Thinking it Through

WTF: Technology Edition

I'm teaching 2 online sections of FYC for the first summer session. And teaching online means using BlackBoard (unless you're versed in some open software LMS, which I am not). I've never been a fan of BlackBoard; it's not really designed for writing courses, it's the most unstable software suite I have ever had to work with, and it's not at all intuitive. That's especially true of version 9, which my university in all its vast wisdom launched 6 days before the beginning of summer classes. Sure, they'd run a pilot of the program, but there were only 9 courses or 9 instructors (can't remember which) in that pilot.

Now we're at the end of the second week of the first summer session, and more often than not, BB has been down or parts of it inaccessible. So in a 5-week course as fast paced as it is compact, too much of our time has been spent dealing with BlackBoard troubles.

Here's the current system health report--it hasn't  changed since yesterday afternoon:

Now, I've been teaching this course the past few summers, so I have the pace and materials pretty much set, and that means most of the work now is reading and responding to student work and the avalanche of email that fills my in box each day. Most of the email I receive is asking questions about information I have painstakingly detailed in various places, but I digress.

These outages have not only been frustrating, but they have also screwed-up my course plans. And in a 5 - week course, there is very little if any time to revamp. Take yesterday for example. My students posted their first papers by 9:00 pm on Thursday. I was planning to grade them yesterday and today, but instead I spent an hour on the phone with the help desk only to have the case referred to the folks at BlackBoard. The problem is this: I cannot access the grade book which is where I have to go to download their papers. The grade book won't load in Firefox; it will load using Safari, but clicking on download the files to retrieve papers results in a 404--information cannot be found--error message.

So, what the hell am I to do? I need to get these papers graded and back to students so they have some indication how they did, and they need this before their second paper is due, which, by the way, is this coming Friday.


And so it goes.

Footage BP Doesn't Want Us to See

I am so angry and so overwhelmed by the devastation in the Gulf that I cannot find anything coherent to say. BP is doing everything in its power to prevent us from seeing what's going on in the waters of the Gulf and on the shorelines of Louisiana, Alabama Mississippi, and Florida. They've established No Fly Zones and are keeping researches away from the area. There are dead animals--primarily birds, but also Turtles, fish, dolphins--in and out of the water, and now we know the oil is likely to spread over the Atlantic.

Lives, livelihood, habitats, ecosystems, and the like are being destroyed, and the destroyers don't want us to see the devastating results of their greed.

Voices of Reason and Support for Diversity Prevail

Yesterday I wrote about a mural on the wall of a local Prescott, AZ school--Miller Valley Middle School--featuring the "portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure" had been the focus of much racist discourse and was being altered to make the faces on the mural appear caucasian.

Well, I am pleased to report, today, that the principal of Miller Valley Middle School, Jeff Lane, and the Superintendent Kevin Kapp admitted "they made a mistake and apologized for their decision to lighten children's faces on the mural"; they told a boisterous crowd that the mural would be returned to its original form that honors the diversity of the students at the school.

Let's hear it for the protester who spoke out against Miller's decision and who stood for diversity over hate:

I am so pleased to be able to write about something good happening in Arizona.

Could this be the beginning of more protests against the racists who have crawled out from under their rocks to spew their hate? Doc aptly identifies them as cockroaches. Maybe this is the beginning of their extermination.

One can always hope, and this story gives me the opportunity to do just that.

Thanks you Prescott protesters.

Prescott, AZ: Racists Freak Over School Mural

Today, Wonkette directed my attention to a most disturbing story in the Arizona Republic. A mural on the wall of a local Prescott, AZ school--Miller Valley Middle School--featuring the "portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure has been the focus of much racist discourse and is now being altered to make the faces on the mural appear caucasian.

Much of this hate has been ginned up by Steve Blair, a Prescott City Councilman and local radio talk show host. The AZ Republic quotes Blair as having said the following during one of his broadcasts:

"To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"

Blair had mistaken the middle portrait of a Latino child to be that of an African-American boy, but that's not the point. He's a hateful racist bastard. Although he refused to comment on the issue when asked to by the AZ Republic, they located the following in the archives of his programs:

"Personally, I think it's pathetic," he says of the portrait. "You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn't exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I'm ashamed of that."

Well Steve, you certainly ought to be ashamed . . .ashamed of yourself and all the others who harrassed the artists while they were painting the mural. As one of the artists noted,

"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said. "We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

I don't think I can say it any better than Wonkette:

Hard to find even the Gallows Humor in this story, so maybe we won’t even try. Maybe it’s time to admit that large chunks of America are in the hands of unreconstructed racists and vulgar idiots, and that the popular election of a black man as president just might’ve pushed these furious, economically doomed old white people into a final rage that is going to end very, very badly.

