Electronic Writer

This is a response I received from a friend traveling in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit:

It was close, Tim, but I have survived and been rescued. Now back in Bangalore, heading to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow night. Minor injuries, broken foot, a gash in my leg and whole body seems to be one big laceration, but no infections. I am OK…details..

I was in Sri Lanka the eye of the tsunami and I have survived. Barely. I was in Unawatuna Beach, Sri Lanka for a few days in paradise. As it turned out, this was one of the hardest hit places and Sri Lanka was completely devastated. I had arrived the night before with two friends from Kandy and had a good rest. Early in the morning I ran the length of the beach and had returned to the guesthouse for coffee. At 9:10 AM on Sunday, December 26, I was sitting at a table on the sand with two Sri Lankan friends. And the nightmare began.

The first waves were small and simple and just didn’t make any sense. The tide should have been out. How could a wake like this come up and ruin my breakfast in paradise? It became clear that the waves were growing in a way not clearly understood, and very, very rapidly changing and growing. The third wave was the point at which we knew something was very wrong. The waves were picking up the beach furniture and throwing it at us. From there the intensity grew at a fantastic rate. All of us were washed out of the front door of the guesthouse, along with the food, flowers, furniture, shoes, wall- hangings, bottles, broken dishes, floor mats -everything was taken and thrown with the onrushing water.

I was carried across the road with all the flotsam and hurled into a small tree. The force of the water was so intense that I was pinned there until my friend Athula somehow tore me from the tree. From there we were separated and the power of the tsunami only increased. I was pulled underwater and trapped by the debris – huge chunks of concrete, trees and plants, and I was entangled in a cord of some sort. At one point it seemed certain that my last breath was taken. It was dark and I couldn’t tear loose of the debris. The same force the buried me somehow brought me back to the surface for one quick breath. Somehow I managed to get back to the surface and clawed my way among the floating pieces of furniture.

The fury of the inrushing water continued and as I spotted a tree trunk I grabbed hold and somehow managed to climb above the rising water line. At some point it became clear to me that I was out of immediate danger and that’s when I realized that there was someone calling at me. A German fellow was facing me at eye level from his second story window. Not close enough to get pulled in, but close enough for him to pass me a water bottle. I managed to spit out some of the saltwater taste and clear my throat. And breathe deeply for the first time in what seemed like forever. He then noticed that I had no shoes and handed me his sandals…I am wearing them now as they are my only shoes.

After some uncertain period, the water began to recede. That’s when the first bodies appeared, floating out with the receding water. The wail of mother’s who couldn’t find there children pierced the air and competed with the screams of the mothers who found their children dead. After climbing down, I looked for my friends and found them within 10 minutes – both were alive, both were ok.

We found higher ground, and that’s when someone noticed that I was bleeding. Seems there was a pretty good sized gash on my left leg. An Indian fellow went to find something to clean the wound and returned with a bath towel and a bottle of whiskey. He poured whiskey over the wound and felt for any foreign objects – and then tore the bath towel to form a tourniquet. The bleeding continued for quite a while, but didn’t seem major in light of the unfolding event.

I insisted on returning to my room to see if I could retrieve any personal belongings. It was very risky, but very productive. Most of the guesthouse had been washed away, but my corner room was still there – no windows, no door, and a heap of collapsed furniture – I found my shoulder bag, one shirt, one pair of shorts, my wallet, and my antibiotics. My suitcase was gone, all clothing, toiletries, shoes, camera, palm pilot – gone.

We went further uphill and found refuge in a guesthouse. Equipped for 20 people, there were 53 of us the first night. There was never a sharp word, the level of cooperation and kindness was reaffirming that we would survive. There was still fear, and sometimes panic, that another, larger wave might come. Fortunately we were safe – it’s just that we didn’t know it at the time. There was no news. No electricity, no phone. But there was a pure well and so we had drinking water and plenty of food.

On the second night we had word that the British High Commission was organizing two 40-passenger coaches to rescue us – as soon as the road could be cleared. At one of our regular community meetings to share what meager information was available, there was a request for someone to organize our departure. Finally there was something I could do – as the only American in the crowd, I immediately volunteered to develop a plan for our departure. It would be easy for me, remaining in one spot with my leg elevated to write out our escape protocol and organize the lists for the buses. We were overwhelmed when word reached us that the coaches arrived early on Tuesday morning. The departure was not free of problems, but we were able to get underway by about 10 in the morning, heading for Colombo. The drive was treacherous. More though, the devastation was gut-wrenching. Utter and complete devastation, mile after mile after mile. The pictures in the paper and on BBC cannot begin to describe the magnitude of this disaster.

