"Scientists warn of Twitter dangers"

I think that Twitter per se is a strange focus for this concern, which is far broader and implicated in many forms of contemporary media. In the online world, many different surfing habits and affordances of information exposure move at a speed and a casualness that if worrisome. I'm not even sure that Twitter would rank very high on the list though.

cd . . .

acrobat . . .

There is something too sanctimonious to resist about students (and sometime faculty) who rise up to attack offensive speech, with complete freedom to lay out their arguments at great length on the premise that the original speech should not have been uttered, should be censored and removed from sight. Is there no gratitude for the opportunity? The editor and other forum staff returned several times to the ensuing debate, even quoting from the deleted post and on two occasions interpolating their opinions into the posts of the student. For me, as a scholar and fan of the Net, this is beyond the pale for an editor of such a forum.

I'm very sympathetic to arguments about a hostile environment for women, gay people, racial minorities, etc. and steps to protect them. But a self-styled campus "forum" in which an offensive statement such as this receives a rousing shout-down hardly establishes such an environment. And as several students argued on the forum, there is no right not to be offended by anybody else.

We really need public, accountable forums around campus for good, open debates. This student site could be one, and I have learned interesting facts and read well-argued opinion there in the recent past. But assuming such a role implies more civic responsibility than was exercised in this thread, anyway.

One follow-up to my post, challenged my "net-cred"...

i just don’t see a pitzer prof coming in to defend an arch-conservative cmc student without knowing the contents of his post.

...which is really the main reason I'm making this blog entry. Yes, I am who I say and I really did this probably stupid thing.

PS: It's also true that I do not know contents of the deleted post, beyond the wrong-headed but not "hateful" passages quoted by the editor in his justification. I also know that it was quickly labeled "homophobic" by Pitzer students I heard from. This, unfortunately, can mean anything.

Here's the one that kicked off the action for us back in August:

And a zoomed-in view:

Yesterday, I saw this tarantula sauntering down the sidewalk between Mead Hall and the Grove House. These Aphonopelma species are all around this area, but no one can remember seeing one in town. I guess they mostly get squished by cars or killed by pets. I captured this one and released it the Claremont Wilderness. (Actually, some friends made the dropoff and say they saw another one on the road on the way. Like with the black widows, is this an OUTBREAK? An Arachnophobia-type event? Stand by for updates....) The sighting and capture created quite a stir among Mead residents! Oliver (our nearly-three-year-old) loved it and instantly added a tarantula-walk imitation to his growing repertoire.

Ready for transport:

Liz, the Middle East specialist and former State Dept. official, handled most of the rest, including questions on a solution to Iraq and waterboarding/torture, with intelligence, giving snippets of the public affairs talk she could have given. And then defended herself, probably quite well, against real questions. She gave pretty much the Party line, not surprising for someone currently advising Fred Thompson's campaign.

There was a lot of concern coming from Pitzer College faculty in the week leading up to the event owing to the impression that only pre-screened questions would be put to the speakers. The Scripps Faculty Executive Committee issued a statement expressing their desire for open questions, but there was never any explanation given to the Scripps community of how questions would be handled and why. Students had submitted questions to a box in the mailroom during the preceding week, and note cards and pencils were handed out by a small army of Scripps students, some of which were seen to arrive in the hand of Prof. Dillon, who read questions from the front row. This in the same auditorium where for other events ushers happily scurry up and down the rows with wireless mikes so people can ask questions.

The main interest from a free speech/academic freedom perspective is that questions be freely put. There are some advantages to having questions collected and read. A conscientious reader can make sure a full or representative range of questions is posed. One can avoid the long-winded questions and monopolistic follow-ups that everyone hates, and questions can be read clearly and perhaps slightly rephrased for clarity. It can thus lead to more questions being asked.

On the other hand, there is something more viscerally democratic about a speaker facing a real person asking a question in their own voice. Sometimes, like with the gay rights question to Mary, a followup is absolutely needed. And, more important, potentially controversial questions can be rephrased in a way that de-fangs them totally, as tonight, when the torture question went something very much like,"With the Mukasey hearings, the issue of torture and waterboarding is on many people's minds, and do have anything to say about all that?"

It is a shame that the talk was so bad, so bland, and that the Scripps administration didn't grab a "teachable moment" and at least clarify and defend their apparent departure from normal protocol for speakers on the campus.

Later that evening, an excellent and funny talk by Walter Benn Michaels on his latest book, The Trouble with Diversity. Despite good publicity, Michaels was up against Bono speaking across campus, and the audience was small. He adapted his major claims about diversity and its distractiing effect from issues of real (i.e., class-based, for Michaels) inequality to Scripps, hosting the talk in its "Unequal We Stand" series. You lull yourselves into a liberal identity based on identity politics while really being a conservative or even reactionary force, he said. He proposed no more actual solutions than in the book, but in response to questions he argued that the best academics can do is to admit this and stimulate more public discussion of America's growing inequality.

It is a charming and beautifully shot film and I enjoyed it very much. It seemed reasonable enough as a fictional depiction of a hunter-gatherer/foraging way of life, and the story is dramatic and engaging.

Some scholarly blog posts from earlier in the year when most people watched it are here:

The Material World
Transient Languages and Cultures
Savage Minds

and see the the IMDB and the (pretty lousy, as of 10/19/07) Wikipedia entries.

It is reminiscent of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, another indigenous language film with a similar theme.

It is available on Netflix.

The Los Angeles Times hasn't figured out how to find us yet; the paper is still going to the Brighton Park apartment every morning, despite two calls to circulation. I think the call center must be in Bangalore, so my detailed descriptions aren't helping very much!

The only real annoyance so far was this evening, when I was out after dinner kicking a ball around with Oliver and a green bottle rocket came whistling right over our heads from a Mead Hall dorm room across the street and exploded against the elevator shaft in the corner of North and East Sanborn. It could easily have a) hit someone, b) gone right into someone's room and then (a), c) ignited the mulch which is everywhere, d) landed on the roof and smoldered a while, or e) gone over the building and burned down the Outback and probably the beloved Grove House as well.

Other than that little blip of mind-boggling immaturity, we've had a great time. Oliver gets two or three baby-sitting propositions an hour while he's outside.

There was a Horned Grebe in the pool all day today, diving forlornly for non-existent fish. He was gone at dark.