92.7 broadcast Orson Welles 1938 thriller, War of the Worlds, in which Martians attack New York City. Triggering panic for listeners who missed the disclaimers, "the broadcast revealed the way politicians could use the power of mass communications to create theatrical illusions, to manipulate the public".
I don't know if my intuition is right, but I think I had my students attention today. It was nerve-wracking, i admit, but we brainstormed most of the elements of the classroom discourse to date, and I tried to package it. I got help on the thesis statement from Luke and "Jane". Someone hollered out that it's not just speech we've been discussing, but "the power of" public speech. I know I missed some things, and the conclusion came more on the fly than is advisable (!), but time was running out and it had to be done.
It was a heck of a day. Gorgeous (summer?!) weather packaging a raft of tough things. One of my roomie's dogs was hit by a car and killed yesterday (flashback :-( city), and a deaf man who was a total character also died over the weekend. I'll miss John's sense of humor, not only was he a tease, but he could do it with such a straight face you'd think you'd really messed up. I put one or two over on him, too, but I'm sure if we'd kept score he won. :-)
Death is hard though, both the actual and symbolic kinds.
Someone I met at David's presentation on "speech about hate speech" in Hungary suggested that this organization, the Brahma Kumaris routinely offer simultaneous interpreting in several languages. I can't find any evidence of such at the site in New York, but the one in at Mt. Abu in Indiaseems promising.
A lead for some day, maybe. :-)
Funny - googled myself (as if I have nothing better to do this morning), and found this poem by another "Stephanie Kent". Reinforces the importance of that middle "Jo"!
there's also an alias making loads of bucks (listed by Forbes). envy?
Here's one I hadn't come across before, about the disableism workshop Shemaya and I did at Mt Holyoke a few years back.
The original crew of the Enterprise were my best friends and role models while I was growing up. Everyday during elementary school I would rush home to watch. I now have a hard time watching Kirk, but Spock remains an icon. I am still taken by the camraderie across supposed difference which all subsequent Star Trek series have continued to emulate.
Am I surprised by George Takei's widening corridor"? No. It makes such sense, especially the way he explains it - tying his own life experiences (including internment as a child) with contemporary media and political life. An overlapping story highlights Takei On Politics, Being Different And Social Activism.
via Eric, socialjustice listserv
Well. I have two different full-length papers in mind, a couple of short "journalistic" pieces, and somehow I imagine the four of these will come together at some point in the future. In the meantime, this is my best attempt at encapsulating what the discursive data from my 100 hours (!) of interview data with interpreters at Parliament will enable me to say:
There is a commonplace within the European Community that any citizen has the right to stand for office. It is codified in the (foundering?) EU Charter as such, however no explicit mention is made of the right/freedom to speak one's own language there...
That's to be found in Rule 138 of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure, regarding General Rules for the Conduct of Sittings:
So says the "Vandalism in progress" page of Wikipedia. I haven't tried yet, but when I do I'll be a newbie and will dutifully play in the Sandbox before venturing into the 'real wiki-world.' I'm still learning about disambiguation in my real, 'real life', but this is the way of communication technology, isn't it? All input/exposure flows endlessly on, segmented arbitrarily or by convention where we've been taught such divisions ought to occur.
"If we respond to a proverb (by denying its wisdom or preferring the insight of a contrary proverb), we imagine someone who might have said it, and may imply that the experience that led to it was partial: we treat is as a German or Russian proverb, say, and imagine the sort of 'typical' German or Russian from whom it might have emanated" (MB: Creation of a Prosaics, p. 133).
"As Bakhtin puts it, one can 'curl up comfortably and die' with the abstract meaning of a sentence (MHS, p. 160), but not with its contextual meaning" (127).
A brief summary of Bakhtin's three global concepts (according to Morson & Emerson) follows:
Not only did I get a piano recital of Fur Elise over the phone last night, I also learned a bit about what it takes to become a Boy Scout Star, was implored to come for a visit (very tempting!), and was impressed with a (soon-to-be) young man's maturity and kindness.
I was also extremely proud of my brother's parenting skills. Can one say "the proof is in the pudding" in reference to a male? (Who, me? Messing with gender norms?!) There is no doubt he has pulled off being a dad.
