Comics and Anthro part 2

part two for my friends who may have missed it. Fun time, only wished we had gotten more into the E.C. and comic ideology stuff. It was touched on, but not delved into much. But very cool.

Comics and Anthropology part 1

Idaho Values. Idaho Budget

The Idaho Budget as a Moral Document.

Despite its complexity, the Idaho budget is essentially a moral document--the specific expression of the values of the state.

This week the Idaho State Legislature begins deciding on the budget. Where we place education is of extreme importance.

"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to Farce or Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."-James Madison

If we are trying to keep our republic, we must weigh heavily our commitment to it through arming our children with a quality education. And when those children are prepared for a higher education, we must make sure it is accessible, even to the least of these, by keeping the cost as low as possible.

To those legislatures who are planning the demise of our republic, we must not allow them to gut education in Idaho. They say “if the money comes in, then we can spend it,” but they have not promised us in any way that the money will go to education.
And even more scary is that once we have fallen behind in education, that can never be made up. Now is the only time we have.

Please call your representative immediately and let them know that public education in Idaho is of high value and important to the very subsidence of our republic. Watch how they vote. And then hold them accountable. If they don’t share your values, find someone who does and elect them.

And plan on attending the Rally for Public Education on the Idaho capital steps Thursday, March 11th. Make sure you work out a make-up assignment with teachers, many who are sympathetic to the cause. Lunch is provided and ASISU is finding a way to pay for the buses.

Now is the only chance we have this year to make a difference that will affect your pocket book next semester.

Another Marker of the Robot Apocalypse

It is time I revisited one of my favorite topics, the Robot Apocalypse.

I could go into more depth about what it means to be human, tool use, and the observation by Thoreau that "Men have become tools of their tools," but I think I'll just post this.

We like to think of natural selection as, well, natural. Natural, and organic even. But now not just soft-bodied organism are being found to illustrate the quickness of evolution. Like the origional article says, we don't see robots making robots yet, but this is getting closer.

clipped from www.npr.org Can robots live and learn by the laws of evolution? That's what one research team in Switzerland wanted to answer. So they created a scenario in which robots with simple "neurons" were overseen by a computer playing the role of nature by randomly picking traits or behaviors that would survive or die. In one of the most interesting scenarios, the scientists put a colony of robots in a kind of hockey rink. Some of the robots were programmed with similar genes or traits, while others were given completely different sets of genes. The scientists dropped tokens throughout the rink and decided that if the robots moved them to a certain part of the rink, they'd receive a positive point. I was floored by the fact that the robots went from helpless to being able to coherently move the tokens without human interference. That and the fact that this "evolution" took, as Keller told me, only a few days thanks to the amazing processing speed of their computers.

Save The Idaho Commission of Hispanic Affairs.

Dear Friends of the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs;

As many of you are aware- January 11, 2009 the Governor released his budget recommendations for FY 2011. One of the recommendations is to phase out the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs from receiving general funds. By 2014, ICHA will receive no state money to keep the agency operational. At the beginning of FY 2011, ICHA will receive 25% less general funds and that % will increase to 50% during FY 2012, 75% in 2013 and the flow of state funds will cease entirely during FY 2014 and this change will be permanent.

A number of you have been contacting the Commission asking me what you can do in response to the Governor's recommendation that state funds be eliminated for the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs and 6 other agencies.

The Governor's office recommends that ICHA pursue alternative funding options to keep ICHA operational- which means we will need to seek federal or private dollars beginning this coming fiscal year (FY 2011).

All Governor recommendations will need to be approved by the legislature.

What does this mean for you and the Hispanic population/community?

It depends.

1) If the legislature approves the recommendations, ICHA will need to actively seek alternative funding. Some of the funding options might place restrictions on what we can do and we might not be able to perform the duties and responsibilities as outlined in our statute. Can we change the statute itself in order to receive other funds? The answer is yes, but would it benefit the Hispanic community? Probably not. The statute was created in 1987, to serve as a liaison between government and our communities our needs still remain true today and we still need to address them.

