March 2007 Archives

(via text message):

Steph: "Normal subgroups lend themselves readily to homomorphisms."

Smita: "Duh."

Kelly: "Right!"

Ila: "Hmmm..."

Dad: "Same bs here."

Christi: "Yikes, ruff wk?"

I'm assigning an essay by Thomas de Zengotita to the College Writing class for reading this weekend. It was originally published in Harper's (one of my favorites), and is summarized in a blog called How to Save the World. (The same entry also mentions "Carnival of the Capitalists" and "Warren Buffett pays his taxes," both of interest.)

de Zengotita asserts:

He continues, "Remember that T-shirt from the eighties that said "High on Stress"? It was sort of true and sort of a way to bluff it out and sort of a protest - it had that 'any number of meanings' quality we now prefer to depth. That's because the any-number-of-meanings quality keeps you in motion, but depth asks you to stop."

As I've been thinking about how to continue blogging (a.k.a., how to continue writing), I find inspiration from my students and other writers. (It doesn't hurt that a friend actually confessed to reading my blog once-in-awhile, a secret he has been keeping because he doesn't want me to ask him to become more involved, as if I would ever do such a thing!) Natalie Goldberg encourages us "to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist" (Writing Down the Bones, p. 43).

"Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese, and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter" (emphasis added, p. 44).

Siny thinks I didn’t reference her last time, but I did. The birthday girl had it right: no permission, no name - but one might still appear-by-implication in an account of some interaction! This time I only intended to stay an hour but then blogtalk happened. I became excited . . .

Sangria Grrl gave me the hardest time. “The blog feels private, like I’m reading your diary!” Nah – I am just sharing my mind (such as it is!) Nicole nailed the point: once I have written and “published” online then the information (the thinking) “is public.” Some of us had fun recalling the new tradition (we tried to invent) at Winter Solstice: various cuisines throughout the night, except “American came first and was so big there was no room for anyone else!” Gulp, we’ll definitely have to recalibrate for next time. :-)
(All the parties, by the way, are categorized (with some other things) as “group dynamics.”)

I got totally jazzed talking with Adam and attempted to blog right then and there. (Never did that before!) Sangria Grrl busted me, even to the point of confiscating my notes (she did return them, so now she is complicit, right?)! Later in the evening, I was double-teamed sandwiched between Halona and The-Guy-Who-Doesn’t-Trust-Me: “Do you think everybody has an accent?” Of course! But it is not the sound that matters (imho). The cool ness factor of people learning and speaking new languages is the process of making meaning - in fact, this is a very-darn-neat process even among monolinguals: how does anyone agree on what something means?

Adam told me about Tanzania, which is the only country in Africa that is united by a common tongue. “What you have to understand is that we have one national language which one can speak east to west and north to south.” Swahili is one of the most widespread African languages, but unlike other countries with large Swahili-speaking populations (Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Congo), all 120 tribes of Tanzania speak Swahili and therefore do not have to resort to a colonial language (i.e., English in Kenya & Uganda, French in Burundi and Congo) to communicate with each other. The “local-local tribes” also speak native Bantu languages. This singular fact makes Tanzania “peculiar,” according to Adam, because the common tongue “makes us more united – we are the only [African] country where everyone speaks one language.” Indeed, Adam attributed the presence of a unifying national language to the fact that Tanzania has never had a civil war.

Neat, huh? :-) The phenomena, and Adam’s pride in it, seems to support (or extend?) Benedict Anderson’s argument about the functional role of languages in Europe as a tool in the construction of nationalistic imagined communities. My more specific interest is in how (if, whether) current language policies and practices in the European Union will promote a shift away from nationalism (egoistic, xenophobic) to broader self-identifications and also if, when, and how language policies can be extended beyond the political borders of citizenship to the practical day-to-day livelihoods of transnational workers, displaced persons, and their families.

We are (almost) all here.

Strong Little Bridge teased me last month when I was off the blog for several days. I actually found it easy to stop blogging - other activities quickly fill the timespace. Imagine - sometimes "real life" outweighs asynchronicity! :-)

Several validations recently: a person nearly fifteen years younger than me telling me how much I have matured (!), another friend saying I'm much more steady. My massage therapist, commenting that my cerebrospinal fluid pulse is "surprisingly even." (Ruth, of course, laughed hilariously when I told her - who wouldn't be surprised if I was actually "even"?!)

Has Reflexivity served it's purpose? I've been imagining an expansion for awhile. There have been various conversations with friends and colleagues and other activists floating around here-n-there for ages...

