The boy has had to borrow a coat from Liam because he’s shivering so much. If there were an ounce on his body and if it were warmer than a 3 degree celsius high, he might be okay.

He slept for about twelve hours last night and then woke up all weird. He turned down tea at breakfast, but then drank all of mine.

We met Courtney and Liam and had a wonderful Sunday roast at the Adam and Eve. Then we went to the conference, where I gave my paper. Note to presenters: time your presentation. 20 minutes means 20 minutes, not being cut off at 40. Don’t count on the computer working. Proofread your damn powerpoint or else you look like an idiot.

After the conference, we went to Courtney and Liam’s neighborhood to have drinks at The Camel. Alexander and I have come back to our place to have Indian and to do some work before we turn in.

Have just checked my email and found a message from a student who thinks she’s going to get kicked out because of the C I’m giving her (which is overly generous of me already). Of course, that means that her grades in her other courses are worse. She admitted that she hadn’t studied and said she didn’t want to get kicked out. My understanding is that since this is her first quarter, she would only get on probation for a D average. I would like to pass on this bit of advice to everyone, though. If asking for a grade change, don’t have a message littered with grammar errors. It only reinforces that you really should have gotten an even lower grade. How will this turn out? Well, the grades are turned in. The math is done. The grade will stay the same, no matter what impulse I have to change it for the worse now.

Did you see the oldest copy of Beowulf, from circa 1000 today?
Did you help Liam pick out a porno magazine for a secret Santa gift?
Did you see the oldest book ever printed in English?
Did you have Indian food behind a locked door guarded by two police officers because the student protestors were rumored to be nearby?
Did you see the oldest recorded version of the verb “to fart”?
Did you get caught in a Santa Claus flash mob?
Did the boy fall asleep beside you before 9 p.m. because he was up at 3 this morning?
Did you hear someone say “sublime” too many times?
Did you have a sip of extraordinarily good mulled wine?
No? That’s weird, cause I did all that today. 😉

I’m in my hotel in London, sated by a perfect chicken dinner from Nando’s, followed by a nice g&t from a pub down the block. It’s so good to be home!
Colin Firth’s face was almost the first thing I saw at the airport, in an ad for his new movie–he’s welcome to greet me any time. Then Alexander and I made our way slowly here (seventeen hours door to door, Davis to London). Although British train and tube stations need to have lifts and escalators instead of just making me lug suitcases up stairs, things went smoothly.
We checked in and headed straight over to the British Museum so we could see our good friends in the Egyptian Hall, the Parthenon Gallery (Alex likes the fighting centaur pieces), and the enlightenment library room. We didn’t have time to see the new special exhibit on The Book of the Dead, but we’ll be hitting it soon.
Liam and Courtney met us for dinner and then bought us drinks. We shall see them again tomorrow when Courtney talks about World War Z at the conference.
Everything is familiar, except that I’ve never seen London all dressed up for Christmas before (except for in movies). I was exceptionally worried about it being really cold. It’s cold, but not so cold that I’m severely uncomfortable yet. I hope I don’t have to take that back before the week is out. However, if the weather does turn nasty, I at least have the shoes my boyfriend bought for me just a few hours ago. Because, yes, I had absolutely no appropriate shoes for rain/snow, nor the time to get any. (Nor the will–I hate shoes and shoe shopping.) Luckily, although my boyfriend hates shoe shopping as well, he loves me enough to make sure my feet are protected.

Sorry for the short, disjointed blog–when I started traveling, it was yesterday and I’m knackered. I’m going to work on my Shaun of the Dead paper a bit and fall asleep.

A woman interviewed on NPR today explained that if she were flying, she wouldn’t want to walk through the body scan machine because she’s over forty and “there are places no one should see.” She then explained that she’d opt for a pat down.

Um.

I’m not sure how people feeling you up is somehow less invasive than someone seeing a flash of your naked outline.

I think this is a remnant of our conflicted puritan and victorian past, which takes us back to this time of year–Thanksgiving. The puritans came over here for the opportunity to be uptight. No–they didn’t come for religious freedom–they came to establish a theocracy in which they could make everyone follow their interpretation of the Bible (or else), which is the opposite of freedom of religion (their descendants are among us today). Only a third of the people who came were puritans, by the way, the others were fortune seekers and convicts who chose America over English jails (because we were a prison colony, too).

The puritans were famously prudish about sexuality and their bodies. Yet they had a very high out of wedlock pregnancy rate. As long as the couple got married, the community didn’t really say anything about it.

The Victorians who came later were uptight as well. They covered their table legs and referred to chicken parts by color rather than saying breast or thigh. Yet venereal disease ran rampant. Most soldiers in the Civil War were not taken out of duty by death or battle injury, but by some form of sexual pox. 1 in 6 homes in Victorian London was a house of ill-repute.

No wonder all of these people who are so concerned about their privacy are opting instead to have a stranger’s hands caress them. Why settle for a grey outline of my breasts when you can put your hands right on them? (Go ahead–pretend to be outraged–Americans are great at that; I used to know a minister who’s wife would catch him watch Cinemax at 3 in the morning. He would then pontificate about the filth that “they” put on tv.)