Today, the Commission works closely with other State agencies, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and private businesses to leverage resources and avoid duplication of efforts; a model that has worked, is working, and emulates what our State government wants to see from one of its agencies.

If we fail to receive sufficient funds, ICHA will cease to operate therefore the Hispanic community will cease to be well-represented and served at the state level.

2) Manpower. If there are funding options available for ICHA- seeking alternative financial resources will take a lot of time and manpower and a huge chunk of our time and commitment will be required for fund raising. Hence, our time with our constituents would be reduced. We will not be able to maximize our responsibilities and duties as much as we would like to due to the fact that we only employ three people.

3) If the legislature rejects the recommendations, ICHA will continue to receive state funding and we will continue with our operations. However, the fund will be much lower than the previous year due to budgetary reductions. ICHA will continue to serve at the best of our ability.

Is there anything you can do?

Yes, you can.

You can write a letter or an email expressing your point of view or concern on this recommendation to both: the Governor and the state legislators (more specifically legislators who serve on Joint Finance Appropriation Committee (JFAC). It is essential that they hear from the general public how this might affect you and on how you are being represented or heard. This is the link to JFAC members; http://legislature.idaho.gov/budget/JFAC/jfac.htm and to the office of the Governor; http://gov.idaho.gov/WebRespond/contact_form.html you could also contact the legislators in your own district if they are not on the JFAC list. I would appreciate it if you would copy me on these if you are comfortable doing so.

In Governor Otter's speech Monday he said:

"What government does, it must do well, effective and efficiently. ... They believe the best government is the government closest to the people."

I personally believe the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs relationship and closeness with the people exceeds any expectations. We couldn't get any closer than that.

It is a difficult time for the Hispanic community, indeed.

I remain committed to serving Hispanic Idahoans and will work with my fellow Commissioners, Legislators, and the Governor's Office to respond to this challenge by charting a course for the Commission that doesn't lose sight of our charge.

This proposal reverses over 23 years of hard work done by numerous Hispanic leaders in Idaho and will have a serious and negative impact on the ability of the Commission to do its work for the Hispanic people of Idaho.

Thank you for your support. It is invaluable.

Margie Gonzalez

Executive Director

Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs

(208) 334-3776

Gracias, have a wonderful day! C
Lymaris Blackmon,
Administrator Assistant
Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs
5460 W. Franklin Road, Suite B
Boise, ID 83705
(208) 334-3776
(208) 334-3778 fax
lymaris.blackmon@icha.idaho.gov
www2.idaho.gov/icha

Shame on Otter

Governor Butch Otter's 2010 budget takes aim with his ideology and shoots Idaho in the foot.

• Education Under Attack: Gov. Otter recommended cutting $138 million from the state public school budget, on top of the $68 million trimmed this past year. School districts will yet again be forced to cut budgets. Teachers may lose their jobs, classes and programs will be slashed. Or both.
• State Parks Under Attack: Gov. Otter wants to abolish the State Department of Parks and Recreation and transfer the function to the State Department of Lands whose mission has been resource extraction and land sales. At risk are such gems as Harriman State Park, City of Rocks and Massacre Rocks State Park. Given the number of visitors from around the world these parks attract, and given their importance to our local economies, Otter's proposal is false economy.
• Idaho Public Television Under Attack: IPTV plays an important role in our state by, among other things, allowing citizens to follow their government. IPTV receives $1.6 million from the state. Recent polling showed that citizens overwhelmingly oppose Otter's plan to eliminate all state funding for IPTV.

