Saturday, February 04, 2006
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Gotta Be
by Des'ree
Listen as your day unfolds; challenge what your future holds.
Try to keep your head up to the sky.
Lovers they may cause you tears; go ahead, release your fears.
stand up and be counted; don't be ashamed to cry...
You gotta be
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser.
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger.
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know love will save the day
Herald what your mother said, read the books your father read.
Try to solve the puzzle in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash than you, Others take a different view
My, oh, my, you gotta be
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser.
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger.
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know love will save the day
Time asks no questions, it goes on without you,
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace.
The world keeps on spinning can't stop it if you try to
The best part is danger staring you in the face
Listen as your day unfolds, challenge what the future holds.
Try to keep your head up to the sky.
Lovers they may cause you tears, go ahead release your fears
My, oh, my
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser.
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger.
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know love will save the day
Got to be bad, got to be bold, got to be wise.
Don't ever be cold, got to be hard, not too, too hard.
All I know, all I know, love will save the day.
Listen as your day unfolds; challenge what your future holds.
Try to keep your head up to the sky.
Lovers they may cause you tears; go ahead, release your fears.
stand up and be counted; don't be ashamed to cry...
You gotta be
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser.
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger.
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know love will save the day
Herald what your mother said, read the books your father read.
Try to solve the puzzle in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash than you, Others take a different view
My, oh, my, you gotta be
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser.
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger.
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know love will save the day
Time asks no questions, it goes on without you,
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace.
The world keeps on spinning can't stop it if you try to
The best part is danger staring you in the face
Listen as your day unfolds, challenge what the future holds.
Try to keep your head up to the sky.
Lovers they may cause you tears, go ahead release your fears
My, oh, my
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser.
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger.
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together.
All I know, all I know love will save the day
Got to be bad, got to be bold, got to be wise.
Don't ever be cold, got to be hard, not too, too hard.
All I know, all I know, love will save the day.
This month, CityBus here in Lafayette is honoring Rosa Parks wby reserving all of the first seats on their buses as a place of honor for her. I think it is a beautiful tribute. Coretta Scott King's passing yesterday and the recent passing of Parks herself leaves an incredible void and really leaves me with an incredible sadness as the movement towards progress in this country, as indeed this country itself, is at a crossroads. It strikes a chord in me that with this well deserved honoring of Parks that we are honoring an act of defiance in the face of the hegemonic evl that served to oppress BLack people and other people of color throughout this country. Refusing to cooperate with power structures is a noble idea. I think that people should certainly reflect on that.
Happenings
Today, I entered the 21st Century and bought a DVD player. Even more impressive, I put it together--all by myself!
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Oh the widows are slipping away. Betty Shabazz, Jackie Kennedy, Coretta Scott King. Out of an era where so many were left widowd and the progressive movement seemed on edge, it feels that way again. Now left to lead the way, among thewidoes--themajor widows who taught us how to mourh, are Merlie Evers-Williams, Rita Bender, and Ethel Kennedy.
Oh My God
I woke up this morning to a true shock. The world is certainly coming to an end. Coretta Scott King died this morning. She was 78 years old. What a horrible, incredible loss.
Monday, January 30, 2006
An Absurd Moment in Lafayette
Not like there aren't many,many absurd moments in Lafayette.However, today's events were quite absurd. Well, one of Lafayette's very own returned in a bodybag today from Iraq and recieved a grand funeral from the townsfolk, replete with everything down to the lowering of all of the American flags around town. Ok, so, the Westboro Baptist Church gang, ala Matthew Shepard fame came to town to pickett at the funeral. Their message was that god is killing U.S. soldier's because the U.S. is too accepting of homosexuality. This makes for an odd protest, given the political ideologies of the aforementioned sides(militaristic, religious fundamentalism). What is interesting is I can picture the scene of the unwanted protest and the meeting of the two groups: One of the guards hired to keep the protestors at bay throws up his hand," Now, we're with you on the homo issue boys, but this here isn't the time or the place for it."
