Liz's Bloglet - Wednesday 26 January 2011

The Academia Ghetto The very best thing I've ever read about affirmative action in science. Take their money and run! _
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09:19:56 AM, Wednesday 26 January 2011

Role models are women who exist -- and are photographed often -- to make other women feel better about the fact that there aren't really enough of us anywhere, except in the lowest-paying jobs.

The most depressing thing about this is that it was written 20 years ago. Anna Quindlen's then 2 year old may well be graduating from college this year, into a world that hasn't changed all that much. _
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11:20:53 AM, Tuesday 25 January 2011

The New Atheists' Narrow Worldview

I am not anti-atheist. Most of my best friends are atheists, quite literally. But I get so tired "The Four Horsemen" and of myself and a large proportion of the world simply being called dumb, without any consideration of anything else. In light of the recent holiday especially, I would always stand on the side of Rev. King against anybody who dared to call him dumb or say that his religion had contributed nothing to the world. _
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11:44:13 AM, Monday 24 January 2011

Do you have any idea how big my interlibrary loan privileges are? _
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11:53:02 AM, Thursday 13 January 2011

We had these at lab meeting today and they were truly the best thing ever. _
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09:58:29 PM, Wednesday 12 January 2011

"Just as I was very proud to say the obvious more than 15 years ago in Beijing—that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights—well, let me say today that human rights are gay rights, and gay rights are human rights, once and for all."

I'm glad I had the chance to vote for her in the primary in 2008. Who knew that one could be a true role model and leader for the country from the position of Secretary of State? _
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09:30:00 PM, Tuesday 11 January 2011

Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor go for a walk and talk about walking, and disability, and, of course, gender, and then some more about walking. _
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03:51:42 PM, Tuesday 11 January 2011

Let's get this straight: Both sides are, in fact, not "just as bad," when it comes to institutionally sanctioned violent and eliminationist rhetoric.

I have advocated many times for George W Bush to be tried for war crimes. I wish Justice Scalia would retire. I would prefer Sarah Palin keeps having a TV show about hunting rather than a political career. I have never called for their deaths. I have never even hinted that assassination is a good idea. And I never would, because that is wrong, because it hurts people, because it helps create a climate where violence is acceptable. And I have never heard either politicians or reputable commentators on the US Left say such things, either. _
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11:36:13 AM, Monday 10 January 2011

But there are good people in the world, like Daniel Hernandez _
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09:22:40 AM, Sunday 9 January 2011

Cool program

Good news _
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09:29:35 AM, Wednesday 5 January 2011

Seriously, what we’re looking at over the next few years, even with pretty good growth, are unemployment rates that not long ago would have been considered catastrophic — because they are. Behind those dry statistics lies a vast landscape of suffering and broken dreams. And the arithmetic says that the suffering will continue as far as the eye can see.

So what can be done to accelerate this all-too-slow process of healing? A rational political system would long since have created a 21st-century version of the Works Progress Administration — we’d be putting the unemployed to work doing what needs to be done, repairing and improving our fraying infrastructure. In the political system we have, however, Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte, delivering the Republican weekly address on New Year’s Day, declared that “Job one is to stop wasteful Washington spending.”

Somebody give this guy a Nobel Prize. When will politicians stop listening to whining and conspiracy theories and start listening to people who might be able to fix things?
_
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11:37:11 AM, Tuesday 4 January 2011

If fancy liberal arts colleges are serious about increasing diversity and opening opportunity to first-generation students, this seems like a great plan. _
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10:34:31 AM, Tuesday 4 January 2011

Hope that the world will get better. _
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01:17:28 PM, Monday 3 January 2011

One of the members of one of my very favorite bands, Girlyman, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Luckily, it is CML, which is these days considered the good kind, and it is very early stage, so it is considered very treatable. Unluckily, like most independent musicians, she has no health insurance. Doris and her girlfriend JJ are posting their story here. _
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07:13:15 AM, Monday 20 December 2010

I had my suspicions about something like this for years. Thanks to McSweeney's for confirming what I have coming. _
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10:56:41 AM, Saturday 18 December 2010

I think we all need a little bit of this _
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10:45:36 AM, Saturday 18 December 2010

It's a Great Time to Be Rich

Oh, how I wish I were making up that headline, or the facts behind them. While our local food pantries can't keep up, while our county is cutting daycare assistance, while people are stealing metal out of Habitat Houses, while roughly half of my friends are unemployed or underemployed, thank goodness the rich can shelter their income from taxation and pass it on to their heirs. Because that's what will reduce the unemployment rate.

I remember the 1992 election very well. "It's the economy, stupid" seemed like such a good catchphrase, and we were all so glad that clueless, apathetic Bush was defeated by Clinton, who was going to help us all. And he did, in the middle of having his social class and sex life endlessly debated and being impeached and stuff like that.

