ramble through the bronx

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Damn those French-educated communist utopians!

Commenting on the right-wing blog discussions praising Bush's Veterans Day (a.k.a. Remembrance Day north of the 49th), Brian Leiter notes that Bush's comparison of Bin Ladin to Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot is ridiculous. After noting that the reason it was important to worry about Hitler and Stalin is because, hey, they had whole countries and armies, and that bin Ladin after all is merely "a man currently hiding in a cave", Leiter writes,

Bush's mention of Pol Pot underlines the point, since he is, in some ways, the closest analogy to bin Laden (though, yet again, bin Laden's horrors pale by comparison to Pol Pot's). The U.S. destruction of Cambodia, in the course of its invasion and obliteraion of Vietnam, made Pol Pot's rise to power possible. (Think of the U.S. role in driving the Soviets from Afghanistan, and how important that was to bin Laden's rise to power.) After an orgy of murder, inflicted only upon the people of a single country, Pol Pot was deposed after only a few years, and never posed a threat again. At no time did the U.S. need to declare "global" war in order to defeat "all South East Asians" or "all French-educated communist utopians."

I argue: maybe we should declare global war in order to defeat those French-educated communist utopians.

This means you, Alain Badiou!

(ok, so that was a self-serving plug for the Fordham conference. But hey, Badiou's so adorable, that if he were to ever try to take over the world, it would be very hard to take him down. He's such a sweetie! And trained in mathematics!)

jane 1:14 PM [+]

Guitar hero

Well, all the Canadians will see this in their Saturday Globe and Mail, and I'm not really sure if any of my American friends ever really look at this blog, but it's worth posting anyway -- Six String Nation - a guitar made of Canadiana. This is awesome.

As the fate of the nation hung in the balance, an inner voice spoke to Mr. Taylor, commanding him to build a guitar that contained Canada's national mojo.

“It was weird,” says Mr. Taylor, a CBC radio host and lifelong music enthusiast. “But it made sense, too.”

Mr. Taylor understood that the guitar must contain materials from each province, and that every element had to be infused with authentic Canadian spirit. He soon had a long list, including a canoe paddle used by Pierre Trudeau, a plank from the deck of the Bluenose, mastodon teeth excavated in Alberta, copper from the roof of Parliament, and a hockey stick used by Paul Henderson to defeat the Soviets in 1972.

“A guitar is the universal instrument,” says Mr. Taylor, who is nearing the realization of his oddball dream, which he has dubbed the Six String Nation project. “It's Canada's talking stick. We need one that sings with all our voices.”

The guitar will be made by Nova Scotian master luthier George Rizsanyi. He and Taylor decided on making it an acoustic guitar, rather than an electric, as it's then suitable for any occasion -- campfire or rockin' out. But check this out:

Making the guitar a hollow-body acoustic, however, vastly complicates the task of building it. As musical construction goes, Mr. Rizsanyi's task could be compared to that of Dr. Frankenstein's efforts to create a human being from a collection of scavenged body parts. Among the items now in Mr. Rizsanyi's workshop are Pierre Trudeau's spruce canoe paddle, oak from Sir John A. MacDonald's board room table, a hemlock board from the world's longest covered bridge in Hartland, N.B., a length of mahogany decking from the Bluenose, a creosote-soaked beam from Halifax's Pier 21, and two sections of hockey stick — one was used by Wayne Gretzky at the peak of his NHL career, and the other wielded by Paul Henderson when he led Canada to victory in the final game of the 1972 Soviet series.

These wooden parts will be joined by a long list of metals and artifacts, including a walrus tusk, pieces of copper from the roof of the original library of Parliament and — providing that an underwater recovery operation can be mounted — a scrap of metal from the sunken wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes freighter immortalized by singer Gordon Lightfoot.

Although he has some preliminary plans — such as using the parliamentary copper roofing as inlays on the frets — Mr. Rizsanyi says he won't make a final decision about where each object will be used in the guitar until he's collected them all.

“I need to look at them all, stir the pot, and consult the mystics,” he says.

All I can say, is that my new Mission in Life, is to someday touch this guitar, should it ever be completed.

Mr. Taylor realizes that the project has become something of an obsession, but refuses to scale back his plans.

