* My Mama Done Tole Me . . .

Barbara Ward Keane and son circa 1949 (my brother)

The Yale Daily News

Brodsky: A serious need for casual feminists

Comments
No artist, no musician, no warrior, no statesman, no politician ever created a work as infinitely complex and beautiful as a human baby, especially in the short order of nine months.

Men are, and continue to be, subconsciously OVERAWED by the miraculous capacity of women as artists of the highest order, painting the ENTIRE canvas of CREATION itself.

Sexism is men’s bluff:

A conscious attempt to repress that awe and to overcome the inherently un-level playing-field onto which they are and have been thrust since the Garden of Eden: Women bring them onto the planet and women ensure that their genetic code will endure after their departure from the planet.

Men’s contribution to this process can hardly be called art.

Men could not EXIST without women and they know it.

Sexism is envy.

Sexism is anger.

pk
Posted by theantiyale on September 2, 2010 at 5:40 a.m.

Afterthought: I should add "no athlete and no scholar" to that opening 'catalogue of creators,'
Posted by theantiyale on September 2, 2010 at 5:52 a.m.

antiyale: your comments are an example of exactly the kind of extremism the author means to combat.

Alexandra: Great article, well-crafted, entirely necessary.
Posted by MC13 on September 2, 2010 at 11:05 a.m.


Maybe so. Sadly, it doesn't make it any less true. I wish those well who seek to make a better world. PK
Posted by theantiyale on September 2, 2010 at 4:22 p.m.


It's examples like this that make people not take claims of sexism seriously.
Posted by FailBoat on September 2, 2010 at 4:53 p.m.

Theantiyale: As a woman who does not wish to have children, and on behalf of women who physically cannot have children, I find your comment extremely disgusting.

It is condescending and closed-minded to essentially say that women should be praised because we gestate. I also think it is misguided to say that men oppress women because they are jealous of this talent. And comparing human gestation to human creativity is naive at best.

I'm sorry, maybe this is a reactionary comment, but I am more than a uterus.
Posted by curlysiren on September 2, 2010 at 8 p.m.

 I did not say women SHOULD be praised because of X. I said X makes males envious and angry SUBCONSCIOUSLY

I do not have children and do not wish to have children. Who says women HAVE to HAVE children?

And who says it is a TALENT? The artistry I am talking about is a cosmic artistry.

It is women's CAPACITY (not TALENT) to reproduce another human being and men's INCAPACITY to do so that I am talking about.

I understand that in the not too distant future males will be able to have a zygote implanted in their lower intestine and bring it to term.

Perhaps this phenomenon will end sexism once and for all.


 Okay, Freud. I guess you wanted to sleep with your father too.
Posted by wtf on September 3, 2010 at 10:36 a.m

Trivialize Freud all you want. His is one of the three great minds of the last 200 years: Einstein, Darwin, Freud. This is not even susceptible to a sliver of debate. PK
Posted by theantiyale on September 3, 2010 at 4:06 p.m.

Theantiyale: I understand where you're coming from, I just don't agree with your claim that THAT is the reason men oppress women. Also, I only meant to point out that your statement is incredibly triggering to women who cannot have children and, to a lesser extent, women who choose not to have children.

Freud's theories were, at the time, quite groundbreaking. We should respect him because of that. However, he, and his theories, are not infallible. Both his and Darwin's theories have since been reevaluated and edited.
Posted by curlysiren on September 3, 2010 at 6:18 p.m.

****Hi curlysiren, Your last post was a much friendlier tone. Look, my mother was one of the first feminists in my small community of Mt. Carmel of the 1950's eleven miles up the road from Yale. That's MORE than half a century ago!!!!! Her feminism looks pale by comparison with today's feminism, but we are talking about a woman who wore slacks when to do so raised eyebrows about "lesbianism"; who drove a seatless, stand-up ten ton truck (with a five-gear floor-stickshift) , in an emergency to get plumbing supplies for a plumber, reluctant to abandon a metaphorical dyke he was plugging against a plumbing-flood at our house; a woman AND MOTHER who got a job when I was 14 because raising children was driving her crazy with boredom; who refused to sign a despicable neighborhood petition protesting African Americans moving next door to us in 1961 in our split-level WHITE neighborhood in West Woods and INSTEAD brought a casserole over to their house the day they moved in as she always did to welcome new neighbors on moving day. (My mother didn't give a damn what people thought.) Small but powerful examples of EGALITARIANISM to an impressionable child who adored his mother (moi). My point? I'm WITH you not AGAINST you.