This would be Mikhail Bakhtin, and somehow I'm going to make it clear that interpreters make this happen. Google could only find one reference to this idea, in a paper on the possibilities/problems of cybercommunity/ies, Digital Waco.
Here's what Morson & Emerson say in their intellectual biography, Creation of a Prosaics:
Felice was one of my professors during my Master's in social justice education. She rocks. I only met Chuck once, but he's cool too. I think it's great their book, Economic Apartheid in America has been published in a 2nd edition.
Have had a series of events and conversations recently that merged in my brain earlier today - let's see if I can reconstruct the way they seemed to go together.
1st - a recent conversation about a workshop on saying "no" - when should interpreters turn down work? It's been reconfirmed for me that one factor is clearly CONTENT. If you are not familiar with gay history, don't take a job that features someone discussing this history! Or, if you can't imagine the act of teaching, interpreting a training seminar for teachers probably isn't your thing.
It's not a question of language production or reception, if you lack the contextual knowledge it's just a real stretch to be able to produce an interpretation that makes sense. Most of us can't do it, regardless of how smooth our ASL might be.
I dunno. I like the idea of a "white" apology for slavery very much, but I was distressed reading the story with an ad rating women's legs on the same page. The flesh trade seems all too alive and persistent . . .
At any rate, Barbados both promoted and resisted (?) the slave trade. The same story is on the AP "mainstream" media coverage as that provided by BlackPlanet. Link passed on by Tee on the social justice listserv.
It's a visually-oriented day. What do we do with what we see? What do we do with what we know? This exhibit, Eyes Wide Open will have an exhibit at UMass-Amherst on November 8-11, 2005.
Kathy shared her thoughts from the recent display at Holyoke Community College with members of the social justice listserv. Thanks.
Am I pegged or what?!! Robin just sent me info an upcoming workshop, Body as Camera, with this organization, Listen with your Eyes. Wish I could go...
but maybe another time, another event, now that I know about them.
do a google search on "failure" and see what you get. "miserable failure" gets a similar result. How can this happen?
I drove from western Mass northwards into Vermont today and it was stunning. The leaves are in their state of glory, some colors displayed in full now, delayed by the extraordinarily warm and long fall, some even still green! It was a clear day, cool, and there was frost in patches...eventually I hit some stretches where the snow was just deep enough to cover every single branch and twig. With the glow of the leaves beneath and the shine of the sun above, it was a beautiful day. "Gloriosky!" as someone I know would say. :-)
This ambidextrous thing is working to my favor. Marcello did beat me the first game, and I haven't topped my highest score ever yet, but I suspect there really is some neurophysical rewiring taking place. Revan and Christiano did the random thing, and LB tied his first game (instead of losing by a pin). Luscious rolled three strikes in a row! I wasn't a witness though, so I'm not sure it counts. Kinda like Lava's (purported) 198 game the week I missed...
Of course there's no serious competition that takes place here, unless it's between my fetishization of The President and the performance of the game itself.
Went to a presentation by homeboy, then had dinner with "homegirl" last night. Both were awesome (and duly labeled by the Little Bro).
You've gotta hear Sam say it in his stentorian voice to get the full effect, but he is over the cold he had earlier last week. I wasn't able to visit for long, but he's hanging in there, as he always does. :-)
Sure. :-) (responding to Radhika's request for more info)
Keep in mind, I'm teaching mass comm for the first time - so the students' questions are all new to me. We read a piece by Stanley Aronowitz last week ("Working Class Culture in the Electronic Age"), which generated many questions about the relationship between particular 'identities' and depth of critical perception. For instance:
Is there a correlation between immersion and awareness? Take middle-class people and their representation in the media, does this lead them not to think deeply about the representations, whereas members of those groups not so well-represented might wonder why?
Are blacks in general more likely to notice their subordination because of secondary education and inferior resources made available to them – do these factors led them to notice the inequity more quickly than white children do. Is that regional?
After we saw Hall's video, the questions intensified.