“People at various times — usually with my best interests at heart — suggest that I trim the project to a more modest, manageable size,” he says. “To which I usually answer: ‘No, I want to make something huge and sweeping and diverse and beautiful and full of contradictions — like our country.' ”

jane 9:42 AM [+]

Day after US Thanksgiving, I check the news, and find Harper's face

Ewww....

"Stage set for government defeat" is the CBC headline.

A vote Monday the 28th? A rash of spending promises? I think there should be an election Jan. 6, so I could vote in it in person, but obviously they can't plan around little old me.

Anyway, I throw it open -- how to make heads or tails out of all this?

jane 10:06 AM [+]

Surprisingly good news....

McDonalds' will offer FAIR TRADE coffee in New England! Here's hoping that spreads.

Yes, I know, it's a marketing ploy that they know will go over well with consumers, but hey, it has good consequences.

jane 1:50 PM [+]

Robots!

From the New York Times, an article about how Google may destroy newspapers' funding base by destroying their classified ad section and its accompanying revenues, the following wonderful paragraph:

News robots can't meet with a secret source in an underground garage or pull back the blankets on a third-rate burglary to reveal a conspiracy at the highest reaches of government. Tactical and ethical blunders aside, actual journalists come in handy on occasion.

Robots can't do that... OR CAN THEY?!?!

Wouldn't it be awesome if they remade All the President's Men with ROBOTS as Woodward and Bernstein?

jane 1:06 PM [+]

Working at the reference desk all day today...

And no one else is really around; I'm just here by myself. Doo doo doo. Anyway, I'm going to work on my syllabus for next semester & read articles.

Hey, the NY Times has a good editorial on the Jose Padilla case -- I quote the best, most salient paragraph (very nicely argued):

The Padilla case was supposed to be an example of why the administration needs to suspend prisoners' rights when it comes to the war on terror. It turned out to be the opposite. If Mr. Padilla was seriously planning a "dirty bomb" attack, he can never be held accountable for it in court because the illegal conditions under which he has been held will make it impossible to do that. If he was only an inept fellow traveler in the terrorist community, he is excellent proof that the government is fallible and needs the normal checks of the judicial system. And, of course, if he is innocent, he was the victim of a terrible injustice.

jane 10:31 AM [+]

Sigh...

How am I related to this man?

As you may see from the link above, my dad has been commenting on the Globe & Mail website again. This is the story upon which he was commenting. I think it's sweet that he forwards me his comments on articles, but I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say, other than, Dad, have you ever heard of a straw man argument?

jane 9:10 PM [+]

Canadiana

You should read Sandy Carruthers's comic strip Canadiana: the New Spirit of Canada -- just the kind of superhero we need! (To go to the start, click on this link).

Good times. In Canadiana 24, our heroine meets Tom Thomson!

(Yes, I picked up a few shifts at the library reference desk this U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. So expect some random blog postings....)

jane 5:12 PM [+]

I got the word!

I'll just quote the whole thing. I'm very excited:

Dear Jane,
Sorry for not responding sooner. I've been in NJ since Friday (it's now Monday), and browswer-based access to email was blocked ALL WEEKEND! So I was stranded in New Jersey (blocked from email) and unable to communicate until now (browser-based access to email started up again only this afternoon, Monday). My answer to you is: yes, you can go ahead and submit your proposal, based on the revisions you've made to date. And of course, send me a copy of the very copy you are sending to them. You should also invite your readers/examiner to make suggestions (if they have any), so that you can address any remaining concerns between now and the time of your proposal defense. Once people have had a bit of time to go over your proposal, I will be in touch with them, just to make sure that there will be no surprises at the defense itself.
Best,
MB

YES!!!

jane 1:40 PM [+]

Comments?

Well, here I am, a bit depressed that my advisor still hasn't gotten any comments to me since I got the revised copy of my proposal to him Nov 8th, and I'm planning on handing in the final copy of my proposal today or tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting article by Jennifer Baumgartner (author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, which I quite liked), on the negative perception of women who have multiple abortions, even among the pro-choice community. I've heard this kind of talk before -- "wow, more than one, she must have been careless" -- but the article makes an interesting point:

In the clinic world, repeat visitors are called, not unkindly, "frequent flyers." The reason that casual term is not an insult is simply due to how common multiple abortions are. "You have 300 possibilities to get pregnant in your life," says Peg Johnston, the director of an abortion clinic in Binghamton, New York. "A one percent failure rate -- assuming the best possible use of contraception -- is still three abortions," she says. "In what endeavor is a one percent failure rate not acceptable?"