The state doesn't have a budget problem, it has a political will problem. Instead of slashing school budgets, parks and public television, Otter should first do the following:

• Close Special Interest Loopholes: $1.7 billion of tax dollars goes uncollected each year due to special-interest exemptions. In 2008, a legislative committee recommended that 23 exemptions be reviewed, yet none have been overturned. Many of these are nothing more than handouts to special interests. For example, vending machine owners receive a $2.5 million exemption annually. That alone would pay the state's annual IPTV allocation. Are vending machine owner's interests more important than our children's schools and their teachers, or our parks?
• Collect All That Is Owed: It's a question of fairness. Other states have had great success hiring additional accountants to collect what is due from those who are either not paying their taxes, or not paying their fair share. Idahoans would benefit from a similar action.
• Additionally, Gov. Otter's proposed cuts could be partially staved off if his budget included the estimated $82 million that his chief economist, Mike Ferguson, forecasts will be collected during the course of 2011 as Idaho's economy emerges from the recession. Why isn't Otter including at least some of this projected revenue in the budget?

The bottom line: Governor Otter is pulling the plug on our schools and our parks while protecting special interests!

Now is the time to speak up for our schools and our parks! We encourage you to write a short letter opposing Otter's proposal to:

• The Idaho State Journal: ifennell@journalnet.com

• Governor Otter: rbartlett@gov.idaho.gov

Making Education Relavant

See them at isuevents.com

clipped from www.nytimes.com Consider the change captured in the annual survey by the University of California, Los Angeles, of more than 400,000 incoming freshmen. In 1971, 37 percent responded that it was essential or very important to be “very well-off financially,” while 73 percent said the same about “developing a meaningful philosophy of life.” In 2009, the values were nearly reversed: 78 percent identified wealth as a goal, while 48 percent were after a meaningful philosophy.

SteamPunk

I must have ESP. As you may remember, I claimed Steampunk as the theme for my goth-night birthday party on Dec. 13th. Today as I was reading through my Time Magazines there was a story about Steampunk from the day after my birthday. For real, this was creepy.

Here is my favorite quote from this article.
"You can read the steampunk movement as a response to the realities of modern consumer technology. Take the iPhone: its form gives no clue to its function or who made it or where it came from. There are no screws. You can't hack. It's perfect, but it might have well been made by aliens and fallen to Earth in an asteroid. [I am not immune, I am typing this on a smartphone.] The sameway punk took back music, steampunk reclaims technology for the masses. [...]Steampunk is like a snapshot from the last moment in history when technology was intelligible to the layman. [It] is a nostalgia for when technology had some relationship to the human scale... Plus, those Victorians dressed a whole lot better than we do."- Scott Westerfeld

I am just going to make a prediction now using my ESP. While there has always been a rebellion to technology, and a romanticsizing of the past, this genre of music, fashion, and art will grow in the next 5 years. Wal-mart will be selling it in 7-10 years. I am now taking bets.

Tuition Cap Removed=Student Protection Denied

Tuition Cap Removed= Loss of Student Protection

What is a basic protection? It is a minimum standard of treatment. We have the minimum wage, which may not be adequate, but we can rely on it. Governments have a constitution as outline of behavior. We even have a bill of rights, a promise of protection on certain issues.

And we HAD a tuition cap in Idaho. A minimum promise that the State Board of Education gave us about *even the possibility* of tuition increases remaining below 10% in one year. They have revoked their promise.

Asking to remove the 10% tuition cap, even if it is just for 1 year, is asking us to give up our right of basic protection from excessive budget increases. Just like the patriot act, we are asked to give up some of our liberty (in this case the protection of excessive tuition increases) for the safety of the university. The Universities are afraid they won't have enough money to function. Which is fair, but it is not fair to put on the backs of us who make the university exist. Without students, the university wouldn't exist.

It all reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin quote about liberty.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety".

Quoting James Fletcher, the university’s vice president of finance and administration, From the Journal today, he said "the State Board’s decision has mistakenly been interpreted as a green light for universities to impose severe tuition hikes."