Now, even bothering to mention that it would be nice to have a slightly better economy or any one of the other campaign promises the current president made carried out gets me called names by the very president who made those promises. And Michael Moore, who really was a voice for change in 1992, is too busy insulting women to make a sequel to Roger and Me. _
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11:58:51 AM, Friday 17 December 2010

Through a random series of Wikipediaing, I ended up on the Challenger. I never knew about their likely causes of death. The explosion I saw live on TV in my 3rd grade classroom did not look like something people survive. I read Feynman's account of the Rogers Commission hearings in high school, but that was mostly about the O-rings and his glass of ice water, not about what happened to the crew cabin. Yuck. _
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10:22:33 PM, Thursday 16 December 2010

Maybe it's just from devouring the Hunger Games trilogy too quickly, or maybe it is the series of events that included M's story, Schuyler's Dad's story, our neighborhood mall being nearly empty two weeks before Christmas, and the theft of both the brass railings from my church front steps and all the installed wiring from the Habitat House we've been working on, but I'm really starting to feel that the "recession" is not getting even a little bit better.

But don't worry, because the deficit will grow a little more slowly, and nobody will have to pay more taxes on income over $250,000, and the estate tax will only be on billionaires, not millionaires. _
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09:46:25 PM, Thursday 16 December 2010

I never do these but OOCQOTD:
I've taught ecology (hint: it's mostly statistics +/- lichens and shit)

The post itself is really good, but I loved that line. _
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04:34:00 PM, Thursday 16 December 2010

Who are the undergraduates? A fun little dynamic infographic _
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09:51:18 AM, Thursday 16 December 2010

Ellen Ripley Saved My Life _
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08:52:18 AM, Saturday 11 December 2010

Is this how it starts? Do kids find someone who does something differently and start to beat it out of her, first with words and sneers? Must my daughter conform to be accepted? _
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03:25:53 PM, Thursday 9 December 2010

While I was in purgatory today:

My brother turned 37.

Elizabeth Edwards died. I always found her to be a really impressive woman and wish that the world had been different so that she had been the one who got elected to office while her husband smiled and was supportive.

Our senior pastor got a new heart valve and aorta. He is a pillar of Durham, and I'm glad he's going to be with us longer. It's hard to believe he managed to preach a great sermon on Sunday knowing that he was facing this today.

Because of the internet, my current location doesn't prevent me from being connected to these things. _
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09:22:47 PM, Tuesday 7 December 2010

I'm much more worried about this interview than the last one.

When I look at all of the brilliant, gifted, energetic, amazing folks I know who don't have jobs, or who have jobs that use none of their brilliance, gifts, energy, or amazingness, when I look at how many people are applying for every job I apply to, and then count the number of openings and realize just how many of us will not be getting a job this year, when I look at a country where there are so many people who have simply given up, knowing that the job at McDonald's is just as unavailable as the white-collar job they had two years ago, how can I not think that surely, somehow, things ought to be better than this? And surely, somehow, the people who have the power ought to be spending all their time and energy trying to make it better, instead of worrying about the deficit and/or making sure the gays, Muslims, immigrants, and women suffer.

There was a line I read in the comments of some blog this past week to the effect of "Did they just say 'let them eat cake'? Oh, in that case I'll wait quietly over here until someone gives me some cake."

So I whistle in the dark and make a long series of backup plans in my head, none of which will make me happy, none of which even necessarily guarantee cake, but they will guarantee bread.

Seriously, I want to teach your students. I will do an outstanding job. You will be glad you hired me. And maybe I'll even serve them cake sometimes. _
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09:30:38 PM, Sunday 5 December 2010

There's something about Harry Potter and the parallels of the foreboding feeling in the books' world and in our world since 2001. This is something I know I have talked about with various people at various times over the years, and seeing the movie today just reminded me more of it again. And it's obvious from the "Republicans for Voldemort" bumper stickers that I'm hardly alone in my feelings.

There is a way it is about fear of terrorism and there is a way it is about exploitation of that fear. Umbridge, after all, is not really a Deatheater true believer herself, she's just somebody who likes power and hurting other people and Voldemort provides her more opportunities for that than the other side. And maybe that's why the books have broad appeal: we're all afraid of something, we have all felt the foreboding feeling over the past few years, and we are all free within our hearts to make Rowling's books be about our particular boogie man.

Voldemort, the high commander terrorist, the secret puppet master, has never seemed real to me, and I don't think he has a parallel in my understanding of our world. Is he Bin Laden to some people? I don't know.

Myself, I am scared of Umbridge, who just likes power and doesn't care about the consequences, and Scrimgoeour, who wants to be "reasonable" about things that are batshit insane. And there seem to be more of both of them all the time. _
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05:44:52 PM, Saturday 27 November 2010

Primitive Baptist Universalists _
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08:46:02 AM, Saturday 27 November 2010

They came first for the Muslim’s junk,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Muslim.

Then they came for the black’s junk,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t black.

Then they came for the women’s junk,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a woman.

