A quote for the day

... Don't waste too much effort in searching for conspiracies. Most of the harm done in the world is out of stupidity, not by design. Be on the watch for skulduggery...but don't fall into the trap of thinking that every evil thing that occurs in the world in part of some diabolic master plan. The notion that whatever is wrong with the world can be blamed on somebody (never, of course, one's self) is a rather infantile carryover from the childhood days when our parents were thought to be all-powerful and therefore all-responsible.

     + Gerard K. O'Neill, 2081 (1981)

a striking book cover, Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities

Preparing to post some old photos on Facebook, I've had to re-trace forgotten moments, i.e., before having a child - back when we entertained and attended lectures. There were some photos from a reading or lecture by Joan Nestle, who I haven't thought of in ages. (See what parenthood does!) And that is what unblinking led to this seemingly innocous entry. via joannestle.blogspot.com

More book info:

reviews

citation

DNA Pioneer, Suspended Over Racial Comments

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog brings us old news from the UK where the October 14, 2007 The Sunday Times Magazine displayed more than we wish to know about how Doc Watson thinks.

But, a few days later he goes on to assure us, he didn't really mean what his words said:

To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly,” he said. That is not what I meant. More importantly, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.

Early onset... Or, perhaps, he needs a better keeper.

Street Mathematics vs School Mathematics

I love what I know of the mathematician Keith Devlin -- aka The Math Guy on NPR's Weekend Edition -- who is a researcher at as well as the executive director of Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. Here are two good reasons for my adoration:

1. His October 2007 "Devlin's Angle" at MAA Online wherein he adds fuel to my qualms about school math in

   Kinds of Math

2. Mathematics, the Science of Patterns The Search for Order in Life, Mind, and the Universe. New York: Henry Holt, 2003.

By the way, yesterday I finally saw Danica McKellar's Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail which I only wish also came out with a boy-cover....maybe I'll design one to print up so I can try using it w/J. Check out a review at MAA Online.

someone on the "social graph"

Or, as he says, let me declare the problem statement, as I see it, and the underlying assumptions I've been making.

The someone is Brad Fitzpatrick whose company developed LiveJournal and its backend software all of which were purchased by Six Apart.

Soul Sides: my fav audioblog

Trying to explain to C the source for a song that she was grooving on...I was listening to Soul Symphony, the downloadable mix of some Asian guy's first soul/jazz/funk mix CD...I realized how little I really knew about DJ O-Dub. So I went and read his bio only to discover that I probably have heard (maybe, even read) him without knowing given the breadth of his portfolio. Also, he maintains Poplicks.com. And, his day job -- like that of many of my St. A's siblings I envy -- is professor. But, I should probably check out the parenting blog in which he's involved Rice Daddies.

A cultural transliteration: Harry Potter to the 'hood?

Is that even practical? Readable? A possible answer resides in one Troy CLE.

Now, I offer a long intro en route to the point...

As a black kid who grew up in that lap of all that is black and soul-identified -- Memphis, TN, I left as a Jethro Tull loving folkie it is only fitting that I'd remain at the margins with a list of Eurocentric literary favs that include classics such as Stendahl's The Red and the Black, Thackery's Vanity Fair and anything penned by a Bronte sister. Epic and dramatic, and I'm enthralled; see Mario Puzo's The Godfather: Parts I (1972) and II (1974) but NOT III (1990) which was pretty much ruined by the director replacing Winona Ryder with his daughter Sofia Coppola. (And, who knew she'd blossom into a decent director.)

I also loved the Arthurian tales as captured by TH White's The Once and Future King and Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon. Yep, just another little brown girl with a classical education; I didn't resist what I was fed even as I now flirt with the margins. So while I love mythology having a child makes me more fond of fractured tales and re-tellings such as Eve Merriam's Inner City Mother Goose.

I think I may have attempted The Hobbit when younger I never cozied up to LOTR although Peter Jackson's films have a similar place in my heart as the books I've mention.

To further elaborate the odd outsider theme... I am a child of the sixties who today is a reformed pessimist with a soft spot for dystopias and disquieting utopian visions -- the ususual suspects: Brave New World, Farenheit 451, Solyent Green, and Gattaca; also add Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. (And, I still wonder how I got here from back there...a midnight train from my reality (?).) But, I digress.

Somewhere along the path, I discovered Samuel Delany, still in his SF days; I still love the sound of the first one I read Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. And much later found Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy which led me to her Patternists series.

But I was a reluctant late arrival to the Harry Potter band wagon; I enjoyed the series despite their unevenness always reading the book before seeing the film. I think it was book #6 that I mused about what would it take for a fiction book to have that level of appeal to urban youths with whom I work and see where I live.