(Of course, some people are opting out of flying all together. If they are the people who wanted to start wars for our safety, or accept civilian casualties for our safety, or who believe in preemptive strikes for our safety, or who insisted that if you didn’t agree with Bush then you were siding with the terrorists, then they need to be inconvenienced for my safety. Thousands have died for our “safety”, yet these people won’t go through a scanner? I don’t like waiting in line; I don’t like being inconvenienced; I dislike being blown up even more.)

If you know me at all, you know that I love Margaret Atwood (who sometimes refers to me as Karmel). My dissertation was on her work, I’m the former President of the Margaret Atwood Society, and I run a weekly book group that started out as an all-Atwood reading group some six years ago. One of the great pleasures in my life is getting people to read Atwood if they haven’t done so already.

Like most people, my first glimpse at Atwood was with The Handmaid’s Tale, which we read in High School. It was banned by the district, so my private program required it be bought. One of my aunt’s found it in a used bookstore and came home to announce that I shouldn’t be allowed to read it. Apparently, there was sex with three people described vividly. My mother decided I could handle whatever it was. The sex scene referred to was far from sexy (it was the opposite of sexy, actually), but the book was glorious. It was poetry and it was social justice. It scared me and thrilled me.

After I left high school and before I went to college, I found a book of Atwood’s poetry. I wasn’t in the habit of reading poetry then, but I had loved Handmaid’s Tale so much that I took the book home and read it. If you’ve never read her poetry, check out “Variations on the word Sleep,” “Siren Song,” “This is a photograph of me,” and “you fit into me.”

If you haven’t read Atwood, you should. Because of her breadth and her use of various genres, she’s written at least one thing you would like. Not everyone loves Handmaid’s Tale, but if you’re a sci-fi person, you need to read Oryx and Crake. If you like historical novels and/or psychology, you will love Alias Grace, which is based on a true story. Shoot me an email; tell me what you like; I’ll find an Atwood for you.

My book group is throwing Atwood a birthday party in absentia today–we’re having our favorite main dish (crock-pot lasagna) and a birthday cake on which a flying pig will wish all our dreams come true. And then we’ll raise a glass to her and wish her happy birthday and many more years (and many more books).

On Monday, my friend Sasha Abramsky was upbraided by Rush Limbaugh. (The clip of his show and a discussion of one of the problems with it is here: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201011150020)

What sent the internet ablaze was the fact that Rush kept calling Sasha a “stupid babe.” Sasha is a man.

Now, this is an understandable mistake, especially if you don’t do any research on someone. Sasha is short for Alexander–Americans often make it a girls’ name even though it traditionally isn’t. As a Karma, which in most of the world is a man’s name, I sympathize with this kind of mix-up.

Rush’s mistake, though, points to his rather sexist language. He dismisses this “stupid babe” as a bimbo. When I listened to the clip, I kept thinking he was going to say “bimbo” or “bitch” because sometimes there were pauses on the “b”s. Since one presumably wouldn’t call a man a stupid babe, one should be careful about doing that with a woman.

At least in public if one wants to be taken seriously.

But I will admit that I use “sexist” language sometimes, although I generally use that language for everyone. I call both men and women “babe.” If you cut me off in traffic, you’re a “dick,” whether you appear to have one or not.

I’m not all that interested in Rush’s “babe” slip. It’s no great revelation that he’s sexist, and he’s said sooooo much worse that this little tidbit is almost cute.

What bothers me is the lack of fact-checking. He has a staff. If he’d done even the most basic google search, he would have not only seen that he should pick a new word, but that Sasha knew much more than Rush gave him credit for.

You see, Sasha was writing in Salon about the kind of President Obama wanted to be. Rush dismissed the short section he shared with his audience, saying this dumb babe didn’t know anything. Sasha is the author of “Inside Obama’s Brain.” If anyone is qualified to talk about how Obama thinks, it would probably be the guy who spent the better part of a year researching it. Sasha just got back from interviewing Obama’s sister as well.

The passage Rush attacked was one in which Sasha talked about what Obama believed in. Rush then said Sasha was wrong because Obama didn’t believe in them.

An example: Obama wants good government. Rush said Obama obviously didn’t and then ranted about more invasive airline screening procedures (at least I think that’s what happened; I was confused by the non-sequitor, but I refuse to go back and listen to that again).

It is perfectly acceptable to say that someone is engaging in “bad” government, whatever they believe. It is asinine to say that someone doesn’t even want good government. Rush and I seem opposed in almost every way, but I believe that he and I both want “good” government. We just have different ideas about what that is. I don’t think I know anyone who wants “bad” government, even those people who essentially want to do away with it.

Rush could have claimed that Obama wasn’t living up to what he wanted, but he had to take it that ridiculous step to the right and imply that Obama’s inherently bad by claiming that he doesn’t want good government.

That’s stupid, babe.