I was able to get word out that I was safe via my friend’s uncle – he contacted my sister in Long Beach and the American Embassy in Colombo. But I didn’t know anyone knew I was safe until my sister was able to call through on my friend’s cell phone – a tearful, joyful call like no other.

After a 10 hour journey we reached Colombo. It is intact, by and large. I phoned the American Embassy and they came immediately to get me. An American family fed me, provided me with a place to stay, and a hot shower. On Wednesday morning the American Embassy and American Express Travel made arrangements to get me onto an already full flight from Colombo to Bangalore – that’s where I am now. Tomorrow night I will be heading to Kuala Lumpur to begin the new year.

I am OK, safe, and coping with the stress that follows a tragedy like this. I will be staying in Malaysia for the full time I originally planned, returning home just before the beginning of the new semester.

For me, the nightmare has ended. For the people of Sri Lanka, the agony will be long term. Please do whatever you can to assist in the relief effort.

This is my note: Here is a link directly to the Doctors Without Borders donation page. The majority of the money you spend (over 85%) goes directly to the program. Make your money count! http://www.doctorswithoutborders-usa.org/donate/

I’ll try not to be harsh, but there are some things that you have to worry about–the alarms should be sounding right now for women all over the United States. Last year, the current administration passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, right? This big, controversial law has some really scary elements to it–the US Government has written a law that denies you a medical procedure based upon a premise of morality. Regardless of whether you agree with the morality not, they have passed legislation against your BODY.

Modern feminists worry about the same things that old-school feminists worried about. Margaret Atwood wrote The Edible Woman more than 20 years ago, and we clearly have the same issues today.

The scary aspects of this surface in the details of the transaction of passing this law: the picture of the signing of this legislation has our President sitting at a table and about 8 or 9 guys standing behind him joking and giggling with one another as if they were waiting for a batch of chicken wings at HOOTERs, or something. Not ONE woman was on that stage to support that piece of legislation. And, it doesn’t matter–with or without women’s support, they signed it into law. It may be tied up in the courts, the language might be problematic problematic, and yeah, they will have a hard time enforcing it, but this legislation calls back to several other pieces of legislation that were problematic.

Ever heard or used the saying, “Rule of Thumb?” This actually was a british law that specified that it was LEGAL to beat your wife–as long as the stick was smaller than the diameter of your thumb. This was a LAW!!!

There was also the “Contagious Diseases Act” passed in England in the 1830s. This law allowed the government of a small harbor town to forceably detain and subject an unescorted woman to a gynecological exam–to ensure that she wasn’t passing contagious diseases to the sailors. The implications of this one are really incredible–as in unbelievable. The “unescorted” part implies that rich people didn’t have to worry about it–they would never leave their house without a driver or a servant, or someone. But the law made it so that male police officers could take a woman, make her go to a male doctor, who would then give her an exam against her will–more legislation against the body. (Side note: the tools of the time looked like something you would use in your fireplace)

Economically, England has been another forerunner of American gender politics. They passed the Right of Property Act in the 1860s. This law made it acceptable for a woman to own 10% of her original dowry if she was successfully granted a Divorce by British Courts. So, let me get this straight: she can legally own 10% of the money her dad gave to her husband for marrying her IF and ONLY if the courts granted her a divorce (a highly unlikely proposition in the 1860s). So, although it marked an improvement in the rights of the women, it really was still a dismall situation. Women were not allowed to own anything in British society. They could be in the care of their father, their husband, or an uncle, perhaps–but not in charge of themselves. (Factoid: This law inspired Ibsen to compose the play “Hedda Gable.”)

That myth that things are equal now is just that–a myth. Things are better than they were in the 1800’s the 1980’s, and the 1990’s, but the struggle has changed–not dissipated.

Feminism was given a bad name in America when bras were being burned in the late 70’s (Susan B. Anthony was a feminist, but she was never labelled as such–she was a “suffragist”). The highest profile people–the ones that made the news–were the extremists! The majority of feminist, however, are looking for equality in the workplace, in language, and in voice.