Of course, JK Rowling's books already appeal to those kids who do read big long books yet I wondered about what might populate a story with a broad appeal AND have the vibrancy of actual flavors that feel their eyes and ears daily. Few names came to mind; ok, one -- Nalo Hopkinson who I still haven't managed to read but know I should. If I push my brain, I think of a few others I might imagine taking that plunge: Neil Gaiman, China Mielville, Pat Cadigan, Harryette Mullen, Colson Whitehead (ne Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead), Don Byron, directors Julie Dash or Kasi Lemmons.

And finally, we arrive at the point...
The simple truth is the epic tales I love on screen or in print never have faces with complexions close to mine or the kids with whom I've worked. So I was delighted to learn about Troy CLE who has laid out plans for The Marvelous World series which has its own website and has been described as the "black Harry Potter". And, if we're to believe the hype The Marvelous Effect combines elements of fantasy, science fiction, hip-hop, video gaming, NASCAR and anime.

NOTE: Episode #327 of PBS's NOW is where I saw the author in early July when I began the original draft for this post.

this just in from Threat Level @ Wired Blogs

Security Researcher Wants Lube Maker Fined For Privacy Slip.

There are just so many delights in the headline even as I pity those affected by this April 2007 FUBAR. Among the 200,000 suffering are the San Franciscans so dramatically showcased here in the researcher's own Yahoo maps mash-up of the addresses that were sent a nice wet package of Astroglide.

All these tidbits, and more, available from Christopher Soghoian, an Indiana University School of Informatics grad student by day, and possibly a true masked superhero by night.

One social scientist thinks that Facebook | Myspace mirror class divisions in US society

So the question of the new generation isn't Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?. Instead it's why are the well-off on Facebook and the subalterns* on Myspace. See a working draft of the paper:

boyd, danah. 2007. "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace ." Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24. http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html

^*"N.B., My use of subaltern is not kosher; see term's coverage in "Glossary of Key Terms in the Work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak". Regardless of the proper usage, the reason for its use here relates to the Indian critic Gayatri Spivak who borrowed "...this term from Antonio Gramsci to describe dominated, subordinated and marginalized groups especially those who are doubly oppressed, such as colonised women." [from www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/critical%20concepts.htm]

Related:

• How to Rent a Negro

What exactly is Abt?

C. has worked for one company for more than ten years. And, that company is Abt Associates, Inc. Often, the people I expect to have heard of it haven't (e.g., a school principal) and those I'm not expecting to have (random soccer parent). When queried about her job, I usually say something about it being a think tank/consulting firm then make some joke about Halliburton largely because both companies pulled staff out of the Middle East around the same time. (A more apt big comparison -- based on consulting sectors -- would be Booz Allen, McKinsey & Company or Westat; or, a small comparison would be the similarly Cambridge, MA-based Goodman Research Group, Inc.) Well, here's the marketing blurb, I found in recent news about the company changing its ISP:

Abt Associates, a private, employee-owned company, applies scientific research and technical assistance expertise to a wide range of social, economic and technological policy issues; international development; clinical trials and registries; and complex business problems. Founded in 1965, Abt Associates provides services to U.S. federal, state and local governments; foreign governments; international organizations; foundations; and business and industry. Its staff of over 1,000 is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Bethesda, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina, Chicago, Illinois; and in Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Beeman leaves for U of MN

On any college/university campus there are always those profs whose classes you never take but you end up knowing them by reputation and/or domain. So into that Brunonian pool I can't put political commentator Darrell West whose poli sci course I tooked (if not finished) or Barrett Hazeltine in whose "gut" Engin 9 I fumbled and managed to pull a C. (Note: "guts" aren't easy if you have zero interest in the topic! And, perhaps if I'd paid more attention I'd be another B-entrepeneur instead of unemployed.).

Other profs that come to mind include Ken Miller, a biologist now more commonly known for being a religious (Catholic) scientist than for having attended many of the same Brown women's basketball games that we did. Same with public policy prof Ross Cheit who along with his wife Kathleen Odean, a librarian, were at the same games. (BTW, she's also the author of Great Books for Girls (1997) and Great Books for Boys (1998).)

There's also Thomas F. Banchoff, a mathematician much noted for his dimensional lectures involving a little old book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions which may arrive at a cinema near you! Or public speaking aficionado Barbara Tannenbaum whose kids I once babysat and now are old enough to be in high school and college. (Heck, they may have graduated from both by now!) While a professor in Brown’s Department of Theater,Speech, and Dance, Tannebaum was much involved in women's politics at the campus level as well as locally including being a consultant to a range of political hopefuls.

Since I realize now that politics has become a theme here, this headline seems sad news for Brown, if not Minnesota:

Frustrated with Middle East studies program, longtime prof. leaves Brown.

Bill Beeman is another who I seem to recall being a professor whose political voice was a standout in a less disinterested way than the intentionally apolitical academic. For a deeper drink from the Beeman faucet, here's some archived op-eds and his blog:

• on why Colin Powell should resign
• Understanding Osama bin Laden, 2001
• Wisdom from Phil: Bush is in trouble, 2002
• Culture and International Affairs