But give me the benefit of the doubt and a little breathing room---I'm probably old enough to be your grandfather!! PK****
Posted by theantiyale on September 3, 2010 at 8:36 p.m.

Theantiyale:
I was never trying not to be friendly. I am also not trying to jump down your throat. I understood in the first place that you understand and respect feminists; I just didn't agree with your point. I respect where you're coming from, and while I can learn from those older than me, those older than me can learn from me as well.


Thank you for sharing about your mother. That was truly very interesting. I love hearing about people who stood up for what they believed in, no matter what.



Posted by curlysiren on September 4, 2010 at 1:21 a.m.

Thanks curlysire,

The reason I post here is I DO LEARN from the give and take of challenging assumptions. Age has zero to do with it. Attitude is the msot important factor, whther 19 or 91/

It's a lot more authentic and intense on the YDN posting-board than the NYTimes posting-board for example which is a bunch of stuffed shirts with ZERO give-and-take. Although I gotta say the new YDN website's posting board format has LOST its ZING .

All the home-made headlines are GONE and the username looks like the "ingredients" section on a Hershey Bar with about as much visual impact.The little genderless shadow-cameo-icons look like Monopoly pieces without their color or charm.

The whole thing is washed out, standardized and cookie-cutter eye-monotony compared with the previous posting-board. WHAT WAS YDN THINKING?

I'll keep an eye out for your username. And thanks for getting past the "disgusting... closeminded...and ... condescending " reaction.

Be well,
PK
Posted by theantiyale on September 4, 2010 at 1:41 a.m.

.. link text



PS: The mother of my childhood (1940's/50's) lived at a time when a man could beat his wife with impunity for not being "ladylike".

Wearing slacks, driving a ten ton truck with stand-up gear shift, clutch, breaks and accelerator, and defying racism DEFINITELY WERE NOT LADYLIKE. See her photo in link above. Unfortunately, she's in a dress!

PK
Posted by theantiyale on September 4, 2010 at 2:43 p.m.permalinkeditsuggest removal..


The Yale Daily News


Brodsky: A serious need for casual feminists



I came to Yale sure I could retire from my role as an angry feminist. I had stumbled across my political inclinations accidentally in my early schooling; I was a bossy, opinionated kid, and couldn’t quite figure out what being a girl had to do with anything. Gender equality struck me as such an obvious, logical necessity and I was sure Yalies would all be on board, so I could redirect my attention to more interesting problems.

However, my first few days proved me wrong. After the old “Sex Signals” workshop — which has thankfully since been changed — one classmate expressed confusion as to why it was OK for a girl to change her mind about sex after taking off her shirt. In Econ 111, I was rejected by two all male problem-set groups. In the Davenport dining hall, I was told that history was determined by great men, and maybe women just didn’t have it in them. I had come to Yale to try on a million different hats, but I found myself forced into an old one, shouting in vain — often literally.

This is a disappointing memory I share with many Yale women and one which I suspect many freshmen will soon carry as well. Unfortunately, it was also no exception to the pattern of subtle, ingrained misogyny, veiled by an air of enlightened liberalism, that I have continued to find for the last two years — a status quo that is both inherently harmful and which lays the foundation for more serious, dangerous sexism.

However, I strongly believe that this need not be the case for the next two. And for this, I turn to the class of 2014: We need you to be casual feminists.

Such a rallying cry might sound anticlimactic, but a large population of individuals each claiming a small stake in combating campus misogyny is exactly what we need. Of course, Yale must have its diehards, and I encourage all freshmen to run for the board of the Women’s Center, join a member group, write for publications like “Broad Recognition” or “Manifesta,” and contribute to discussions about reforming the University’s absurd sexual assault and maternity policies (columns for another time).

But those of you who will probably don’t need my encouragement.