He is right. Nobody is currently actively campaigning to raise tuition by more than 10%. And he further says "we would never make that decision until we’ve gone through a period of (seeing) what our options are.” He's right, they wouldn't, but they could wait for that period to be, oh how about, the summer when there are far fewer students around keeping up with the topic. It isn't uncommon for the U, or the Student Union to make the changes when no one is around to comment. But most likely, they will expect the student apathy to inform the "option".

To wait until there is an emergency is the worst way to live a life. This constant fighting of fires, rather than solving the problem, is time consuming and energy inefficient. The administrations of Idaho universities know this. This is why they didn't oppose the cap removal. They are thinking about their own sustainability, even at the expense of those they serve-the tuition and fee paying students. They don't want to have to fight that fire before it happens. And they expect us to let it burn.

Fletcher calls it "premature" to worry about tuition increases. Is it really premature for students to say, "Hey, I think 10% is a lot. It is the maximum, I as an Idahoan, believe would be fair for students to have to deal with in the middle of their education. Let us work together to guarantee a MINIMUM protection of 10%." Now the State Board comes out with this 5-1 vote that says higher education students don't need any minimum protection. No safety net, no guarantees. "Premature" means "planning ahead" here in student reality. As my favorite pink shirt says "End the next war NOW". Boy Scouts work to "be prepared” and you may know that "a stitch in time saves 9".

I find this absolutely unacceptable! But so what. I'm just one student. I'm going to grad school next fall, and I will not be spending any more of my money on higher education in Idaho. I hate Idaho, but I hate Idaho like I hate my siblings. You can never really hate your family. You may dislike them, but your commitment and care for them transcends any one particular action. I may never forgive Idaho for their ignorance, or the students at ISU who don't bother to do anything about this. But let me explain what we can do to show our love even when we are angry.

If you and I and others who read this get together, we could plan something. Anyone who finds this removal of student's rights in the State of Idaho offensive should contact me at 208-232-5942. My e-mail is paindian@isu.edu, and you can Facebook message me.

And just one more thing about how this happened.

The State Board of Education made this decision. The Administration of the other universities in Idaho was complicit at worst, and complacent at best, with their suggestion and decision.

The State Board is appointed by the Governor of Idaho. The Administrations of the University are also appointed by the State Board of Education in Idaho.

The Governor is elected. If the State Board does not respect students' basic rights, then we need to take this to their boss, Gov. Butch Otter. Luckily 2010 is an election year and we have the chance to get those running for governor to promise in the future to only appoint board members who promise us our basic rights. Now is the time to act. The affordability of Academic Fall 2010 could be at stake.

For real?

This has to be the funniest (true) holiday story of the year. Seriously, I'm glad to know that Jews, Mormons, AND the NYTimes has a sense of humor.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a solemn-faced Republican with a soft spot for Jews and a love of Barbra Streisand, has penned a catchy holiday tune, “Eight Days of Hanukkah.” In short, he loves the Jews. And based on an early sampling of listeners, the feeling could be mutual. “Watching Orrin Hatch in the studio, I said to myself that nothing this great will ever happen to me again,” said Alana Newhouse, the editor-in-chief of Tablet. At one point, Mr. Hatch unbuttons his white dress shirt to expose the golden mezuzah necklace he wears every day. Mezuzahs also adorn the doorways of his homes in Washington and Utah. Mr. Hatch keeps a Torah in his Senate office. “Not a real Torah, but sort of a mock Torah,” he said. “I feel sorry I’m not Jewish sometimes.”