I don't foresee changing my own mode of contribution all that much: I am still interested in many things, the usefulness of the blog as a research tool and memory archive still intrigues me - particularly the capacity for friends and strangers to track the development of my consciousness along with me, and the ability to concentrate conversations on particular topics and be able to recover them easily, publicly, are features I value.

I guess we'll see what transpires. :-)

Donal sends this on from the European Communication Research and Education Association listserv. It reminds me of the conversations I had with interpreters for the European Parliament. Some interpreters were worried about misrepresentation of their accounts about interpreting. I'll formally present some results next month in Sydney at an international conference on community interpreting, Critical Link V.

Subject: [ecrea] EU project AIM looks into world of Brussels-based journalists

Source: CORDIS News - 9/3/2007

EU project looks into world of Brussels-based journalists

The EU's communication activities and the work of EU correspondents both in Brussels and around Europe were the focus of the EU-funded AIM (Adequate Information Management) project, which is just drawing to a close.

The Brussels press corps is one of the largest in the world, bringing together over 1,000 journalists from over 60 countries. Through interviews with a sample of Brussels-based journalists, the project partners sought to understand how they viewed the EU's communications efforts and how they arrange their work.

One of the key points to come out of the project is the diversity of journalistic cultures which come together in Brussels. However, there is a certain level of homogenisation of the different cultures, which newcomers have to adapt to. Furthermore, not all journalists are created equal, with some journalists having more clout than others.

Speaking at the final AIM conference in Brussels, project participant Paolo Mancini of the University of Perugia explained that journalists from the old Member States tend to dominate those from the newer Member States, although some of the larger new Member States such as Poland were now starting to pull their weight more. This follows another trend identified, namely that large countries tend to dominate small ones.

'Journalists from bigger countries have more power because sources are more interested in talking to them,' he said, noting that the biggest publications, which are more European than national in their nature, wield considerable power. 'For example the Financial Times is able to affect the process of news gathering for other journalists.' Journalists from smaller countries also often have to cover more issues, making things harder for them.

Journalists also experience a certain level of contradiction in their daily lives, noted Professor Mancini. 'They live abroad and cover international institutions and work with a lot of foreigners, but they respond to a national, i.e. local, audience of people who are in a very local culture,' he explained.

One of the biggest challenges facing journalists is the vast amount of information coming out of the institutions, and the jargon used. Learning to understand the jargon and how to decide which pieces of information are relevant and important is a hard task for journalists arriving in Brussels.

Based on its findings, the project partners have come up with a range of recommendations as to how the EU could improve its communication activities. These include the idea that the European Commission should take national media agendas into consideration, and provide more communications training to its spokespeople and media experts.

Another major issue highlighted by the study is the way the EU avoids mentions of controversies and discussions of internal conflicts in favour of a policy of 'speaking with one voice'. For journalists however, conflicts and controversies are a source of good news stories. Furthermore, the project partners note that admitting to the existence of these internal debates would make the EU more credible among journalists.

'A central problem of European information is bound to the extent and will of the Commission to accept political controversies as a matter of course and, therefore, a matter of public discourse,' the project partners write in an overview of the final project report. 'The contribution of journalism in enhancing transparency and openness could be remarkably built up if journalists would gain access to better insight into the very mechanisms and procedures of decision-making.'

A previous study of the AIM project looked at how media coverage of EU affairs varied in the 10 countries involved in the project.

For more information, please visit: http://www.aim-project.net

Data Source Provider: CORDIS News attendance at AIM project final conference

The Association of Internet Researchers had a brief exchange over this BBC story, Fake professor in Wikipedia storm.

The question is whether wikipedia is inherently weak in structure or simply fated to be exploited like any organization by overzealous and/or unscrupulous persons. There is a public/private angle here too, and I'm curious about Kevin's comment about the wikipedia community's attempt to redress the situation.

Homero Gil de Zuniga: Once again Wikipedia raises controversy by the weakness of its very structure. Although I guess that it is the same structure that makes it an attractive global encyclopedia.

Kevin Guidry of mistaken goal: "I would humbly suggest that humans [were] (a) lying and deceiving one another and (b) making poor choices long before Wikipedia or the Internet were invented. The very public manner in which this has been discovered and dealt with is, in my mind, a strength of the system. There are definitely weaknesses and flaws in the system but I'm not sure it's fair to lay them at the feet of Wikipedia as a whole or suggest (without evidence) that this is inherent in or endemic to the system.
But it sure is interesting to watch the community react and attempt
to change the system in response to this challenge!"