The rest of you have just as important a task: Speak up. Women and men of the class of 2014, protect your friends who are targeted, and call out the insensitive. This doesn’t have to be dramatic; you don’t have to make a sign, change your attitude toward shaving or become a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major. If your entire class keeps an eye out for each other, sticking up for those affected by prejudices based on sexuality or gender, you can make Yale a safer place while debunking the myth of the separate feminist species.

Why do we need to move towards universal ownership of feminist concerns? First, when we leave all the shouting to those who are most offended, the point is easier to ignore. If a casual feminist called out classmates making sexist remarks in the dining hall or sitting around a common room, the disrespectful friend would likely reconsider his or her action. Yet currently, often everyone is silent or the token feminist at the table is forced to take on the responsibility. And when a message from any source becomes repetitive, it fades into white noise. This is particularly true at Yale, where the feminist is seen as a separate type of student, with a concrete wall dividing those who take on the title and those who do not. It is disturbing to see the number of students who genuinely support women’s rights but, because they don’t fit the stereotype, are reluctant to brand themselves as feminists.

The second reason such a shift is needed on campus is that the Women’s Center has better things to do with its time than wage dining hall war. I am not a member of the board and cannot speak to its views, but have as much a stake as any student in its functions. Clearly, the subtle sexism of Yale students is dangerous and requires a response. But seriously, we live in a crazy world and dedicated individuals shouldn’t feel they have to waste their time destigmatizing campus feminism when there are more pressing problems facing women at this school, in New Haven and around the world.

I must admit that, in addition to these two reasons, I hold another hope for this atmosphere of casual feminism at Yale. Fighting for our rights is about expanding opportunities, but for feminists on this campus, it can sometimes seem like each time we speak out, our options are narrowed. Class of 2014, you should be able to forge whatever identity you choose. Your concern for women’s rights should not limit your activities or predefine you in your classmates’ eyes. If everyone does their part in combating misogyny at Yale, feminism can be just another perspective students bring to all corners of campus, rather than a characteristic restricting young men and women to specific circles.


Class of 2014, if you start early, it can be done. We’re counting on you. Casually.

Alexandra Brodsky is a junior in Davenport College

* Yale Daily News Penis Removed by Digital Software Sword

September 7, 2010
Letter to the Editor
Yale Daily News

Dear Editor:

 OK I admit I was wrong. The damn new posting board IS BETTER than the old one. Why am I so resistant to change?

 Paul Keane

PS I still hate the little Monopoly men.
_____________________________________________________


 Letter to the Editor
The Yale Daily News
(for publication)

I was delighted to read in the email edition of YDN today that the Daily News had renovated its 19th Century building, which I have long admired as a native of New Haven.

I posted a comment on that article this evening of 9/2/10, and an hour later the article was removed from the YDN digital edition. I won't even speculate on the possible reasons why it has mysteriously disappeared from the YDN digital edition this evening, where it had been all day.

Here is the substance of what I said: The Daily News may have done a fine job in renovating its edifice and making it shine, but it has done a poor job in renovating the YDN website, which is rather washed out, if not downright dull in its new digital incarnation.

The posting board, which used to permit signing-in with a caption which had a zing to it, has abolished that feature entirely.

This amounts to creating a newspaper without headlines, an inexplicable act of journalistic self-mutilation, apparently dictated by the new website's softwear, which also accompanies every post with a genderless, shapeless shadow-cameo icon similar to a plastic Monopoly piece (all made of ticky-tacky?) standing rigidly at attention like obedient soldiers on the left-hand margin of the posting page, forming a stack of soldier-icons standing one on top of the other from the top to bottom of the posting page. Zeig heil!

In addition, the mandatory sign-up for posting rights automatically places one's user-name uniformly at the end of every post much like the ingredients in a Hershey Bar and with about as much impact.

The result is a cookie-cutter, standardized, visually monotonous, graphic hypnosis: exactly the opposite of what journalism schools preach about laying out a page to attract the viewer's eye with graphic variety and peppery, pithy headlines, catch-phrases and designs.

Intended or unintended, the result is a POSTING BOARD WITHOUT HEADLINES which puts the eye of the viewer to sleep.

Nice job of journalistic self-castration YDN!
What a pity.