These attached documents for emergency planning were sent out by Eric to the social justice listserv. The authors, Nell Myhand and Daphne Muse specifically address disenfranchised communities. Nell discusses her involvement in y2k prevention planning, which was also my entre into the entire combined civic/governmental field of emergency planning. There are extensive and impressive plans in place that will inevitably be woefully inadequate should disaster strike. Some of the lapses will be institutional for various reasons, and others will be personal as individuals fail to cope with intersubjective, relational, and interactional challenges. Regardless of how lucky or privileged you've been, preparedness is something that behooves us all.
Briankle, in his book, agrees with Schutz that "the problem" of intersubjectivity is actually "an 'intramundane problem'" (79). I haven't read Schutz' explication of what he means by this term; a simplistic online definition is ""being in the material world", as opposed to "extramundane" (is this a synonym for transcendental?)
Is this philosopher the same guy I've read about in group relations theory? If so, seems like it was quite an offshoot, although some of his work indicates a lean in that direction. For instance, "The Well-Informed Citizen", which is about knowledge as a function of practical experience, and other papers on issues of social justice, such as "Equality and the Meaning Structure of the Social World".
I'll have to do some hunting... I may be confusing him with William C. or some other Schutz. Here's a lead on group development theorizing from 2001.
Why do so many brilliant people kill themselves? The novel, Being There, turned into a motion picture, was mentioned in Briankle's class last week. Jerzy Kosinski sounds downright miserable, for all the pleasures he seems to have wrestled out of life. His motto is one I could live by - paradoxically enough.
I was looking for something called "The One Who is Standing Beside Me", a.k.a (in French) as "The One Who is Not Accompanying Me". No luck. The Painted Bird sounds grim as hell. As does most of his work, which appears to consistently tackle life at its potential worst.
Students in my Intro to Mass Media class have been asking similar questions (especially after viewing Stuart Hall's Race: The Floating Signifier) as these two esteemed academics on the Association of Internet Researchers' listserv:
Charles: My applied ethics class, we're reading an essay by Robinson A. Grover, "the New State of Nature and the New Terrorism," which argues that new media and globalization have brought about a new version of Hobbes' war of each against all, etc.
Radhika: hmmm
Charles: I attempted to buttress some of Grover's claims with the work of Cass Sunstein, his notion of "The Daily Me," etc.
This inspired one of my students to ask: are there studies, etc., that suggest that the new media, by giving us greater communication with "the Other" works to make us _less_ fearful of the Other, and thus, under some circumstances at least, _more_ likely to engage in aggressive behaviors, including warfare?
The Moan and Dove provided a suitable backdrop for a gathering of CommGrads to kvetch and celebrate. Whether or not curriculum needs more structure, and musings about the spring conference ... who will submit proposals? Who might agree to invest labor?
There was also random gossip about someone sleeping with a band, orienting to who's in which cohort, anecdotes about teaching, comparison of living situations, and various tastings: wheat wine, stone arrogant bastard, pabst (how anyone could drink in pabst in a beer hall with a couple dozen other choices is beyond me!), water (yes, we have diversity!), among others. Mostly, there was a lot of laughter. Who else but grad students could juxtapose baby pig races with the carnivalesque?
Simply could not hang in there for salsa after we closed the bowling alley Tuesday. Improved my left-handed game despite hitting the gutter five times in a row (there was speculation I was distracted by Geena).
My right-handed game improved too, as I tied my highest score ever, beating Little Brother by one whole pin! :-) He smoked me in the last game though (did someone say, "motivation"?)
Update on casualties and damage in Guatemala from PRENSA LIBRE of October 11 and 12 provided some information on the extent of the damage country-wide as of last week:
657 muertos (people dead - note that these figures include 169 people
killed in the total destruction of the Santiago Atitlan village of
Panabaj through a mudslide).
99 heridos (people hurt)
577 desaparecidos (disappeared)
200,000 personas afectadas (people affected)
120,000 personas están albergadas (in temporary shelters)
5,352 casas afectadas (houses damaged)
1,478 viviendas destruidas (houses destroyed)
515 comunidades afectadas (communities affected)
316 planteles educativos afectados (educational facilties affected)
One of our professors (email in full below) is very familiar with this region, testifying: "Having seen the grinding poverty of the Maya in Guatemala, I can assure you that there is a very real need and anything will help."
online donations: PRO LAGO GUATEMALAN RELIEF or by mail:
Todd can't get his own info (!) posted to the new Comm Grad website (which is fantabulous), but he did send info on this excellent source for Metadata about Media Activism.