A prominent critic of the “theory” of climate change wants Margaret Atwood to be removed from her position on PEN. (article here: http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/mediaocracy/2010/11/11/climate-skeptic-wants-margaret-atwood-off-pen-board/).

PEN is an organization Atwood has been at the forefront of for years–it fights for the free speech of authors around the world (it’s akin to Amnesty International, but has a specific focus).

The critic seems not to like Atwood because of their differing views on climate and the environment, but is using a petition Atwood signed as the main evidence that Atwood should be removed. You see, Atwood signed a petition against a FOX News-like channel coming to Canada.

(There are many reasons why someone might sign such a petition. Perhaps you think the channel won’t be clear about news versus entertainment–Bill O’Reilly was on Bill Maher last week and when Maher asked him about a fact that FOX had reported, O’Reilly’s response to the completely wrong fact was that FOX wasn’t “reporting” it because it was on one of the entertainment/opinion shows. If you’ve seen the show, you know that the distinction is not at all clear. Perhaps they should change their tag to “we give you the facts (well, on the following shows, which don’t air when most viewers are watching–on the popular shows, we’re saying whatever comes into someone’s head); you decide).”

Or perhaps you might object because FOX news breaks up families. All 24 hour news makes my head hurt and the crawl seems only to have been invented to make me want to cut myself, but FOX makes me especially wary about going home, because it is impossible to avoid there.)

To recap: Atwood signed a petition. This critic says her signing the petition means she’s anti-free speech & thus should lose her position.

Petitions are free speech, though. I believe in free speech. I believe that I have to fight for your free speech, even when I think you’re wrong (unless that speech is an incitement of violence). However, I get to say that you’re wrong. I get to say that you shouldn’t say x, because x is a lie or because x is irresponsible. (Shouldn’t is different from can’t–one is censure and one is censor.) Signing a petition is exercising free speech & this critic doesn’t have to like it & this critic can say Atwood shouldn’t have, etc., but you shouldn’t say someone hates free speech because they said something you didn’t agree with.

I know I haven’t posted in a long, long time. Fall quarters are always really hard and this may be the hardest. If I stopped to list all the reasons why, I’d be late to class. Let’s just say that I was hanging on by my fingernails & then I got the stomach flu and it broke my nails.

Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education under George W. Bush, has come out with a new book explaining that the Bush education agenda was flawed.

Of course, this is one in a long line of such books. Cheney seems to be the only one who thinks everything went just fine.

I read an excerpt the book in a recent American Educator. I was shocked (shocked!) to discover that apparently, making tests the only test for whether education is working is a bad idea. It leads to people teaching only to the test, to cheating, and to students knowing how to fill in bubbles while their little minds are unfilled. It leads to an incomplete understanding of whether a teacher is successful or not.

And under George Bush’s plan, it leads to rich schools getting richer and poor schools getting poorer, as schools are punished for low scores. It leads to putting all of the blame on our low-paid and ill-respected educators when the scores don’t turn out right. It leads to a perpetuation of class stereotypes–rich people are just better and smarter and poor people deserve to be poor because they’re lazy and stupid–if they all take one test, surely we can see that (never mind that they are starting off on a teeter-totter rather than a level playing field due to the money coming from property taxes rather than fair allocation).

Wow. Who would have thought that No Child Left Behind would have left children behind? Well, any of us who opposed it from the beginning. Ravitch basically says that everyone in the administration was well meaning, that these were honest mistakes. I will buy that they were well meaning. And some of these mistakes might have been innocent. I mean, all of the consequences were totally forseeable, but not everyone is smart enough to actually think things through. I would guess that some people were fine with letting certain children fall behind–because it defended the class and power status quo, because it might have ultimately led to the dissolution of public education, etc.

Ravitch is good when talking about what went wrong; she is less effective in talking through what needs to be fixed.

Here’s what needs to happen. 1. The ideologues need to look at the reality and to see that this policy is flawed. People on both the right and the left need to make sure that Obama doesn’t keep this policy in place.

2. We need to level the damn playing field–all children have a right to equal education. We will all be stronger if we are all literate.

3. We need to think about the mental infrastructure of this nation. If I want a nation of smart, educated, critical thinkers, which I do, I need to be as supportive of mental infrastructure as I am of the other kinds. Our current economic crisis has meant that banks and car companies and airlines have gotten bailouts, even when those companies have been spending and making money willy-nilly. We have invested a lot of stimulus money in public works–even while the schools in my district (including the university for which I work) are struggling, we have tons of crews working on the roads downtown and the down the street.

Why don’t we consider our schools too big to fail? Wouldn’t giving stimulus money to educators to create smaller class sizes be a good idea that would pay off a thousand times? How many teachers could we hire for what one bank CEO makes? How many decent textbooks could we buy, so that each child has access to one (one of my friends knows a teacher who has 25 books total for six classes of 35 students)?

America is all about investment. Why aren’t we investing in our children? Why aren’t we investing in ourselves?

is here: http://www.matchflick.com/column/2242

Let the arguing begin!