She continues:

Remember where you were, when you could still laugh about teabaggers and racists and Arizonans, because funny time is almost over. If the unemployment keeps up — one in five adult white males has no job and will never have a job again — and people keep walking away from their stucco heaps they can’t afford and the states and cities and counties and towns keep passing their aggressive racist laws to rile up the trash even more, shit’s going to very soon become very bad, and whether it’s the National Guard having wars in the Sunbelt Exurbs against armies of crazy old white people who are finally using their hundreds of millions of guns, or whole Latino neighborhoods burned to the ground the way the Klan used to burn down black neighborhoods a century ago, we are in for a long dark night and no light-colored paint is going to fix that.

Amen, sister.

Beyond Reproach

Clearly the current governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer and many of those in the Arizona state legislature are mean spirited, hate filled, racists driven by the fear of what they see as the southern brown-skinned hoards rushing the border. What they fear is the inevitable: white people will soon be the minority. As a US Census Bureau report indicates, between 2000 and 2006 latinos accounted for "one-half of the nation’s growth," and the growth rate for latinos "(24.3%) was more than three times the growth rate of the total population (6.1%)." Even their most draconian laws can't stop that trend, especially because Arizona isn't listed among the top 5 states experiencing the greatest increase in their latino populations.

But now, as TPM reports, Gov Brewer has a new plan: murdering those crossing the border illegally. Seems she has decided if she can't arrest people looking for a better life, she'll kill them. Certainly I have found her recent actions abhorrent, but even in my most paranoid moments I never imagined she would go this far. Her request that President Obama deploy unmanned armed vehicles to patrol the border between Arizona and Mexico is tantamount to murder. Why else request the use of unmanned drones that are known to be responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent civilians in their present theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan?

If you think I am overstating the case here, I ask that you recall Brewer's April 30, 2010 claim that

Arizona has been under terrorist attacks, if you will, with all of this illegal immigration that has been taking place on our very porous border. […] The whole issue comes back, that we do not and will not tolerate illegal immigration bringing with it very much so the implications of crime and terrorism into our state.

Listen for yourself:

To suggest Gov. Brewer is morally bankrupt would be an understatement. She is clearly driven by a kind of hate that rationalizes murder as border protection. At this point, there is nothing other than gender that separates her from former Gov. Wallace or from Bull Connor.

There come times in this country's history when we must recognize the hate and evil that drives some as a national problem. We did this most recently in the late 1950's and 1960's, and as a result congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Although President John F. Kennedy initiated the legislation, he did not live to see its passage.)

Now is such a time. The actions of Gov Brewer, Rep. Russell Pearce, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and others like them cannot be allowed. What kind of nation are we if we sanction the arrest and murder of those coming across the border in search of a better life? Yes, we are a country of laws. But we should also be a country that differentiates crimes of necessity from other types of crime. Illegal border crossings are almost always driven by a desire to find honest work that means one can provide for one's family. We should be a country that, while recognizing its futility, does not allow the "American Dream" that brought so many of our ancestors to this country become tantamount to terrorism.

Write to, email and call your state and US legislators telling them now is the time to address the issue of illegal immigration and the time to do so with the recognition that many of those who are here illegally are long-standing members of our communities; are law abiding; are tax payers; are essential to our economic recovery. Write to President Obama, to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and to Speaker Pelosi and tell them this as well.

Now is the time.

Blowback's a, Well, it Rhymes with Pitch

I predicted SB 1070 was going to bite the state in the ass, and I wasn't alone in that prediction. All it takes is a little common sense to understand the relationship between undocumented workers and the economy. But apparently the AZ state legislators who passed SB 1070 and the governor who signed the bill into law were more than willing to put racism over economic well-being.

First, there are the boycotts that have and will continue to result in the loss of millions the state sorely needs.

Second, the prevailing notion that AZ is stuck in the 1830's isn't all that attractive to potential tourists, so our tourism industry is taking a big hit.

Third, as this rather poor quality video from CNN indicates, businesses are now seeing the effects of a worker shortage with so many undocumented workers going elsewhere.

Leave it to racist, subhuman, xenophobic, hater Russel Peace to lay it on the line: he'll reluctantly agree to use the labor and tax money of "those" people, but don't for a minute think he won't make sure they know they're not welcome. I'd like to see him work as a farm laborer for a day and try to survive on that income. Of course, the heat and labor would likely kill him. Oh my, now wouldn't that be a shame.