Echoing Green Fellowship – Brief announcement
The global nonprofit Echoing Green is launching a search for visionary
new leaders who want to start their own organizations to create lasting social change. Through the prestigious two-year Echoing Green Fellowship, emerging social entrepreneurs have the chance to receive up to $90,000 in seed funding and technical assistance to launch organizations that address the root causes of society’s most difficult problems.
For questions regarding the line application, email apply@echoinggreen.org.
The application deadline is 5 PM EST on Thursday, December 1, 2005.
posted by Marcella to the social justice listserv
Most of my students in Public Speaking opted for the written analysis assignment first, rather than last. I advocated for it, and am pleased with the results. One decision I had to make quick was whether fictonal speeches were acceptable. I decided, why not? Obviously students take their cues about what makes a good speech and when to give one from the movies at least as much (if not moreso?) than real life. What an interesting collection we ended up with! The basic criteria was that the speech had to be available on video/dvd so we could screen it as a class (took a lot of time, but was well worth it).
David, Nora, and Anna arrived first. It was perfect timing for me as I got to hold the wee one for a looooong time. I can hardly wait until she's old enough to explain the Egyptian hieroglyphs on my housewarming present. :-) There was some concern about the chewable toy I found for her, but she did no damage. Hunju (!) took care of that later, "confessing" her "crime" after the last five guests rose in unison to leave. That was quite a visual moment - such orchestration! Perhaps Sreela cued them from behind me?
who I encountered last spring but couldn't hold up my end of the deal. :-/ Anyway, she's moving on to podcasting and I'd like to keep tabs on whatever she pulls together.
I'm rushing too much, sent off an email half-cooked to the AoIR listserv. :-( Mary says, "I am also teaching a cyberculture course and posting the Digital Resource link to the list in case anyone else is interested. We have a course wiki, and the Resource page has a few academic podcast sites as well as podcast how-to links.
http://wiki.elearning.ubc.ca/DigitalResources
The best academic podcasting site I have found is:
http://i-generation.blogspot.com/"
Well, here's a conference customed designed for me and the Deaf/Interpreter stuff I've been working on for ages! Arresting the Flow is even in the neighborhood, at Northeastern this upcoming April.
thanks Barry for posting it to AoIR!
A blog for IT and IP conferences. Probably a bit too tech-heavy for me, but I'm interested...
posted by Nancy to the AoIR listserv.
Sent by Taryn to the social justice listserv:
"This guide by the New York Collective of Radical Educators has an excellent analysis and link to resources/examples on the social justice issues related to Hurricane Katrina. Margery is one of the trainers with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond."
Tonight I drove through pouring rain to pursue a mythical quest. I prepped throughout the day, even to the point of selecting Green Dragon tea. :-/
I returned to this cautionary article on academic blogging, sent by a friend. Will I accomplish proper balance on the razor-thin edge of fitting in and (trying to) push the envelope?
Sam's sister Edith sent this to him via email:
WHY WAIT UNTIL 2008? THERE IS AN ELECTION IN 2006. I HEREWITH FIRMLY STATE THAT I WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN, REGARDLESS OF THE OTHER ISSUES, IF HE OR SHE DOES NOT SPONSOR AND SUPPORT THIS LEGISLATION. THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE STANDING FOR ELECTION IN 2006.
LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON "PEOPLE POWER"AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE WITH ME ON THIS BY REPLYING AND FORWARDING TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
Sam says, "If I wrote a book it would be divided into chapters by my siblings. Clara, first, then Theodore (Ted)..." then his memory gets fuzzy, which one is next? :-) How many siblings were there? Sam was "the youngest of 12."
"Part of it would be poignant. One child was dead at birth, before Clara. The other boy lived until he was two. I didn't know them, of course. Born before my time. I was not close to anybody except Clarence.
"Next was Adam. Clarence. Anna. Ann is still alive. We called her Ann, her name was Anna. Her middle name was Rosie. Anna Rosie. Herman, and Edith, who's not dead. Sam, the author. I've been thinking about the book for a long time.."