What ever were you thinking?

Paul Keane
M. Div. '80

PS
Like all institutions (especially those run by males) I am sure you are incapable of admitting you have made a MISTAKE, especially after you have signed the check for X -years contract with a software company. I will bet my shoes you will even find a way to brag that this monotonous digital nightmare contraption of a posting board is actually an improvement. So much for institutional self-adoration.

* Does Your Mouth Do Your Thinking?

 Ancient human sacrifice (panel 3) in the Orozco mural at Dartmouth's Baker Library (ignore lights at top of first photo)

A famous French articulatory mold (with companions)

Mouthy
(reply to a friend)


Thanks for sending me this New York Times Magazine (8/28/10)article "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" , D------ [see excerpts below].


I'm sure it's especially fascinating for you as you raise S-----: They say that having a baby and raising it ( there's that  insidious genderless pronoun !) forces you to re-imagine the world.


I disagree with the "rotating coordinates" postulation. In the exact same hotel situation I always say to myself FIRST, "How fascinating that this room is the mirror opposite of my room". In other words, I rotate it in my mind, BEFORE I relax into using it. And as a former apartment superintendent with 88 identical paired units on opposite sides of single hallway building, I have plenty of experience with this phenomenon.

I would like to know what the Peruvians (who point through themselves as if they were invisible) think about death and immortality or better, about flesh and life.

Recall the Inca human sacrifices at Machu Picchu----depicted in some of that huge mural by Orozco in the Dartmouth reading-room? Maybe an "invisible" body has no reality for them so murder (and cannibalism) have no reality?

MORE fascinating to me (as a former speech major at Ithaca College), and not
mentioned in this article, is how the SHAPING of the words exiting your mouth
( by adjusting your articulatory mold: glottis; epiglottis; roof of mouth; teeth; tongue; LIPS) may shape your attitude toward romance----- and war.

French (and unless you have tried to speak this lanuage you will not know it) FORCES you to shape your mouth like a KISS, over and over and over again. 

German forces you to shape your mouth as a weapon in violent configurations, almost as if it were a grinding, crushing, hacking, packing, slicing machine.

(Compare for example Eine Kleine Nachmusik with Petite Musique de Nuit  or gersundheit with à votre santé .)


What might a lifetime of creating such shapes thousands of times a day do to a human mind?

Have fun re-imagining the world with your beautiful three-year-old D------.


Thanks for the article.


Paul




Excerpts:


Does Your Language Shape How You Think?


By GUY DEUTSCHER
New York Times

Guy Deutscher is an honorary research fellow at the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at the University of Manchester. His new book, from which this article is adapted, is “Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages,” to be published this month by Metropolitan Books
Published: August 26, 2010


. . .
While we are trained to ignore directional rotations when we commit information to memory, speakers of geographic languages are trained not to do so. One way of understanding this is to imagine that you are traveling with a speaker of such a language and staying in a large chain-style hotel, with corridor upon corridor of identical-looking doors. Your friend is staying in the room opposite yours, and when you go into his room, you’ll see an exact replica of yours: the same bathroom door on the left, the same mirrored wardrobe on the right, the same main room with the same bed on the left, the same curtains drawn behind it, the same desk next to the wall on the right, the same television set on the left corner of the desk and the same telephone on the right. In short, you have seen the same room twice. But when your friend comes into your room, he will see something quite different from this, because everything is reversed north-side-south. In his room the bed was in the north, while in yours it is in the south; the telephone that in his room was in the west is now in the east, and so on. So while you will see and remember the same room twice, a speaker of a geographic language will see and remember two different rooms . . .

Nor is it easy to speculate about how geographic languages affect areas of experience other than spatial orientation — whether they influence the speaker’s sense of identity, for instance, or bring about a less-egocentric outlook on life. But one piece of evidence is telling: if you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself. In fact, he is pointing at a cardinal direction that happens to be behind his back. While we are always at the center of the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant. . .

As strange as it may sound, our experience of a Chagall painting actually depends to some extent on whether our language has a word for blue. . .