Although there are plenty of differences within feminism, what I studied, and my understanding of it goes like this: There are dominant groups, subordinate groups, and a place of intersection between the two–a shared space. The dominant group speaks louder than the rest–or has the final ruling when all is said and done (see the above example with the Partial-birth Abortion Ban, Contagious Diseases Act, Right of Property act, etc.). Feminism strives to give an equal voice to those subordinate groups. This is a continual process–not an epic battle, with peace in the land for all afterwards. Because there will always be dominant and subordinate groups, Feminists will always struggle to provide a voice wherever that voice is suppressed.

You don’t have to burn your bra to be a Feminist–you can look for embedded inequalities in our language and in our spheres of influence. When someone says”she’s just a girl,” they are reinforcing a stereotype that women are the weaker gender, or that women are overly emotional and not logical, or that women are not suited to work in business, etc. Don’t you want to say something? When someone judges you more by your physical appearance (Margaret Atwoods Edible Woman) than by your ideas or your words, don’t you want to say something?

I guess I could go on forever and, I just might have to . . . .

Poetry can contain elements of the self and self expression, but there is more to life–and more to poetry.

I gravitate towards poetry that pushes beyond the self and into something more: W S Merwyn, Pablo Neruda, Anna Ahkmatova, Federico Garcia Lorca, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and on and on.

The interesting point is the place of convergence–where you as a person meet and interact with the external world and other people. But just-the-self poetry is a solipsistic ride not meant for other people. I think this last week, someone was offended by criticism and said that it is fine if the reader doesn’t understand his/her words (it probably happened more than once). And, the author was correct: a self-expression of that nature belongs in a journal–a hidden file–certainly not for us. They were right in being offended–it was not written to endure criticism–it was written to sustain or express the self.

Hundreds of years ago, in Ireland, Kings feared the words of poets. The words of poets could cause action–and those same Kings believed that it could manifest reality. Pablo Neruda, a poet, was an Embassador for Chile to 15 different countries (France, Mexico, etc.) because of his power with language. Anna Ahkmatova could not be assassinated by Stalin because of the revolution it would cause in Russia because of her words. The link between language and power has always been clear–the people with the words were in power.

Today, language is still about power. If you lose your voice and your words, then others will speak for you and you will lose your power–a dangerous situation. A poem that is not meant to be seen is a waste of those words (unless it is practice). Even if your poem is about and for yourself, make it mean something. Make it part of a larger dialog about society, values, morality, punishment, torture, politics, sex, intimacy, inequality, happiness, struggle, whatever. It is extra work–it will require you to turn your brain on, and leave it plugged-in from here on out. It will require you to not only taste the emotions, but to struggle to understand them. But it is worth it.

I am saddened that poetry has been marginalized into a self-serving, self-help form of expression for “those artists.” The story of how our culture killed the power and even the words of Walt Whitman is terrible–and only one example of many. And, our words are next. We may be low on the list, but we are on that list. I want poetry to regain it’s prominence as a force to be reckoned with–I want King’s to fear the words of poets once more. We need to write poetry that matters about bigger things. We need to examine the world outside of ourselves and write poetry about it. We need to reclaim our place in history and in the discussion. We need to claim our power.

In order for any of that to happen, it will have to start with us–the poets.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been tinkering with the links on the site. At first, there was only going to be Liberal links. I feel that diversity is important, and I like to practice what I preach. So, I added some Conservative links. I figured at worst, “know thy enemy” is not a bad policy.

I started by adding them on an Idiot of the Week forum, but that was too negative. I may not like their veiws, but I do not need to deride them. Besides, I prefer sarcasm to rudeness.

I have added a Conservative Voices set of links as a result. The top dog in the list is a former Marine aviator–the only pilots in the military that complete Basic Combat Training–who is now a lawyer. He is well-informed, articulate, and his blogs are pretty interesting reading. For those of you who are a little squeemish, rest assured–he is sane.

There is also a new addition to the writing links this week: Fanatical Apathy. This blog is just downright funny. I found myself chuckling with his interpretation of Rumsfeld double-speak, and his history of Delay Rule writing (or re-writing). Very funny. Very funny.

If you have a link that should be added, post a comment and let me know.

Be warned. Be wary. We may live in a monosyllabic, singular, olive drab country soon. Although this may be similar to the “ditto-head” culture popular with so many Limbaugh-ites, it happens to frighten me. And, it may happen in the not-so-distant future. Our glorious comander-in-chief has replaced the leaders of the US Commission of Civil Rights with people who agree with him. Two more dissenters from within the Government have been removed and effectively silenced.

Why should we care?