(I only count ten people...)
"Renhald and Ruben, they were twins, they go after Ted." (We're not sure how to spell Reinhald!)
Ok, Reflexiity was gone for about 18 hours. "Document has no data." I guess it was just a hosting problem, according to my two favorite computer gurus. I actually stayed calm - three years of work, poof!
The upswing . . . may it continue!
Is celebrated every year on October 11. I forget what that date was selected when the holiday was inaugurated in the ... late 80's?
My good buddy Warren Blumenfeld, a colleague from the Social Justice Program at UMass-Amherst, distributed
his speech via the social justice listserv.
This undergraduate final paper received Best Paper honors for the Small Group Communication class I taught last spring at UMass-Amherst. The class as a whole was extraordinary, we complemented and competed with each other well. Based on all the papers, I know everyone learned a lot. I know I did. :-)
Interview with Steve Jones about the Association of Internet Researcher's Annual Conference.
Info about Steve Jones is also available. In the interview, he describes the character of participants at the conference, its interdisciplinarity, and provides a sketch of the genesis and development of the AoIR.
(As if I have time for leisure reading, but when I do, Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind looks like a winner.
It's definitely timely, as I wax and wane between what can only be empirically described as fantasy yet feels, phenomenologically, like a vision of the future. I know it's only a potential future, but I cannot shake the conviction that if I find the proper alignments it could come to pass. Could be a text book case of what neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran explores regarding hallucination? There is external stimula, which I don't think I'm misreading (that would be an illusion according to the Wikipedia definition) - empirically observed behavior. "A hallucination is a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus..." seems more on target because the moments of perception (possibly an example of insight?) occur in spatial and temporal distance from the stimulus.
Luscious said I won if I got more than 50, then he decided I got second place. I didn't do too badly with the ambidextrous attempt! Someone, however, did not live up to the rumors of a near 200 pin game last week, but it's possible my presence is a jinx. At least he beat my best score ever! Don worked on physics in between turns, while most everyone else just cheered each other on. There was an exciting moment when 4 strikes went down with 4 successive folk, the next roll was a 9 that toppled but wouldn't go down. *sigh*
I learned the rationale for the odd lanes. It's psychological. I should have guessed! Btw, that lucky guy from a few weeks ago? He's getting better. :-)
and then there was salsa at the Iron Horse. Not a bad night, eh?
The text is available as well as some commentaries, such as
Gore on the Threat to American Democracy (scroll down to read over 100 comments t that weblog posting),
Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth (which includes links to an audiopodcast and video highlights,
and right wing responses, such as Right-wing pundits play doctor; diagnose Gore as "insane",
New Gore speech, same right-wing diagnosis
Media Reality Check: Gore's Speech Satisfied Network Analysts.
Copyright © 2005 craigslist, inc.
10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong
01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
Re-post this if you believe love makes a marriage.
· this is in or around Salem, OR
· no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
I'm reading the assigned "pro" and "con" chapters in Jarice's book, Taking Sides. I'm puzzled by the link made by Edison & Jacobs from Janet Jackson's bodily exposure during prime time television to increasing restrictions on radio broadcasting.
The crackdown on radio by the FCC is for real, as experienced recently in Brattleboro, VT. I tracked some of the drama:
Wish I could go to this conference in Cologne, upcoming in November. It would help me with prep for the Turkish-German interpreting study. Maybe there will be Proceedings published at some point?
A very fitting title and theme for the upcoming conference hosted by graduate students in the Communication Department here at UMass.
"The human dilemma of communication is that we cannot communicate ordinarily without words and signs, but even ordinary experience tends to be falsfied by our habits of verbalization and rationalization." Thomas Merton, Zen and the birds of appetite
I read two different accounts of "Intersubjectivity in an organic pub", In Johnnie's (the first one), there was a link to the second one, David's, which led me to The Collaboratino Cafe.