Then they came for my junk…

…and I kicked up a huge fuss and demanded that they cut it out because it was infringing upon my freedom and goddammit you should listen to me because I’m a white dude and I and I alone have domain over my junk!

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted that the white dude is kicking up a fuss, because somebody might actually listen to him. _
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08:11:17 PM, Tuesday 23 November 2010

The entertaining tale of a very short lived Objectivist Great Books school. This is why Objectivists can't have nice things. _
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12:11:29 PM, Tuesday 23 November 2010

Professional Wrestler Mick Foley is a real, honest to goodness, using his privilege to make the world a better place hero _
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06:26:19 PM, Monday 22 November 2010

What Tami Said! about why I read feminist blogs almost exclusively these days My humanity is not open for "reasonable debate" and never will be. _
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02:50:51 PM, Monday 22 November 2010

In the spring, I set up two tanks for my Aquatic Field Ecology students to stock with things they found in the field. One ended up containing a bluegill and a mosquito fish and a number of aquatic insects, including an impressive dragonfly larva. The other had a medium sized crayfish and a rock covered with Podostemum (a really cool aquatic plant that looks like an alga but is a vascular plant that evolved extremely simplified structures). A student studying snails brought a whole bunch back and dumped them in both tanks, nicely controlling the algae in the fish tank, and providing the crayfish with some crunchy protein. Another student brought back a very small crayfish, which he put in the tank with the other one. The small crayfish developed very impressive hiding skills.

I fed the fish standard fish flakes. Besides munching on Podostemum and snails, the crayfish got leafpacks I plucked out of streams (chock full of yummy aquatic insects) and the occasional worm. Sometimes I would shake some fish flakes into the crayfish tank and it would go nuts trying to snatch the flakes out of the water column and cram them into his mouth.

Towards the end of the semester, I found the never very healthy bluegill floating in the tank and fed the corpse to the big crayfish. At the end of the semester, I decided to move the critters from the classroom to my office and decided that would include consolidating everybody into one tank. Over the next few weeks, the crayfish finished off the last of the aquatic insects and snails from the fish tank, and the mosquito fish learned not to go near the bottom of the tank. One day, an officemate was working late and saw the ~~medium~~ large crayfish walking along the office floor. She put it back in the tank and it never tried to get out again so far as we knew.

A few weeks after that, the little crayfish was eaten. A few weeks after that, the mosquito fish was too. The now quite big crayfish slowly finished off even the smartest snails and insects. At the end of the summer, new officemates asked that the tank and its loud air system go back downstairs, which worked out fine since I was teaching out of the same classroom again. The Terrestrial Field Ecology students liked watching the crayfish just as much as the aquatic students had. It's rare to see a native crayfish as big as this one, and it had surprising streaks of blue and red on its brown carapace.

Yesterday we were having open lab time--when I usually would check the water and food amounts in the tank--and I realized I didn't see the (hard to miss) crayfish in the tank. I didn't want to distract or alarm my students as they identified plants and crunched numbers, so I didn't do anything. Today I came down to check for real and started pulling rocks and leaves out of the tank. It was pretty clear the crayfish was no longer there, but I did a sweep through the gravel with my fingers just to make sure. I started looking in nooks and corners on the lab bench. Then I checked the sinks. The first sink contained no crayfish, but the drainhole was open and I liked the possibility of the crayfish happily taking up residence in the u-bend of a lab sink. The second sink, however, had a plugged drainhole and contained a desiccated crayfish.

In all likelihood, the crayfish had a longer and happier life, and got to eat a wider variety of interesting organisms, than it ever would have if left in the stream. But I do feel bad that it died a distinctly uncomfortable death, and that I didn't feed it a worm on Friday before I left. I decided the trashcan was too unceremonious for my invertebrate pet, so I took it down to the stream behind the greenhouses, where no doubt its detritivorous cousins will dine well on its handsome carapace. _
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02:10:06 PM, Thursday 18 November 2010

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in. _
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08:17:52 PM, Tuesday 16 November 2010

Where would we be without Privilege Denying Dude? _
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03:06:06 PM, Monday 15 November 2010

Pelosi vs. Boehner It's not any one big thing, it's every little thing, every day, all of our lives, that reminds us that no matter what we accomplish starting from home plate, we'll always be beaten by the guy who started at third base. _
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09:45:13 PM, Wednesday 10 November 2010

The College as a Philanthropy. On a good day, I agree with him completely.

I want to be clear with you: You are not a customer here. You are something much better than that. You are not a commodity here. You are something way better than that. The reason you are not merely a customer or a commodity is that this college is not a business.

This college is a philanthropy. If you pay attention to the origins of words and you look at the pieces of that word, "phil" and "anthropy," you know that "phil" means love or esteem or high regard. And "anthropy" means humanity or humankind. The college is a philanthropy, an expression of love and esteem for humankind. _
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09:46:29 AM, Friday 5 November 2010

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