In coming years, researchers may also be able to shed light on the impact of language on more subtle areas of perception. For instance, some languages, like Matses in Peru, oblige their speakers, like the finickiest of lawyers, to specify exactly how they came to know about the facts they are reporting. You cannot simply say, as in English, “An animal passed here.” You have to specify, using a different verbal form, whether this was directly experienced (you saw the animal passing), inferred (you saw footprints), conjectured (animals generally pass there that time of day), hearsay or such. If a statement is reported with the incorrect “evidentiality,” it is considered a lie. So if, for instance, you ask a Matses man how many wives he has, unless he can actually see his wives at that very moment, he would have to answer in the past tense and would say something like “There were two last time I checked.” After all, given that the wives are not present, he cannot be absolutely certain that one of them hasn’t died or run off with another man since he last saw them, even if this was only five minutes ago. So he cannot report it as a certain fact in the present tense. Does the need to think constantly about epistemology in such a careful and sophisticated manner inform the speakers’ outlook on life or their sense of truth and causation? When our experimental tools are less blunt, such questions will be amenable to empirical study. . .

For many years, our mother tongue was claimed to be a “prison house” that constrained our capacity to reason. Once it turned out that there was no evidence for such claims, this was taken as proof that people of all cultures think in fundamentally the same way. But surely it is a mistake to overestimate the importance of abstract reasoning in our lives. After all, how many daily decisions do we make on the basis of deductive logic compared with those guided by gut feeling, intuition, emotions, impulse or practical skills? The habits of mind that our culture has instilled in us from infancy shape our orientation to the world and our emotional responses to the objects we encounter, and their consequences probably go far beyond what has been experimentally demonstrated so far; they may also have a marked impact on our beliefs, values and ideologies. We may not know as yet how to measure these consequences directly or how to assess their contribution to cultural or political misunderstandings. But as a first step toward understanding one another, we can do better than pretending we all think the same.

* Burning Ideas

Hot Topic: Minister's "Burn a Koran Day"

The same country whose Supreme Court says free speech protects cross-buring as expression, also saw The Catcher in the Rye burned in public places in the 1950's as a symbol of public outrage at its "corrupting" influence on the young (and maybe the old too).

This same country, The New York Times reports today, has produced a Florida evangelical minister who has announced his intention to burn Korans in public in what he calls "Burn a Koran Day."

The ghost of Florida's Anita Bryant and her orange-juice drinking anti-gay campaign of the 1970's still stalks Florida's flatlands.

Academia is not exempt from this extremism.

 Does anyone recall the 1969 cross-burning on the porch of a Cornell University African American house which resulted in the armed take-over of Willard Straight Hall by Black United Students?

Or the debate at Yale in the 1970's over allowing a "scholar" to speak who claimed that African Americans were inferior thinkers because of the smaller size of their craniums?

What a goulash (or ghoulash) of contradictions America is.

* Royal Flush

Thornton Wilder's home: "The house The Bridge built"

The late J.D. Salinger's toilet (not shown above) is for sale on eBay for 1 million dollars.

J.D. Salinger's secluded home in Cornish, NH

Holden Caulfield first popularized the reverse-brim hat-style in 1949, not Michael Jackson in his moonwalking 1980's.

Forbidden photograph of J.D.


Selling Literary Thrones

In 1976 (age 31) I was struggling to make a living in New Haven as a grad student at Yale Divinity School. I worked as an apartment superintendent for which I received free rent and a stipend.  I did  odd jobs (lawn mowing, painting) and I had a real estate license.  I sold two houses in a year for a total of $900 commission: Not much.

However, I showed dozens of houses and got to know the area from the inside out.  One of the houses I showed was the home of the recently deceased (1975) author, Thornton Wilder, 50 Deepwood Drive in Hamden, Connecticut, literally 100 yards from the New Haven town line.  Wilder had dubbed it "the house The Bridge built" because it was built with profits from his 1928 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

It's a cliffside dwelling which snakes up a hill:  garage on the first level, then two levels above it. The terrace has a spectacular view of New Haven. Tallulah Bankead, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many other famous people partied there. Some say it was modelled after Goethe's cottage.

It has a lot of single bedrooms for family, but the showpiece is Wilder's panelled study over the garage.  Not that it was luxurious or beautifully decorated: simply that it was the site for nearly half a century where Wilder worked on so many famous manuscripts yet to come.