Michael Zimmer: "I don't see this as a fundamental flaw with Wikipedia's structure - faked credentials (and improper vetting of them) can plague almost any organization or community:

* Michael Brown at FEMA: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/
0,8599,1103003,00.html
* George O'Leary (football coach): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
George_O%27Leary#Notre_Dame_Controversy
* "Security consultant" posing as Fed Agent to stalk "Brangelina":
http://www.tmz.com/2006/09/14/fake-fed-wanted-to-get-near-brangelina/

And, of course, it was the New Yorker (who has greater resources for
fact-checking) who got fooled here just as much as the Wikipedia
community....""

"I'm one of those who believes there is life in the universe." I met Hector (the Guero who tells his kids "You're half Mexican, half Russian, and 100% American), (who might enter politics - "after tenure"), celebrating Jose's prospectus defense last night. Jose cites Noam Chomsky (The Responsibility of Intellectuals) as a possible template for his own academic career, "After tenure, no one knew him!" This translates as pragmatism now, radical structuralism later.

Conversation ranged from education, neurolinguistic programming, and Rod Stewart (The Killing of Georgie) to the cosmos. "Our moon is leaving us. That's very bad news!" At "an inch-and-a-half a year", my own sense is this is not exactly the scale on which to make decisions in my own lifetime, but I understand the disappointment. Instead of going out with a supernova, Patrick Stewart tells us life on earth will wobble and totter out via untempered precession.

I argued that the fact that "nature is going to take care of extinction sooner or later" does not justify waiting until after tenure to start changing the maps. Who needs to wait while humanity flirts with ending it sooner?

"Let me bring it down to your level" (!), Hector said to me. From entropy (countered with James Blish' The Triumph of Time), we moved to neurolinguistic programming. "We have to be creative," says Hector, "in building a reality that doesn't exist" - yet, I add. :-) All three of us are educators (or wannabes, grin): no surprise, then, that teaching and training is our preferred tool. If making connections on the basis of perceived similarities is hard-wired into our genes, then the trick is to teach to find "the likes [adjective] that matter."

"Like (adj):
1. Possessing the same or almost the same characteristics; similar: on this and like occasions.
2. Alike: They are as like as two siblings.
3. Having equivalent value or quality. Usually used in negative sentences: There's nothing like a good night's sleep."

Rather than "likes" of appearance (e.g., ethnicity, gender) or homophonic "likes" (such as speaking the same language, having no accent), we could be attracted to similarities of intelligence or passion. This doesn't mean, we clarified, that everyone has to be "the same." Variation, even versions of hierarchy, is desirable. The point is, everyone has "a right to the earth." (Don't you agree that Hector has great soundbytes?!) Just because some have more and others have less does not mean those with less must suffer sucky lives.

We agreed that most of our students have about zero agency: "the state of being in action or exerting power; 'the agency of providence'; 'she has free agency.'" How, I ask, are they going to learn this map if we are not acting as models? Here's the bind: students are being trained "to be employees, not entrepreneurs" (Hector, again, referencing Rich Dad, Poor Dad), they - and we? - are being taught "how to be good slaves." Well (I'm still asking), what about us? Is that the only map we have? Shy of financial independence and multiple streams of income, no agency? Can we live within our means and act on new maps?

I am tired. My tone fails to capture the laughter with which we engaged each other. :-) There were a couple of fallacies of understanding mentioned in reference to the problem of knowing. If everything we say is, at best, a map of a certain territory of sensory experience, then none of us can actually KNOW what another person means - "the best we can get is, 'I think I know'" (you guessed it, that Guero again). (I like him! You can't tell, can you?)

Type 1 fallacy: Fooling ourselves into thinking our map is reality.
Type 2 fallacy: Just because a map is not reality does not mean the map is crap.

There was this whole metaphor about therapy and jukeboxes which I'm not even gonna get into, except to say I've got some pretty damn good tunes going on mine these days. :-)

I read that book (1950) once, so long ago I remember no details except that it elicited strong emotions.

The phrase returns to mind often as an ethical aim: to make choices in such a way that my life unfolds under the premise that there is enough time in a world endowed with meaning.

Here is a literature, Journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture
Javnost - The Public, definitely worth perusal.

