WWW www.habermas.org

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: January 21, 2005
Latest Update: January 22, 2005
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Topic of the Week:

When Fish Fly
And Presidents . . . Well, Lie

Miko wants us to see Ground Control to Mr. Bush, on Truthout. Me, too.

"Ground Control to Mr. Bush
By Bernie Sanders
In These Times, left perspective magazine.

Thursday 20 January 2005

"The time for playing nice with corporate outsourcers and their enablers in government is over.

" 'There's a trade deficit. That's easy to resolve: People can buy more United States products if they’re worried about the trade deficit.'
- George W. Bush, December 15, 2004 (Emphasis added.)

"Reminiscent of the callous "Let them eat cake" reputedly uttered by Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, President Bush’s remarks show how out of touch he is with the economic reality most Americans face. Apparently, the president hasn't visited a shopping mall or Wal-Mart lately. If he had, like the millions of Americans who flocked to our nation’s stores this holiday season to buy toys, bicycles, computers, sneakers, clothes, telephones, cowboy boots (yes, Mr. President, cowboy boots!), even artificial Christmas trees and decorations, he would surely know that an overwhelming majority of these products were made overseas, mostly in China. . . . "

From In these Times By Bernie Sanders. Reprinted by Truthout.

And both Miko and I also want you to be aware of Greg Palast's column:

"OAF OF OFFICE
Thursday Jan 20, 2005
by Greg Palast

"Watching John Kerry lip-synch the oath of office, I couldn't help wondering, 'what if.'

"Here on stage in Washington was the winner-class warmed and protected by cashmere and tax cuts against the strange, nipple-chilling cold. Hell had frozen over.

"Our President said, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation." Well, no, it isn't.

"Our President said, "We will widen retirement savings and health insurance." No, he won't.

"Our President said, "America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains." Yes, he will.

"Our President said, "And our country must abandon all the habits of racism." Oh, sure.

He doesn't believe a single word he's saying. And all over America, everyone knows he's lying and America is truly relieved. "

From Greg Palast's Blog, Thursday, January 20, 2005. The Observer, of the Guardian Group. UK.

Yikes! My momma taught me that I should respect the Office of the President, and so I should certainly never call him a liar. Sorry, Momma, but what he's saying just ain't so.

But, you know, what goes around comes around, at least in some form of weirdness. Just as I felt most discouraged, I received this painting from John Faupel:

John Faupel's Screaming Pink
with the message that we were welcome to use it.

YES! That 's Inauguration Lies for me. All I had to do was put me in there for the face and look!

Fish Fly, And Teachers Cry, When Presidents Lie

Check out John Faupel's site. Lots of wonderful paintings with posters for sale. and the web-site is non-profit making, and has been established to support: Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace & Amnesty International. jeanne

Thank you, John Faupel.

And on lies and flying fish, please read Backup of Frank Rich's column on All the President's Newsmen
and Lies and Mercenaries? What Lies? Don't You Believe in Freedom?

NEWS, Announcements, and

Current Discussion Topics:

Jeanne and Pat think they took care of both Independent Study and Grade Corrections. Let us know if there are any further problems. Now I gotta get the syllabus and lectures up for Religion as a Present Social Issue. jeanne

Grade Corrections as of January 21, 2005.

Home Page for transform-dom You can read all the messages on Transforming Dominant Discourse from this page. Just click on messages in the left hand frame. You can read the messages, even if you're having difficulty signing up.

Home Page for transspan You can read all the messages in spanish on Transforming Dominant Discourse from this page. Just click on messages in the left hand frame. You can read the messages, even if you're having difficulty signing up. And you're welcome to put up messages for friends, relatives, community messages, who want to join the discussion but are not used to the computer. You can print the responses for them later. Make technology work for freedom and democracy

Home Page for Obesity Support

Instructions page for joining transform_dom and transspan

Link for joining transform_dom:

Click to join transform_dom

Ideas for the Spring 2005 Naked Space Exhibit:

• Winner in the things category of virtual * vision of
  WIPI (Women in Photography International) competition, "Decisive Moments:
  A Tribute to Henri Cartier-Bresson". Link through the IVSA list.

  Notice how the photograph captures meaning the eye cannot detect from the objects alone, but from their juxtaposition. Note also that you cannot read the photo as the artist intended without the title "Best Things." You could create a similar effectreadily with collage. And you could draw over the collage. As you consider going beyond simple painting or stick figures for the Spring exhibit, consider the importance of the juxtaposition of objects. We don't have to be literal. Allow the viewer to bring some creativity to the exibit also.

• Shaheen Brown has suggested a project for next semester's Naked Space Exhibit on Famous Blacks We Should Have Heard of, But Didn't. I'd like to suggest that that would make a great group project to which lots of us could contribute bits and pieces about those whom we do know, including some local people whose names we ought to recognize, and probably don't. I'd also like to suggest that we have the very same problem with Hispanic culture being revised right out of our local histories. Good idea, Shaheen. See Messge No. 2499.

