of the future), for rare are also those instances when the purposes of a decision are singular or exclusive" (p. 41-41).

*Footnote references Bond, Britain, France and Belgium.

Well, I arrived for the second day of a class, having missed the introductory stuff of the first day because I'd already booked another job when this one came around. Didn't take but 5 minutes for me to stir things up. It's a small class, five students, the instructor, two interpreters, and I realized I ought to know people's names - so I asked right then and there. I also used the same "interruption" to remind the instructor to look at the deaf student (not the interpreter) when addressing him. There was some tension, yes....but everyone now looks at the deaf student when speaking to him, so my action seemed to set a certain normative behavior into motion.

There's a definite mood of ignoring the interpreters (or at least attempting to do so), but so far clarifications have gone fine and we've been free to move around and situate ourselves for the best possible visual angles, so that part is working well. There's a definite disparity in communication - the hearing students are more participatory, but it might be personality and amount of background in the subject matter moreso than exclusionary communication practices (at least at this point). So far, the deaf student has made comments and interacted when he's felt he had something to say (at least, as far as I can tell). There have been a few side comments between the deaf student and the interpreters...some of these I interpreted, including his teasing me about my attire. [Background: Yesterday we spoke about the possibility of me using the class as a site for my research and got into a conversation about professional norms and his preferences, what he thinks is important or insignificant. One of the things he brought up was the wearing of solid colors, he explained that it didn't matter to him, that whatever people wore was everyday and his interactions with deaf people wearing wild clothes didn't make a difference so why should it matter with an interpreter? The only situation he thought attire (in terms of simplicity and color) would matter is a large lecture or audience situation in which the interpreter might be further away in distance.] So...today I wore a patterned shirt. He teased me about it and when I responded in kind I also noticed that several students were looking at us. So I said, "Ralph (a pseudonym) is teasing the interpreter about my shirt, he thinks it's too loud." The instructor laughed and said, "I like it." Class went on.

A side benefit of interpreting is the exposure to new information and ideas. Got a couple of hot references, one of which I'd heard about before:

Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin
Society by Lila Abu-Lighod; I'm on my way to check it out of the library. Lots to do with the politics of representation. And also Donna Haraway, who critiques the culture of science, especially the link between objectivity and normativity. She started out in primatology and got interested in how work with these beings most like humans reveal assumptions about what it means to be human. She has a lot to say about technology too - may be a great source for the I/CT class.

tough time getting online....dead sound card in the pizmo and time to just suck it in and replace the sucker. It's been giving me a problem a month. :-(

Jst bumped into one of my students from COM118 - she'd read the blog and said, "I didn't know all that happened to you! Why didn't you tell us?" She asked about my daughter and gave me a big hug. Wow. Felt great! :-) A bit of an antidote for the awful evaluations I received. (Yes, they really were bad. Carolyn and I went over them together and it was a grim conversation. She said, "Students punish you for doing innovative things, it isn't right, but it's what happens." OUCH!