This is a good place for an analogy. Let’s say that you are hungry and do not feel inclined to cook this evening. When selecting the restaurant you will patronize, you may consider a restaurant that serves Chinese food, or Mexican food. You may consider a drive-through, or a sit-down meal. You may consider how much money you have in your wallet. The point is–you have options.

Right now, in our very own government, our leaders are removing politicians and employees that appear to be voices of dissent. The executive branch is systematically eliminating program directors, scientists and experts from our government. And, this current story of the US Commission of Civil Rights is just another very poignant example.

let’s go back to our dining analogy. You are looking for a place to eat. This time, however, you have a new constraint. There are now no longer any Chinese restaurants. They were banned because the government does not like some of the ingredients. So, they passed a law, or changed the Constitution, or said that the sale of Chinese food was affecting Interstate Commerce, or something. But, you can’t go anymore. Restaurants can’t serve the stuff, and you can’t buy it.

The truth was that someone in the Administration felt that Chinese food was terrible for you. Or, someone from the Organization of Chinese Restaurant Owners angered a politician at a dinner party. Or, even worse, it could be retribution because many Chinese people are Buddhist, and unless they become Christian and accept the Lord, Jesus Christ, as their savior, they really don’t HAVE a place in our country! They belong in China with the other heathens of the world. Right?

Here’s were the analogy ends, and you have to step up and step in. Dissention is crucial to the world. When people disagree with you, it tests your arguments and ultimately makes them richer. You have to incorporate more diverse ideas into what you do or say. It may lead to more research, and it may lead you to change your opinion. The argument may also expose just how right you were. Regardless–the outcome makes you better.

Disagreements create better meetings, work groups, classrooms, products, friendships, news, relationships, policies, and yes, even better government. Keep people who disagree with you around–they will teach you things about yourself and your knowledge that you may never discover otherwise.

Ask your Senators and Representatives to encourage diversity in our government. Request or foster State and local diversity. Vote for politicians that you may disagree with, but who will be best for your neghborhood or country. Express your opinions with your loved ones–especially if you disagree.

If you do not bring diversity into our country, then you are to blame when we all have to eat bland, tasteless food, in some olive-drab mess hall catered by Haliburton.

Bush Replaces Head of Panel on Civil Rights

By JOHN FILES

Published: December 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 – President Bush sought to reshape the United States Commission on Civil Rights on Monday, announcing a replacement for its chairwoman, Mary Frances Berry, who has been critical of his civil rights policies.

Mr. Bush appointed two new members to the commission and designated one of them, Gerald A. Reynolds, as chairman. Mr. Reynolds, a former assistant secretary in the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office, will replace Ms. Berry, whose term expired on Sunday, according to the White House.

But, according to a report by The Associated Press, Ms. Berry contends that the leaders of the commission retain their positions until midnight on Jan. 21, 2005.

Mr. Bush also designated a current Republican board member, Abigail Thernstrom, to replace Cruz Reynoso, as vice chairman.

Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said of Ms. Berry and Mr. Reynoso, “The president appreciates their service; their term expired yesterday.” Ms. Buchan declined to discuss the matter further.

The open seat created by Mr. Reynoso’s departure will be filled by Ashley L. Taylor, a former Virginia deputy attorney general.

The president, who received 11 percent of the black vote in November, up from 8 percent in 2000, has had a strained relationship with the civil rights organization. Last week, Ms. Berry and Mr. Reynoso sent the White House a 166-page report highly critical of Mr. Bush’s record on civil rights. A cover letter told Mr. Bush that his civil rights policies “further divide an already deeply torn nation.”

Ms. Berry, 66, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has sparred with other presidents since she was appointed to the commission by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. President Reagan removed her from the commission, but she was reinstated after a lawsuit . Ms. Berry was also critical of the way Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida handled the disputed presidential election in that state four years ago.

The eight-member panel investigates civil rights complaints and reports its findings. It has no enforcement power.

Right Wing Eye

Jeff,

Your misappropriation of the details is grandiose enough to deserve my attention. After re-reading your opinion, I think you might win my coveted “Idiot of the Week Award”–normally reserved for bad blogs . . . . The core of your argument is that everyone is “Liberal” in Universities, and it is not representative of the real world. The rest of your editorial logically dissects the results of this “imbalance.”

Please don’t get offended if I use a kindergarten teacher’s tone. I think you are an idiot for not seeing these fundamental tenets. I’ll try to suppress it, but I will use 6th-grader language in order to reach you.