William's Doll

When my friend William was five years old
He wanted a doll, to hug and hold
"A doll," said William, "is what I need
To wash and clean, and dress and feed

"A Doll to give a bottle to
And put to bed when day is through
And any time my doll gets ill
I'll take good care of it," said my friend Bill

A doll, a doll, William wants a doll
Don't be a sissy said his best friend Ed
Why should a boy want to play with a doll
Dolls are for girls said his cousin Fred
Don't be a jerk, said his older brother
"I know what to do," said his father to his mother

So his father bought him a basketball
A badminton set, and that's not all
A bag of marbles, a baseball glove
And all the things a boy would love

And Bill was good at every game
Enjoyed them all, but all the same
When Billy's father praised his skill
"Can I please have a doll now," said my friend Bill

A doll, a doll, William wants a doll
A doll, a doll, William wants a doll
[ Marlo Thomas Lyrics are found on www.songlyrics.com ]

Then William's grandma arrived one day
And wanted to know what he liked to play
And Bill said, "Baseball's my favorite game
I like to play, but all the same

"I'd give my bat and ball and glove
To have a doll that I could love"
"How very wise," his grandma said
Said Bill, "but everyone says this instead"

A doll, a doll, William wants a doll
A doll, a doll, William wants a doll

So William's grandma, as I've been told
Bought William a doll, to hug and hold
And William's father began to frown
But grandma smiled, and calmed him down

Explaining, William wants a doll
So when he has a baby someday
He'll know how to dress it, put diapers on double
And gently caress it to bring up a bubble
And care for his baby as every good father
Should learn to do

William has a doll, William has a doll
'Cause someday he is gonna be a father, too

Humans May Be Born To Help

Now if we can just foster the good and do less of the bad.

clipped from www.nytimes.com But biologists are beginning to form a generally sunnier view of humankind. Their conclusions are derived in part from testing very young children, and partly from comparing human children with those of chimpanzees, hoping that the differences will point to what is distinctively human. The somewhat surprising answer at which some biologists have arrived is that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others. Of course every animal must to some extent be selfish to survive. But the biologists also see in humans a natural willingness to help. Dr. Tomasello finds the helping is not enhanced by rewards, suggesting that it is not influenced by training. It seems to occur across cultures that have different timetables for teaching social rules. Dr. Tomasello concludes that helping is a natural inclination, not something imposed by parents or culture.

Thank You for Being Angry

This is an excerpt from "White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh...Did you the the author was male? I did until I read the name of the author. Oops, I have a lot to learn still.
"
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I want to live.
3.I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I won’t be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilizations" I am snow that people of my color made it what it is.
7.I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
9. I can go into a music shop and and count on finding music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit into my cultural traditions, into a hairdressers’ shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of my financial reliability.
11. I can arrange to protect my children most the time from people who might not like them.
12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge" that I will be facing someone of my own race.
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I wasn’t singled out because of race.
20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
21. I can go home for most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect I got the job because of race.
23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
25. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation if it has racial overtones.
26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin."

Other passages of this that I relate too are
"The word ’privilege’ now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth of luck. yet some of the conditions I have described here work to systematically overempower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of ones race or sex."

"My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, nomative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow "them" to be more like "us"."

I don’t always recognize it, but it is the history of discrimination in America has benefited my family. Not because my Irish ancestors weren’t discriminated against, lynched, or not allowed to vote, but because when the discrimination moved onto another group, the group that was no longer being held back by it. Not allowing Hispanics, Chinese, and people who didn’t speak English have much pie left more pie for my ancestors, and they took it. My ancestors worked hard too. They were loggers in Michigan, Farmers in Kentucky and Utah, and before that had to escape from a starvation in Denmark, Ireland, and Germany. They did earn their living in rural areas. But if Hispanics, Chinese, and Native Americans, and African Americans were given the same preference by 1800s immigration laws, and 1950s housing laws, my family history could look and be very different. I like to read through my class notes from "Race, Class, and Gender", and "Social Diversity" once in awhile to remember that I too have a history, especially when it is easy for a white female, like myself, to be invisible. It also reminds me to listen to others and respect who people are because of their unique histories.