Trying to guide students from the notion of subjectivity, through co-construction, to intersubjectivity. I've posed the question to a few of them to define "co-construction." I jumped ahead, to intersubjectivity. The stuff I'm coming across is pretty dense. :-(
Intersubjectivity in an organic pub
The (above) Blog for Collective Intelligence looks like a Tom Atlee site, except it's a bit more witty! (Tom writes more like me, or, I write more like him. Basically, not so funny. Don't tell me you guessed?!) Actually, I'm pretty sure I recognize George's name from among folk Tom has recommended in the past.
Intersubjectivity: Exploring Consciousness from the Second-Person Perspective
Identity, Intersubjectivity and Communicative Action
I brought pate and gorgonzola on pumpernickel bread with hazelnut coffee, but Lee and Greg outstaged me by taking Sam to the Harvest Festival at the Putney School. Way to go! Sam had a blast. :-) Lee wiggled the car into position so Sam could visit with folks. He saw Toby Young (who was in politics at one time), Amy, Ann Quest, Jim (of Jim & Carol), Peter Dixon, and Evan (who is now a senior; Sam is still way proud of the photos Evan superimposed of Sam and some of his favorite places in Putney when Evan visited Sam for his community service project through the high school).
Also, Sam saw Steven Anderson, Karen Gustafson, Evan's mother Leslie (who used to work at SIT), Linda (a friend of Karen's), also Karen Blanchard and Debbie (a friend of Lee's).
Someone said fall is ten days behind schedule, this story says it's coming along now with a flourish. But we've had extraordinarily warm weather lately, and one of the mildest falls I can recall. An extended summer, really. Some trees have started to change brilliantly but most are still green. Sam says they drove up by his place - it looked the same except they've put curtains up in the windows.
I thought I'd blogged this before, but can't locate ZPD, specifically. Vygotsky made his case for social develpment theory, in Mind in Society.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. (Trans. M. Cole). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
the next academic on my list... Peter Ives wrote a short summary for a presentation to "Multiple Diversities: European Experiences" held by the Consortium for European Studies.
(Can't say I'm too fond of the label, but it's statistically true. The "scientific objectivity" of quantification must be what makes it acceptable.)
Here's another site with good-looking offshoot links. I downloaded a couple of pdfs on Support for minority languages in Europe, "commissioned by the Language Policy Unit of the Directorate General for Education and Culture, is now available in its original English version. This study provides a thoroughgoing analysis of the issues surrounding the protection and promotion of regional and minority languages in the EU context." From the DG on Education and Training.
Then there's Euromosaic,
Here is site lists international instruments regarding national minorities. (Most links are dead.) :-(
for instance, the 1998 The Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities.
The Lund Recommendations on the Effective Participation of National Minorities in Public Life 1999
A list of all treaties entered into by the Council or Europe (a different entity, by the way, than the Council of the European Union).
Specific to EuroParl:
Kuijpers Resolution on the languages and cultures of regional and ethnic minorities in the European Community 30 October 1987
Killilea Resolution on linguistic and cultural minorities in the European Community 9 February 1994
Here's a more current report "with recommendations to the Commission on European regional and lesser-used languages – the languages of minorities in the EU – in the context of enlargement and cultural diversity (2003/2057(INI)) Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, Rapporteur: Michl Ebner".
Unesco has posted the text with a brief historical account.
the Preamble declares:
"[T]his Declaration takes language communities and not states as its point of departure and is to be viewed in the context of the reinforcement of international institutions capable of guaranteeing sustainable and equitable development for the whole of humanity. For these reasons also it aims to encourage the creation of a political framework for linguistic diversity based upon respect, harmonious coexistence and mutual benefit."
This article discusses linguicide as a parallel to genocide, using the example of Kurdish in Turkey. It also challenges the assumption of linguistics as a field of neutrality. The Politics of A-political Linguistics: Linguists and Linguicide
Well, Burda, I used to have my email address up on the site but it seems to have vanished in the latest template update. I'll have to pester my tech guy (heavens no, I don't know how to do this myself!)
Here it is - you know how to put it in proper form, as I try to avoid the email collection bots:
kentcon at sover dot net
all public speaking students - drafts welcome but give me lead time! Best is by Sunday night, but during the day Monday will probably also work. I have no time on Tuesday!
Carlos selected this quote out of G.W.'s October 6 speech and sent it to the social justice listserv:
"Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must
be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes
can multiply."