I was just reading an article in the Guardian talking about Bush's upcoming speech tommorow and some of the woe's that are plaguing this country. It listed a lot of statistics for unemployment, uninsured,etc, etc and it just hit me that there are 45 million people uninsured in the United States....the wealthiest country in the world....
Sunday, January 29, 2006
I am just learning about the St. Patrick's Day Four, Daniel Burns, Peter DeMott,Clare Grady, and Teresa Grady who back in 2003 carried out an act of Civil Disobedience by pouring vials of their own blood at the site of a military recruiting center. The three former have just recieved sentences ranging from four to six months handed down from a federal bench in New York. The latter, Teresa Grady, will be sentenced tommorow. THey seem quite up in spirits! They seem like beautiful people from what I have seen. God bless them and their courage to act.
Academic Freedom Discussion
Over at Michael Berube's, there is a great discussion going on concerning academic freedom, stemming off of a lecture that he gave and posted on his blog. I thought this response,posted byNew Margins was great:
I do not doubt that Dr. V is resisting the “all opinions are equal” perspective that his students bring into the classroom with them. If he were not, he would not have been able to articulate the problem so clearly and succinctly. But their perspective came from somewhere, no? I think it has made its way into the mainstream, originating in academia, over the last couple of decades. Hell, there is now a significant movement within the Christian church called “postmodern Christianity,” and youngsters being raised in conservative Christian homes are cutting their eyeteeth on it. (!) That came from somewhere, and I think it came, originally, out of the universities. Which doesn’t mean it was universally embraced by all professors by a long shot, but nevertheless.
I agree that “all opinions are equal” become identity politics is a mimicry of a mimicry and a parody of a parody, but that doesn’t matter to those who have harnessed it in the service of their attacks on academic freedom, like Horowitz, like the Religious Right. All that matters to them is that it is working for them politically. Which is why what Michael wrote resonates with so many of us. We can dismiss it all we like, and our dismissals will be accurate, in the meantime we’ve got scary folks like Horowitz and the Right posing very real threats to academic freedom in this country via the practice of what we are dismissing.
I think postmodernism has value to the degree that it interrogates and critiques western grand narratives so-called, and to the degree that it moves those who have been historically marginalized and disenfranchised in the direction of subjectivity by recognizing that art, literature, philosophy, ideas, politics emerge out of specific cultural and societal contexts in which some have enjoyed power, visibility and voice and others have not, have been made to be largely invisible and voiceless. My examples were meant to illustrate what happens when the heirs apparent to these western grand narratives—white, heterosexual, Christian men who can readily see their forefathers, men like them, in all of recorded western history—attempt to vault themselves out of power and privilege methodologically by practicing an identity politics arising out of the “all opinions are equal” perspective, intending to preserve, protect and defend a political status quo which protects the power and privilege they continue to enjoy. This is postmodernism turned on its head, but it did began with postmodernism, period.
When Mary Daly was fired, debate over her firing ensued. Instead of young, college-educated feminists and their teachers throwing down over a right-wing punk, backed by a right-wing political organization, taking an aging, brilliant heretic like Daly out, we had them defending the administration, and on what basis? That gender is a construct, it is “performative,” it’s not about what’s “between the legs,” and so Daly should not have forbidden male students. The material consequence, then, is that a right-wing punk takes Daly out and feminists, influenced by postmodern notions of gender as performance, inter alia, applaud and agree, all of which amounts to a victory for the Right in its goal of silencing unpopular teachers and their unpopular views and politics. And so it has gone in the universities where, by way of postmodern perspectives, women’s studies become “gender studies” with the ongoing second class status of women, something which is apparent to anyone who is paying attention, increasingly difficult to describe or confront. If there should be no category “woman,” for example, which is the postmodern perspective, then how will those of us who know we are women because we’re treated as women mount a challenge to those vested in our remaining in that second class status, or in the case of the Religious Right, turning back the clock a century or so? I think this is an example of the “material consequences” of making postmodernism political which Dr. Virago was talking about.