Paul Kivel said, and I’m going to repeat it, "Thank you for being angry".
This is an excerpt from "Uprooting Racism"
"A person of color who is angry about discrimination or harassment is doing us a service. That person is pointing out something wrong, something that contraditct the ideals of equality set forth in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. That person is bringing our attention to a problem that needs solving, a wroing that needs righting. We could convey our appreciation by saing "thank you, your anger has helped me see what’s not right here". What keeps us from responding this way?
Anger is a scary emotion. In mainstream white culture, we are taught to be polite, never raise our voices, to be reasonable and to keep calm. People who are demonstrative of their feelings are discounted and ridiculed. We are told by parents just to obey "because I said so." We are told by bosses, religious leaders, and professional authorities not to challenge what they say, "or else" (or else you’ll be fired, go to hell, be treated as "crazy"). When we do get angry we learn to stuff it, mutter under our breath and go away. We are taught to turn our anger inward in self-destructive behaviors. If we are men, we are taught to take out our frustration on someone weaker and smaller then we are.
When we see someone expressing anger, it has oven been a person with power who was abusing us or someone else physically, verbally, or emotionally. We were hurt, scared or possibly confused. Most of us can remember a time from our youth when a [person we respected was angry and unhealthy about it.]It made us afraid of our own anger.
A similar response is triggered when a person of color gets angry about racism. We become scared, guilty, embarrassed, confused and we fear everything is falling apart and we might get hurt. if the angry person would just calm down, or go away, we could get back to the big happy family feeling.
[...]
But then a person of color gets angry. We may back off in fear that the relationship is falling apart. We may be found out to be racist. For a person of color this may be a time of hope that the relationship can become more intimate and honest. The anger may attempt to test the depths and possibilities of the friendship. They may be open about their feelings, to see how save we are, hopping that we will not desert them. Or the anger may be more assertive attempt to break through the complacently to address some core assumptions, beliefs or actions.
We could say, "thank you for pointing out the racism because I want to know whenever it is occurring." Or, "I appreciate your honesty. Let’s see what we can do about this situation." More likely we get scared and disappear, or become defensive and counterattack. In any case, we don’t focus on the root of the problem, and the racism goes unattended.
When people of color are angry about racism it is legitimate anger. it is not their oversensitivity, but our lack of sensitivity, that causes this communication gap. They are vulnerable to the abuse of racism everyday. They are experts on it. White society, and most of us individually, rarely notice racism.
[...].
Such anger and action is almost always a last resort, a desperate attempt to get attention when all else fails."

Pocatello Racism

So, a friend brought this to my attention and I'm quite disturbed.There has been a rise of White Power groups in Pocatello. I've been riding over a chalked website on the ISU campus everyday this week, but didn't think about it. It says Amren.com. It is a disgusting white power group believes "Race is an important aspect of individual and group identity. Of all the fault lines that divide society — language, religion, class, ideology — it is the most prominent and divisive. Race and racial conflict are at the heart of the most serious challenges the Western World faces in the 21st century. The problems of race cannot be solved without adequate understanding. Attempts to gloss over the significance of race or even to deny its reality only make problems worse. Progress requires the study of all aspects of race, whether historical, cultural, or biological. This approach is known as race realism."

On their page they have links to things like "The Unknown MLK" and "The Transition to Black Rule". Scary stuff. This is not the only example or the rise of these imitation academic websites. Two or three years ago we had the Intercollegiate Studies Institute came to ISU to try and recruit students. It was part of the "conservative revolution" they were touting at the time. For more information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercollegiate_Studies_Institute. Even Right Wing Watch has been keeping an eye on the ISI. See http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/intercollegiate-studies.

Luckily ISU's apathy worked to its advantage and there was not enough interest in the group to maintain it at ISU. Of the several proposed groups for the "conservative revolution" only the ISU College Republicans is currently in existence (barely) and I'm surprised they haven't distanced themselves from the ISI more. Most the College Republicans I have met and know are fair minded people who just believe what their parents believe without question. On the ISU campus last week there have also been these "White Slut Training Academy" fliers being put up. It suggests going to ISU, you can graduate with this knowledge. I know three people who have, when they see them, just taken them down. I had an example, but I left it in my office to use in this story as documentation, and someone threw it away too. It is a picture of a white girl (skinny, blond, straight hair), holding a black baby somewhat uncaring and certainly not in a nurturing way, and it says, HIV positive on it. It is supposed to illustrate how the African students are coming to America and impregnating white women and giving them AIDS.