The author's lifelong companion and sister, Miss Isabel Wilder, then 76, told me after I showed the house, that she didn't understand what buyers expect. "I think they expect to see golden toilets" she said, referring to buyers' reactions to the fact that a famous author lived here for almost fifty years.

Well, golden toilet aside, the news has just flashed this bulletin in 2010:

J.D. Salinger's Used Toilet for Sale on eBay


Updated: Monday, 23 Aug 2010, 7:42 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 20 Aug 2010, 5:56 PM EDT

(NewsCore) - If you’re a J.D. Salinger fan and flush with an extra $1 million, one of the items featured on eBay Friday will give you a personal connection like no other: His toilet.

Yes, his toilet.
SEE THE EBAY AD >>>


“J.D. Salinger Personally Owned & Used Toilet Commode” blares the headline, next to a picture of a very ordinary looking white porcelain toilet, followed by the perhaps unnecessary line: “Here’s an item you won’t come across everyday!

The seller, located in Winston Salem, N.C., says the toilet, dated 1962 under the lid, is from Salinger’s home in Cornish, N.H. and “will come to you uncleaned and in it's (sic) original condition.”

And that’s not all: It will come with “a letter from Joan Littlefield. Her and her husband are the new owners of Salinger's house and are the ones who had the toilet removed and replaced.”

The reclusive Salinger, perhaps best known as author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” died in January at 91.


“When he died, his wife inherited all of his manuscripts with plans to eventually release some of them! Who knows how many of these stories were thought up and written while Salinger sat on this throne!” trumpets the description.


The toilet is priced at $1 million, although any potential buyer can also make a “best offer.” The auction ends September 4. And there’s free shipping in the U.S.

* Eye Soar: Good Graffiti

Point/Counterpoint

Guest Post

A colleague and friend allowed me to post  here this adventure he recently had with his son. Its first incarnation was as a letter-to-the-editor of our local paper.


PK

Letter to the Editor:


My son Jacob is your average 18-year-old boy, in many respects: restless, impulsive, edgy. He craves excitement and danger; he takes risks that make me crazy. He drives too fast and jumps from too-high rocks into the Ottaquechee River. Jake drives a beat-up Saturn that he chose to spray paint so it looks like a blast from the 60s, adorned with flowers and peace signs. He's gangly and often loud and he likes to wear his pants so you can see his underwear. If he weren't my son, I'd be likely to label him as many others have done in recent years, as a punk, a troublemaker, a druggie.


One other thing: Jake is an artist with a predilection for spray paint. Uh-oh.


So there you have the stereotype. No wonder he was reported to the police when he was seen, bandanna covering his mouth, spraying his art work under the West Hartford bridge, committing, as he was initially charged, with criminal mischief. Write him up, process him, slap him with a fine and community service, make him paint it over--serves the vandal right. Right?


But some elements of Jake's case defy the stereotype under which the police were mistakenly laboring. First, the bridge support which he used for his palette had already been spray-painted with ugly, artless profanity. He covered it over with a colorful, playful, G-rated mural of a dinosaur. Second, Jake sought and obtained permission--he called the Hartford Police Department, who then referred him to the town highway department. Someone there, after hearing Jake's proposal, told him to "go for it." Trouble is, no one will own up to giving this permission now. Admittedly, I am biased. I believe my son when he tells me he got permission, but any savvy reader would ask, "How do you know he was telling the truth?" Unfortunately, our phone's caller ID record doesn't go back far enough to obtain the number he called. The police haven't yet returned my query about their record of calls. However, my son makes a very good point. If he didn't feel he had permission, why would he have been committing this act of "criminal mischief" in broad daylight over a series of several days? He never tried to hide because he felt he had nothing to hide.


Thankfully, after several tense hours of discussion with the police, Jake is no longer facing criminal charges. I am grateful to the Hartford Police Department for putting this incident in context and going beyond the stereotype. However, the matter has been referred to another agency where Jacob and a representative from the highway department will meet. This could result in a judgment forcing Jacob to, at the very least, paint over his work.