Anyway. I'm inviting your comments. I know I've certainly raised a mental eyebrow when someone has told me that they've had three abortions ("what must they be doing wrong with their use of contraception?"), but at the same time, I recognize that yes, even the best methods fail.

Hey, is Plan B available over the counter in Canada? I may stock up when I'm over there....

jane 10:59 AM [+]

Mississippi Goddamn


So, Mississippi might lose the last clinic offering abortions. As a Planned Parenthood article writes, "When the Jackson Women's Health Clinic (not affiliated with Planned Parenthood) first opened its doors in 1995, there were still four clinics in Mississippi that offered abortion services. But since last August, the Jackson clinic has been the only one to serve the entire state."

More:

Fertile Ground for Restricting Access

Hill had good reason to be pessimistic. Mississippi has one of the most anti-choice atmospheres of any state in the U.S.:

* The Democratic Party in Mississippi claims itself a "party of life."

* Eighty-six percent of Mississippi women live in a county without an abortion provider.

* Abortions after 16 weeks are virtually nonexistent, because no facility performs them.

* The state passed legislation last year to stop clinics from performing abortions after 12 weeks. (It was recently struck down by a U.S. district judge as unconstitutional.)

* The state is one of only two in the U.S. that requires a minor to obtain permission from both of her parents to get an abortion.

* Women must endure a 24-hour waiting period before they can have an abortion. During that time they are given state-mandated information that is often distorted or even false, such as the erroneous claim that there is a connection between abortion and breast cancer.

* The state requires that a physician give out this information, which adds to the cost of the abortion, especially for a clinic such as the Jackson Women's Health Clinic, which flies in two of its three physicians from other states.

* Mississippi also has the nation's most sweeping so-called "conscience clause," which allows any health care provider to refuse to provide abortion-related services, including referrals, to those in need.

And more:

Hill also says that the clinic regularly receives phone calls from women asking what they can do to end their pregnancies themselves. "One woman called a few weeks ago, saying she couldn't come to the clinic but told us she had taken 20 Tylenols and hoped that would do the trick." Hill says she also hears Vera-Drake-type stories about women in the Delta who help women with unintended pregnancies, but "we don't have any specifics about it."

"It's hard to get the time off to go up twice," says one student at the University of Southern Mississippi, who wishes to remain anonymous. "I had to get off work and get out of classes to drive up there and then go back later [because of the mandatory delay law]. It was a couple of weeks before I could take the time off again to have the abortion. And believe me, around here, you can't tell your boss why you need the time off."

On November 8, a PBS Frontline episode focussed on this struggle in Jackson. As the Frontline site says:

"… [E]ver since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, people got the impression that abortion was safe; Roe v. Wade was safe," explains William Saletan, the author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. "All the pro-choice people went home."

In the years after Casey, the pro-life movement has dramatically changed the landscape of abortion politics. In Mississippi alone, they helped pass 10 laws regulating abortion. And in the last two years, the state has passed legislation on fetal homicide prosecution, new clinic regulations, requirements to report abortion complications, rights of conscience, and a law that would prohibit the state's last abortion clinic from offering abortions beyond the first trimester.

Americans United for Life (AUL), the nation's oldest national pro-life organization, considers Mississippi an example for the nation. "Mississippi has an impressive track record," says AUL senior legal counsel Clarke Forsythe. "Our goal is to see that other states pass the type of legislation that Mississippi has passed over the past decade, and we see a lot of legislative activity."

With an ever-increasing number of state abortion regulations and a steady decline in abortion providers, the procedure, while still legal, has become daunting and expensive in Mississippi and elsewhere. Nationwide, there are now fewer abortion providers in the U.S. than at any time since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 -- 87 percent of U.S. counties don't have one.

(By the way, there are some useful links on the PBS site, if you follow that link). Anyway, so with all this going on, the Feminist Majority Foundation is asking for donations to help save the Jackson clinic. Because, as the Americans United For Life quote above indicates, Mississippi could just be the first step. Further, no woman should be forced to swallow 20 Tylenols because she can't make it to a clinic.

Half of your emergency contribution will support the FMF National Clinic Access Project’s work with federal, state, and local law enforcement, community leaders and the Jackson clinic to counter the protesters and prevent deadly attacks.