President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy
You need to have access to a university library to get the industry reports and other goodies available in the CQ Researcher, but wow - does it have some awesome stuff. Anyone into transnational flows ought to know about it! Also the Business and Company Resource Center.
If you ever wondered about rates of obesity in the U.S., Center for Disease Control lays it out in this map of obesity trends from 1985-2004 (download the powerpoint presentation and start at 1985 for maximum effect).
My BMI is normal (19.85).
Bunch of nutritionist recommended info (no Atkins! is available from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, especially Portion Distortion.
Hey museumfreak! Wonderful to 'see' you here. :-) Here's the list, all nice and compiled. Lemme know what happens with it, k?
Introduction to Small Group Communication, Spring 2005
Introduction to Interpersonal Communication, Winter 2005
Introduction to Interpersonal Communication, Fall 2004
Introduction to Interpersonal Communication, Spring 2004
Introduction to Interpersonal Communication, Winter 2004
This EDF ad depicts what it's like to be disabled by one's environment. The French subtitle translates:
"The world is harder when it's not made with you in mind."
Sent by Nick to the DeafVermont listserv. :-) The woman shocked by a signer is hilarious - no linguistic mediation skills whatsoever!
to this conference in NY city on Human Rights and the Humanities. October 21 & 22. Friday and Saturday. All day. Bet it would help me a lot with the EuroParl interpreting project ...
I asked my colleagues about good references on media ownership, here's what I got back:
Todd (the namedropper, a.k.a. dad twice over) says, "Check out this dude's books: http://www.jeffcohen.org/.
Donna, Lori, and Denise all recommend Robert McChesney -- Donna specifies, "older books like Rich Media, Poor Democracy are wonderful, as are newer ones like Our Media Not Theirs."
Denise adds, "Global Media: A Guide really sums things up."
it wouldn't be so hard to find a traditional ol' snail mail address for a place, wouldn't ya? %-/
Moving up from articles to an eBook, the paper Anne and I co-presented at the Supporting Deaf People Online conference last year has been published. :-)
International Perspectives on Interpreting: Selected proceedings from the Supporting Deaf People online conferences 2001 - 2005 is available from the Conference Host, Direct Learn. The article Anne and I wrote, "The Interpreter and Interrupting: Cultural and Group Dynamics", is followed by an excellent summary of the online discussion it inspired.
A new course designed by Ted Coopman.
Here's some info on income inequality and political representation in the U.S. and some correlations with partisan politics (from a presentation by Chris in Labor Studies).
Compiled from the 2004-2005 edition of The State of Working America:
"1. Income in 2000 was slightly less concentrated among the top 1% than in 1929. This means, in 2000, the top 1% held 21.7% of the total income and in 1929, the top 1% held 22.5%.
2. The income of the bottom fifth of the American population grew at 6.4% from 1979-2000, while the top 1/5 grew 70% and the top 1% of America achieved real income gains of 184% since 1979.
3. In 1979, the top 1/5 of American population had an average income 8.4 times that of the bottom. By 2001, the top fifth had an average income 12.3 times that of the bottom.
4. In 1979, the top 1% had an average income 33.1 times that of the bottom fifth of the American public. By 2001, the elite of America had an avg. income 70.5 times that of the bottom."
Yesterday, Todd added #2, Annabelle Claire, to go along with #1, Sam.
Wes has actually been reading back through the posts about Sam. They go back a couple of years now (!). I just read one of the very first ones to Sam (maybe it is the actual "first" one) - "Ah.....my main man is back!"
Sam says, "I spent more time thinking about death then than I do now." That first year we talked about it alot, but then Sam "adapted. I got adjusted." Wes asks, "What put Sam in the nursing home?"
"Well," Sam says, "I was driving to Keene. A woman who's since died was in the car with me. I realized that I couldn't drive carefully enough. I put myself in Eden Park. It has trees on both sides. I can see them looking out my window. I went to Vernon Green, and they didn't have trees. Thompson House also didn't have visible trees.
"I have a large room with a large window. The walls are covered with paintings and photographs. More paintings than photographs." (Sam calls the photographs his "Rogue's Gallery.")