  I've been thinking about this. I'd really like to see us do an section for the exhibit on famous black artists. Lots of people don't learn about them in school and don't know about them. Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Horace Pippin, James Vandersee, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and many, many others. If each of you would take on one painter, we could put up a nice exhibit that could maybe be kept in the sociology office, so students could become familiar with the work.

  
  Harmonizing, 1944
  Horace Pippin.
  From Slide Show on African American Art History

  See also The Columbia Chronicle Online

Jeanne's Lectures for Spring 2005

• Fall 2004 Lectures in Chronological Order
• Winter Break 2005 Lectures in Chronological Order
• Spring 2005 Lectures in Chronological Order

• Professional Activities with Students, Fall 2004 This version had to go in quickly. Some of you may want to help me develop it further by giving me brief summaries of where you fit in these activities. Reports are important, and we can make copies, so you can have one. jeanne

• Ellen Gallagher in her SoHo studio with her new work, "DeLuxe." Backup of Edward Lewine article in the NY Times on Ellen Gallagher, a black woman artist who has a new show at the Whitney and whose subject matter is the portrayal of the black woman. This goes to body image and race and the visual component of our understanding of race and gender. Lecture up soon. jeanne

• Never Retire William Safire's columnn on his retirement from the NY Times. Lecture up soon. Topic: What is retirement? Where does it fit into our script for life? And that will include race, gender, and aging. jeanne

• Lies and Mercenaries? What Lies? Don't You Believe in Freedom? Pulls together a number of reactions to the Inaugural Speech in terms of social construction of concepts like freedom, and the conflict between premodern and modern positions of fear and threat. Discussion questions up later. January 23, 2005.

• Lies and Mercenaries First lecture for Spring, trying to tie together disagreements with what was said at and about the inauguration's presentation of concepts and the reaction of many who disagree. Conceptual link to our religious beliefs, to agape, or the altruistic love of humans for themselves and Others, and the reality of some of the facts that are out there, on the Internet, but that do not appear in our media.Discussion Questions included. January 22, 2005.

Academic Support

• A Range of Sources on Global Events

  Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
  Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
  Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation
  BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
  Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
  Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report

  Indymedia - Mother Jones - BBC News - New Profile - KPFK Progressive Radio
  Progressive Sociologists Network Environmental Working Group

• Mentoring

  • Mentoring Help for New Students with Frequently Asked Questions
    
  • Mentoring Help for Returning Students with More Frequently Asked Questions
    
  • Shared Reading Suggestions

    Preparing for Graduate Study:

  • Test Prep Preview Joshua L. Stewart, recommended this site because it has free practice tests. If you're thinking of taking the GRE, the LAST, or any other graduate entry test, this might be a good place to gather some early information. Joshua suggested it for Praxis Practice, but a quick first look suggests they don't mean by praxis what we do. Check it out, anyway, if you have some spare time. jeanne

• Resource Literacy

  • Plagiarism Watch www.streetgangs.com site. The intelligent and effective use of resources means that you have to be careful not to plagiarize other people's material. We have several files on plagiarism, but I think the one that might make the most sense to you is this complaint on streetgangs.com. They give you samples of sites that have taken their material without citation, even at colleges, and they also give you examples of sites that have used their material with proper attribution. I find the irony poetic, and hope that their message will get through to you the importance of attribution. Dr. O'Connor on his Mega Criminal Justice site led me to streetgangs.com and noted that others frequently hack into the site. For that reason I have created a backup copy for your use in case you cannot access the actual site. Please be sure to attribute any citation to streetgangs.com. jeanne Backup.

Using Academic Language Effectively

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Search:

and Careers

• Resumes:

  • College Journal Resume Suggestions . . . Backup

• Letters of Recommendation:

  • Letters of Recommendation: How to get me to respond to your request. Many of you need letters. If you will follow this format, I can do them quickly and make them good.
  • Dog Letters If you do not give me adequate information, but do manage to get my attention, you may end up with a dog letter. That is a letter that says that you work well with people, that you are enthusiastic, that you persist at getting things done, and that everyone likes you. Of course, my dog gets along well with people, brings his ball to them, is enthusiastic, and persists at getting them to take his ball. Everyone likes my dog. That's a dog letter. It's so general it could be about my dog. jeanne

Play:

Candorville by Darrin Bell
• Miko Garcia called our attention to this comic in response to Lies and Mercernaries. What Lies? Don't you Believe in Freedom? The left perspective reads this trust for his love of us as ironic; the right perspective reads it as literal and truthful. Here we go with premoderna nad modern interpretations of two very different phiolosophical perspectives. jeanne

Sneaky Strokes and Flying Good Dogs

Flying Dog is also a painting by Zhang Kai. Best I've every come across to illustrate our site with magic numbers and unicorns and whipped cream cats and now, flying dogs:

Flying Good Dogs: Whenever something happens in class that works out well, that inspires you, that helps in studying, whatever, take a few minutes to send us an e-mail. We'll post it where all of us can learn from it, including other teachers.

You can also send an email to the Who to Take Site:

• Who To Take at Cal State Dominguez Hills
• Who To Take - Colleges in General

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