And the other half of your emergency contribution will be put into a special fund created by the Jackson Women’s Health Organization to help poor women in Mississippi obtain abortions.

It's mostly sad that half of it needs to get spent on law enforcement... argh.

jane 3:44 PM [+]

Also a sbout-out

I'd like to point out my roommate Emily's new website, which I have listed in the column on the left of this site, below Emily's blog. She's on her way to rock stardom. You should check her out... I'll try to talk her into posting some mp3s once she has some good recordings done.

jane 7:48 PM [+]

So I hope I don't regret this...

Tonight the Leafs are playing the Rangers. I have a hard-core Rangers fan in my 11.30 class, with whom I have a pretty good rapport. I made a few comments during the lecture today about how the Leafs were totally going to win (yes, believe it or not, I was able to fit these into a Descartes lecture!), and so after class he was hanging around giving me a hard time, saying no, the Rangers were going to win, since, after all, they're pretty high in the league right now. They lead the Atlantic division, in fact.

So he said he'd bet me a bottle of scotch that the Rangers would win. I said no, that probably wouldn't work, Fordham wouldn't like a professor buying a bottle of whiskey for a student, or vice versa, and that I didn't think he was 21 years old yet. He asked whether I could doubt that he wasn't 21 yet. (Anyway, that's funny if you've been reading lots of Descartes. Honestly.)

Anyway, we chatted about it for a bit, and ultimately settled on the following bet, in front of three witness (three other students). If the Leafs win, he has to sing the Canadian anthem (which he doesn't know) in front of the whole class.

If the Rangers win, I need to sing the American anthem. In front of the whole class.

Fortunately this is the class I get along with.

But anyway, here's hoping the Leafs win.... I've got them on internet radio, since of course the local broadcast TV stations don't carry hockey.

jane 7:11 PM [+]

So were the Leafs asleep all that time?!?

Listening to the Leafs game on internet radio. They just scored 3 goals in fucking overtime! What the fuck?!? Why weren't they scoring like that in regulation?

Oh well.

---
Updated Wednesday Morning, 8.50 am -- (hey, almost the title of a Simon & Garfunkel album) --

Oops. Well, that's the problem with internet radio. Hard to follow sometimes. And the NHL site that I was checking for box scores & play by play wasn't working well. So, replace the word "overtime" with "the last chunk of the third period." Not overtime at all. Thanks, CBC coverage. It's all much clearer now.

The CBC overview is worth it just for this, from Colaiacovo:

"I can take them any way I can get them," Colaiacovo said. "It's one of those funny ones to remember - a hot potato."

jane 9:39 PM [+]

It's getting closer and closer....

Christmas? No!

Well, yes, Christmas IS getting closer, as is the date of my birthday (when I will receive my banjo; and Josh is throwing me a birthday party, which is one of sweetest things I ever did hear). But also...

My Proposal Defense.

If all goes well, my proposal defense will be Wednesday, December 7th, in the afternoon. So far it looks good; I've just sent an email out to my committee confirming that date as good for them. They'd all said earlier this week that it would be fine, but I know a lot of other people are scheduling defences in December, so I have to check. My friend Rosa is defending her proposal Dec. 14. Katie Kirby's dissertation defense will be sometime in early December. Amy Peters' defense will be sometime in December. Maybe some others... my friends Paul and Ariane are also getting close to defending theirs.

Once it's defended, I'm officially A.B.D. -- which, obviously enough, stands for "All But Dissertation." It means that all that stands between me and my PhD is writing the damn thing. This proposal defense is the last hoop I have to jump through until I defend the actual dissertation.

Anyway, the proposal "defense" is mostly my committee making sure that my project sounds good and doable... it's more a chance to make sure I'm on the right track, mention things I should make sure to include, that sort of thing.

Here's the committee: My advisor, Dr. Michael Baur (who did his PhD in Toronto with Graeme Nicholson, lovely lovely Graeme), my two readers, Dr. John Davenport and Dr. Merold Westphal (warning, that's a pdf file), and my examiner, Dr. James Marsh, who is retiring at the end of this year.

Wish me luck getting this damn thing scheduled, and getting the revisions to my proposal finished in time! I'll have to hand in the final copy of my proposal two weeks before the defense date.

jane 12:43 PM [+]