I urge two things. First, to the person at the town highway department who spoke to my son, giving him permission--come forward. Second, to everyone: Go see the mural Jacob has painted under the West Hartford bridge. Bring your kids, your grand-kids; they'll enjoy it. Weigh in with the highway department. Let them know, before this meeting takes place, if you think what Jacob created is an act of vandalism perpetrated by some "rebel-without-a-clue" teenager, or actually an improvement to what was there before. Vandalism or spontaneous community service? Help the highway department decide.


Alan Haehnel

Reaction from RR

You know, Paul, I'm amazed by your friend's defense of his son's vandalism. Because that's what it is. If he painted the mural on the side of your house would that be alright? As we old farts say, "in my day" my mother would not have taken my side in defense of my mischief. These kids who spray paint public buildings need another outlet for their creativity. No one has the right to do it and no one has the right to give "permission" to do it. Whether it's good or bad has nothing to do with it. By the way, all of the graffiti I have seen, no matter how good it may be deemed,  is like all tattoos, still just bad art.


Am I starting to sound like a Republican?

Well written, anyway.

RR

Alan Responds

Well, RR, you accurately characterize yourself as an "old fart," and by referring to yourself that way, you are at least partially acknowledging that your opinion comes more from unreasoned obeisance to petrified personal preferences than from logic.

 Your claim that my son's painting was vandalism seems to be based on two criteria: first, that it was on a public building and second, that it was created with spray paint.

To the first point: Surely you've been to cities where intricate murals grace public buildings. These works were not merely done with permission; they were commissioned. Vandalism? And since when does a particular medium patently disqualify something from being legitimate? Calling everything created by spray paint vandalism is tantamount to saying any sound created by a harmonica must be just noise. Surely music can't come from such a gauche instrument!

Finally, while I like your comparison of graffiti to tattoos since they both have a rebellious, underground feel; while I personally dislike most graffiti and I particularly dislike tattoos, I would never be so arrogant as to dismiss all of these creative expressions as "bad art." Who has that right? I teach my students that a truly educated person is able to appreciate something he doesn't personally like. I am sorry to say that you seem to fail in this regard.

Ultimately, however, my son and I are both gratified that you have an opinion about what he created. Art should provoke a response. This did. Thank-you for sharing yours.



Respectfully,
Alan Haehnel


By the way, if Jake had asked me if he could paint the mural on the side of my house, and if I had said yes, then of course it would be all right.

* facebook: the town-meeting of the digital colonies

No Yuks for Zuck

So Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old billionaire Harvard graduate and founder of facebook, doesn't like The Social Network, a film about his digital creation, because it depicts him as human: Ambitious, power-seeking.


Worse things to be accused of.


At first I ignored facebook.

Then I opened a page just for the heck of it. I use it mostly to advertise this blog, The Anti-Yale and my latest posts.


Recently though, as I've added friends to my wall (which I admit I have done VERY sparingly), I've been surprised and comforted by small interactions with people I haven't seen in years.


An even more endearing feature has been the creation of albums. I put 75 photos in one album for my nephew to look at and he started tagging them. Since he has lived 3000 miles away from my East Coast world all of his life, this was a kind of virtual old time "flipping through the album together" type of experience.


And then, surpise of surprises,  facebook becomes a 21st Century Society Page for the Egalitarian World : My nephew announces his engagement on facebook and sends photos to the world of the  bride-to-be and the ring, within hours of the presentation event!


I found this very satisfying.


In short, I'm a facebook convert and now fan----whether or not it feeds Mr. Zuckerberg's ambition and thirst for power.

BTW----an NPR program today credits facebook with starting a South American protest movement, getting Betty White her hosting gig on Saturday Night Live,  and with breaking the real facts about the horrific fate of New Orleans' residents after the government's incompetent reaction to Hurricane Katrina.


Facebook may already be the town meeting of the digital colonies.


Who knows what it may become as we continue to erect On-line realities? (So long, that is, as the Net remains egalitarian and democratic: An avenue of freedom.)

And that, I believe, is Mr. Zuckerberg's true ambition.

PS
   A colleague who has a facebook page cannot access my page and I cannot access his page, even though other people access both of our facebook pages with no problem.  Could it be because he has Apple apps and I have Windows?  Any help would be appreciated.