Searching for the book by Robert Penn Warren, I discovered a new Star Trek movie in the making! Plus the original poem which probably inspired Warren's choice of title. A NYTimes article: World Enough and Time for ‘a Good Death’, a ton of blogposts simply using the phrase, and World Enough and Space-Time. How much happier could I be? :-)

Robin Marantz Henig, in an article, Darwin's God, written for the NYTimesMagazine, states: "The debate over why belief evolved is between byproduct theorists and adaptationists." (links added)

The larger conversation involves collective action: why do some groups organize while others do not? The specific situation is the problem of enticing an individual to contribute to a collective action when there is not an obvious self-interest:

"I might contribute to my group's effort because the group ties my contribution to provision of some private good that I want, such as participation in the Sierra Club's outdoor activities or, in the early days of unions, low-cost group-insurance benefits not available in the market. Such private goods can commonly be provided in the market, so that their usefulness may eventually be undercut. Indeed, firms that provide insurance benefits to their employees thereby undercut one of the appeals of union membership. The general decline of American unions in recent decades is partially the result of their success in resolving problems for workers in ways that do not require continuing union effort." (From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on The Problem of Free-Riders.)

What interests me is that science is presented bereft of belief. "Belief" is posed as an action directed only toward "God", or as capable of being satisfied or filled only with a system deemed "religious."

"The bottom line, according to byproduct theorists, is that children are born with a tendency to believe in omniscience, invisible minds, immaterial souls — and then they grow up in cultures that fill their minds, hard-wired for belief, with specifics. It is a little like language acquisition, Paul Bloom says, with the essential difference that language is a biological adaptation and religion, in his view, is not. We are born with an innate facility for language but the specific language we learn depends on the environment in which we are raised. In much the same way, he says, we are born with an innate tendency for belief, but the specifics of what we grow up believing — whether there is one God or many, whether the soul goes to heaven or occupies another animal after death — are culturally shaped."

Bloom's maneuver is illustrated by relegating language to the realm of "biological adaptation" completely dismissing the role of language in belief of any kind.

"Belief," Henig writes a few paragraphs later, "...gains power in two ways: from the intensity with which people wish it to be true and from the confirmation it seems to get from the real world." These characteristics of "intensity" and "confirmation" are measurable only through language. Too bad she does not recognize that science also requires belief.

Her hero on the adaptationist side is Sloan Wilson: "a graduate student at Michigan State University in the 1970s, Darwinians were critical of group selection, the idea that human groups can function as single organisms the way beehives or anthills do. So he decided to become the man who rescued this discredited idea. “I thought, Wow, defending group selection — now, that would be big,” he recalled. It wasn’t until the 1990s, he said, that he realized that “religion offered an opportunity to show that group selection was right after all.”

Why can't group selection and belief in science go together? Isn't this the crux of the debate between science (with its divided disciplines of knowledge) and religion (with its disparate denominations)? The question that matters is not whether we believe in religion or science, but in the outcomes and effects that any belief system generates in human relations over time. This is a moral question: its purview is not restricted to the realm of religion.

Any technology seems unfathomable at first. This youtube clip revisits the advent of the book. The clip has garnered such fame it made the television news.

Sortof reminds me of the inspirational quote and illustrative chart emailed today by my good friend, Toad:

"No matter how different we all are from each other, we more or less ride on the same curve (at different speeds though). :)"

(If you want to see the rest of the cartoon, click the datetime stamp below: 8:42 PM)

Meanwhile, our Max Planck post-doc pal sends this reminder that some curves might be disjoint.

My students in College Writing have nearly completed the first essay on identity. Some of them engage time directly, other student authors include or rely on some concept or relation of time with identity only by implication. Most of the authors conceive of identity as an artifact generated or created, conditioned or limited, by the past. A few suggest a role for "the future" in their own identity, but how the future can influence identity in the present needs explanation.

I received the link to this online video clip, Did you know, from two sourcess within the last week: one describes it as "an awesome summary" and the other source calls it "evolutionary information."

The clip is a little more than six minutes' worth of estimates concerning various global conditions intended to provoke - perhaps even mobilize - thought.

Amanda sends along links to "videos of Deaf folks signing 'blogs'. particularly http://carl-schroeder.blogspot.com/ if you just glimpse at www.deafread.com it gives a sense of how many people are participating in these video blogs... amazing."

I noticed Carl Schroeder is from Hawai'i, I wonder what he knows about the Independent Nation of Hawai'i, and how he and the Deaf community there feels about it.

I fooled around for a minute and found this one, Deaf vloggers influence on my signing" by Chris Blythe. Some of the signs I didn't recognize (the one he attributed to Ella Lentz, especially) and a few others look like what I'd call "old ASL" or non-initialized signing (such as the vernacular sign for "KITCHEN"). It makes me wonder whether this technology of vlogging is an antedote to the reduced interpersonal/community contact feared by some culturally Deaf with the advent of video-relay services (so Deaf people can do more-and-more of their business from home by videophone instead of traveling out into the world).

Meanwhile, someone (thank you!) posted a link in the comments a while back to an interview with Shirley Childress Saxton, the longtime ASL interpreter for Sweet Honey in the Rock.