I have not meant to disparage academia. Thank god for feminist professors and women’s studies programs wherever they are, because that is about all we have left of visible feminism in this day and age. I do know that visible, brilliant feminists, including academics, have sounded warnings about the real consequences of postmodern perspectives and that those warnings have too often fallen on deaf ears. All along, though, there have been kickass professors, both men and women, who were not so deaf doing their damndest in difficult circumstances and I did not mean to suggest otherwise
I do not doubt that Dr. V is resisting the “all opinions are equal” perspective that his students bring into the classroom with them. If he were not, he would not have been able to articulate the problem so clearly and succinctly. But their perspective came from somewhere, no? I think it has made its way into the mainstream, originating in academia, over the last couple of decades. Hell, there is now a significant movement within the Christian church called “postmodern Christianity,” and youngsters being raised in conservative Christian homes are cutting their eyeteeth on it. (!) That came from somewhere, and I think it came, originally, out of the universities. Which doesn’t mean it was universally embraced by all professors by a long shot, but nevertheless.
I agree that “all opinions are equal” become identity politics is a mimicry of a mimicry and a parody of a parody, but that doesn’t matter to those who have harnessed it in the service of their attacks on academic freedom, like Horowitz, like the Religious Right. All that matters to them is that it is working for them politically. Which is why what Michael wrote resonates with so many of us. We can dismiss it all we like, and our dismissals will be accurate, in the meantime we’ve got scary folks like Horowitz and the Right posing very real threats to academic freedom in this country via the practice of what we are dismissing.
I think postmodernism has value to the degree that it interrogates and critiques western grand narratives so-called, and to the degree that it moves those who have been historically marginalized and disenfranchised in the direction of subjectivity by recognizing that art, literature, philosophy, ideas, politics emerge out of specific cultural and societal contexts in which some have enjoyed power, visibility and voice and others have not, have been made to be largely invisible and voiceless. My examples were meant to illustrate what happens when the heirs apparent to these western grand narratives—white, heterosexual, Christian men who can readily see their forefathers, men like them, in all of recorded western history—attempt to vault themselves out of power and privilege methodologically by practicing an identity politics arising out of the “all opinions are equal” perspective, intending to preserve, protect and defend a political status quo which protects the power and privilege they continue to enjoy. This is postmodernism turned on its head, but it did began with postmodernism, period.
When Mary Daly was fired, debate over her firing ensued. Instead of young, college-educated feminists and their teachers throwing down over a right-wing punk, backed by a right-wing political organization, taking an aging, brilliant heretic like Daly out, we had them defending the administration, and on what basis? That gender is a construct, it is “performative,” it’s not about what’s “between the legs,” and so Daly should not have forbidden male students. The material consequence, then, is that a right-wing punk takes Daly out and feminists, influenced by postmodern notions of gender as performance, inter alia, applaud and agree, all of which amounts to a victory for the Right in its goal of silencing unpopular teachers and their unpopular views and politics. And so it has gone in the universities where, by way of postmodern perspectives, women’s studies become “gender studies” with the ongoing second class status of women, something which is apparent to anyone who is paying attention, increasingly difficult to describe or confront. If there should be no category “woman,” for example, which is the postmodern perspective, then how will those of us who know we are women because we’re treated as women mount a challenge to those vested in our remaining in that second class status, or in the case of the Religious Right, turning back the clock a century or so? I think this is an example of the “material consequences” of making postmodernism political which Dr. Virago was talking about.
I have not meant to disparage academia. Thank god for feminist professors and women’s studies programs wherever they are, because that is about all we have left of visible feminism in this day and age. I do know that visible, brilliant feminists, including academics, have sounded warnings about the real consequences of postmodern perspectives and that those warnings have too often fallen on deaf ears. All along, though, there have been kickass professors, both men and women, who were not so deaf doing their damndest in difficult circumstances and I did not mean to suggest otherwise
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