It also appeals to the outdated idea of masculinity and chivalry. Chivalry is a nice thing, but to the extreme that women become the helpless and only men can "save" them is part of the White Power model. Sexual reproduction is really the thing that White Power has to fear the most. Sure, immigration is changing the "look" of power in America, but really, physical reproduction of minorities is what will change this country the most. People from other countries (non-European mostly) have big families as part of their values. This picture is an example of catering to that fear. Luckily it is also extreme enough to turn most people off. I'm more interested who these confused and local people are.

In Pocatello recently there has been the showing up of these stickers around town that have an eagle on them and send people to a website where you can get free music from and this turns out to be White power music. Free CDs have also shown up at local business that cater to kids like at Main Street Coffee two blocks from Pocatello High School. These rise of this expression may be the individual actions of some disturbed individuals, but the rise of it is an expression of fear. Pocatello has generally been a positive example of diversity, especially Pocatello proper (the in-town, downtown). Part of this has happened because of the gentrification of Chubbuck, and indicative of the nation as a whole.

Also, it has found a new idea of freedom due to the "Tea party" movement (AKA "tea-baggers"). Their organizing/protesting has made a, while not truly united group, but their mass numbers allows for people to feel supported and anonymous. I'm glad they feel they can speak their minds, but they do it in subverted ways because to say outright that they don't like "diversity" is seen as hostile. It is not-mainstream and they lose credibility when they say it outright. It is also likely that this mistrust of changing demographics from the traditional power structures (European, male, Christian, corporate style management) is unsettling and scary.

I need to close this now, but I ask these questions and hope for some discussion (if not on my personal blog, on 43sb.com), what can we do to find these people and help them accept the change in a more positive way? I wasn't around in the past to see changes (like desegregation and Regan's revolution) to gauge these outbursts as important or not; are they something to worry about? Is there a way to make change without causing fear? How do you overcome fear? How have people reading this overcome fear with their children? This is just something to chew on.

Women (re)defined by Navy As Males

I saw on a friend's facebook she was a fan of "women (re)defined", it wouldn't let me comment on it's page without becoming a fan which I am not. It is just a silly pro-war misgynomist "re-definition" of women to be like men. Why must women be like men to be powerful? The Military is the perfect example. They see themselves as a non-gendered entity, but really they are the epitome of "male". They are homophobic, violent, and use size to intimidate others and prove their dominance. It isn't a new type of femininity, it is the masculinity of femininity. Or the more extreme reading of it is about how the Military, now which is mostly non-combative positions, finally see that women fit in.

A great website that goes more over it is http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/09/18/navy-women-redefined/

Another arm of this propaganda is targeting Navy Mothers, but not moms who are in the Navy, but rather the mother of soldiers. While it is neat that there would be a support system for mothers going through the pain of having children in combat, from reading through it, it isn't for people with pain, it is simple propaganda used to make parents more pliable to the idea of sending their precious family into war. Mothers against war are a very active group. They make a good argument too. Most people do consult their families before making decisions about joining the Military. To get to the kids, you have to go through the gatekeepers. Those are the schools (mostly public ones that have already attracted minorities and the poor), and parents. Parents would be the best target for propaganda. It seems benign, but it is propaganda.

Most people think of "propaganda" as a bad thing. Defined it means any pursuation that is used to gain power. It has a goal, that may not be in it's immediate intent. It influences behavior or thought. But to think that it is always bad is a fair reading of "propaganda". I have to go to class, but I'll try and write more later.