It's Ok to Have a Shot; It's Not Ok to Take One

Think Progress reports that yesterday Tennessee Governor. Phil Bredesen (D) vetoed a bill that would have allow "the state’s gun permit holders to carry their firearms into bars, nightclubs, museums, zoos, and other establishments that have liquor licenses." This is the second time in two years that Bredesen has vetoed a “guns in bars” bill. Last year, the Tennessee State legislature overroad Bredesen's veto, but a "court later struck down the law on the grounds that it was 'unconstitutionally vague'." In his veto message, Gov Bredesen noted more than once that gun rights need to be exercised with"common sense."

That sort of common sense could be found when Janet Napolitano was governor of Arizona; she vetoed a similar bill; this past year, however, common or any other kind of sense was missing when GOP Governor, Jan Brewer of AZ signed a law allowing anyone with a concealed weapons permits to take a handgun into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. Thankfully, the law states bar and restaurant owners who want to ban weapons on the premises must post a no-guns sign next to their liquor license, and, of course, most have.

Yes, bar and restaurant owners know what Janet Napolitano and the Governor of Tennessee know: "guns and alcohol don't mix." Unfortunately, Governor Brewer has no common sense; in fact, it's not clear she has any sense at all.

The Wild, Warped West

Yesterday the Los Angeles City Council voted 13-1 yesterday to "approve economic sanctions against Arizona" (no business trips, contracts, or any financial actions w/the state) until the anti-immigration law is repealed. Councilman Ed Reyes said, “As an American, I cannot go to Arizona today without a passport. If I come across an officer who’s having a bad day and feels that the picture on my ID is not me, I can be … deported, no questions asked. That is not American.’’ No Councilman Reyes, it is not. Please know there are people in Arizona who are outraged by this and other recent actions the governor has taken.

My adopted state is a place where the lunatics aren't on the fringe anymore, they're running the government. Jan Brewer, who was appointed governor when Janet Napolitano was appointed Director of Homeland Security, is kissing the teabaggers' asses in hopes of being elected this November. Since January she has signed into law practically every insane and racist bill that Napolitano vetoed.

Napolitano was the one person who was in a position to keep the lunatics on the fringe. Now Brewer is drinking the tea and destroying the state in the process. Los Angeles is one of many cities, states and organizations that have decided to boycott the state. Los Angeles alone, according to MSNBC, "has investments and contracts in Arizona worth as much as $58 million, much of which involve airport, port and energy service that can't lawfully be affected by the boycott. That leaves about $7.7 million in city contracts that could possibly be affected . . . ."

LA City Council members are also planning to review the "city's investments and divestiture of any pension funds and bonds proceeds that could be invested in Arizona." And Councilwoman Jan Perry said "the city should try to lure any organization considering holding a convention in Arizona to Los Angeles, while Councilman Richard Alarcon suggested offering Arizona businesses incentives to relocate to Los Angeles."

I must admit I have mixed feelings about these boycotts. I am outraged that the most racist, hateful, anti-intellectual, morans are running this state, and I am appalled by the anti-immigration and other laws Brewer has signed. I understand why cities, states, organizations, and individuals want nothing to do with my adopted state, and I support the spirit of their actions. But I am also concerned that hard working, decent, kind people are the ones who are going to most affected by these actions. City and state employees--teachers, health care workers, law enforcement, fire fighters, and other civil employees will be laid off; class sizes will increase; people will not have access to the services they need. All the people who are employed in our tourism industry--maids, cashiers, taxi drivers, and others--will lose their jobs. Public pools, libraries, museums, schools will be closed. The list goes on. These are the people who will be most affected by these boycotts; not the the MFers running the state government; not the fat cats who fork out millions of dollars to ensure the state allows them destroy the desert, to pollute the air, the water, the land.

I hope, as I know all who choose to boycott the state do, that the loss of revenue will make those in charge rethink their decisions. But I fear it will fuel the zealots' anger and hatred of those they view as "outsiders."

In the meantime, I am writing letters, making phone calls, and doing what I can to right these wrongs.

For those who need a little cheering up as I do, here's the latest from Second City's Andy Cobb:

One Funny Lady

My time these days in taken up by paper grading, so I haven't had time to post. But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to showcase Betty White on this past Saturday's SNL. Following a Facebook campaign to get White as a host on SNL that generated a deluge of support, White's appearance was wonderful.

White's opening monologue, posted below, is one of the best SNL fans have seen in years. White is a comedic genuis, and her timing is part of what makes her so good. The audience and cast members showed White nothing but love, and that's the way it ought to be.

Enjoy!

This is Why Jon Stewart Rocks

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