Let’s begin with the concept of the University. So, the University is a place where people go to learn. One primary reason for attending college is to make changes: to your own life, to figure out how to change/shape your future industry, to challenge your personal assumptions, and to learn how to think critically in the future. I have a very good friend who begins this argument with, “The definition of a Liberal is any person who seeks to change [. . . . ]” The institution itself is a place that fosters that change. The relationship between Liberals (seekers of change), and the University is a very tangible one. Perhaps there are 6 to 8% of students (to use your number) who are “Conservative” and already know everything. They might be attending University to simply get a paper degree that certifies their knowledge. The rest of the students, however, are there to learn.

In order to make my motives transparent, I must establish my biases. I am an academic who is no longer in academia. I work and live and get funded by my own business, and the fruits of my own labor. But, I vehemently (oooh, sorry, big word–means: aggressively) will defend the Institution of Academia and the role it plays and needs to play in our world. Another friend in Academia states to his students a very succinct definition of the purpose of Academia: “It is my job as a Professor to show you ‘Utopia,’ or the perfect-world version of our subjects. The real world already exists. It is up to you, the students, to find a balance between the two. If I were to teach you the ‘real world’ ways, you would certainly be skewed in how you translate the materials you learn here to the future world.” While you, Jeff, want the debate between Conservative ideals and Liberal ones to take place within Academia, I believe that is a recipe for disaster. The debate will certainly take place outside of the “Ivory Tower” for the remainder of your life, but if you never learn or practice the skills of questioning the fundamental tenets or your reality you will not have the ability to question any ideals–conservative or liberal.

Lastly, I have an economic argument to challenge your “alarms” that have sounded about Academia. Perhaps the reason why most of Academia voted for Democrats is the history that the party has for financially supporting Academia–and the history the Republican party has for NOT financially supporting the institution. I live in California and voted to recall former Governor Davis (a Democrat that supported Academia heavily), and I voted for now Governor Schwarzenegger because he was, in my opinion, the best leader for our state. One of the first ways that he trimmed the California budget, however, was to cut funding for the California State University system. The 21 campus system is no longer in an expansion mode–they are reducing the number of students they educate each year. Less American’s will have a college education as a result.

At a Federal level, our Conservative President or Ultra-Conservative President, or Extremist President, or whatever President has just recently made a HUGE cut in the Student Loan program. Again, a Conservative choice that is going to reduce the number of college degrees in the good ole USA.

Perhaps the Conservative agenda does not find a home on college campuses because conservatives do not want to pay for Academia. If University Professors use the same logic as the rest of the nation, they need to vote in a way that supports and maintains their economic well-being. Namely, if Academia shrinks, they might lose their job, or not get a raise for cost-of-living increases, or might not have as many students in their classes. If we were to zoom out and take a look at the grand scheme of things, perhaps the Liberal agenda on college campuses is not too dissimilar to the Conservative one in the rest of nation. After all, it just may be the economy, stupid.

This is an opinion/editorial republished in full from the Boston Globe.

A left-wing monopoly on campuses

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 2, 2004

THE LEFT-WING takeover of American universities is an old story. In 1951, William F. Buckley Jr. created a sensation with “God and Man at Yale,” which documented the socialist and atheist worldview that even then prevailed in the classrooms of the Ivy League institution he had just graduated from.

Today campus leftism is not merely prevalent. It is radical, aggressive, and deeply intolerant, as another newly minted graduate of another prominent university — Ben Shapiro of UCLA — shows in “Brainwashed,” a recent bestseller. “Under higher education’s facade of objectivity,” Shapiro writes, “lies a grave and overpowering bias” — a charge he backs up with example after freakish example of academics going to ideological extremes.

No surprise, then, that when researchers checked the voter registration of humanities and social science instructors at 19 universities, they discovered a whopping political imbalance. The results, published in The American Enterprise in 2002, made it clear that for all the talk of diversity in higher education, ideological diversity in the modern college faculty is mostly nonexistent.

So, for example, at Cornell, of the 172 faculty members whose party affiliation was recorded, 166 were liberal (Democrats or Greens) and six were conservative (Republicans or Libertarians). At Stanford the liberal-conservative ratio was 151-17. At San Diego State it was 80-11. At SUNY Binghamton, 35-1. At UCLA, 141-9. At the University of Colorado-Boulder, 116-5. Reflecting on these gross disparities, The American Enterprise’s editor, Karl Zinsmeister, remarked: “Today’s colleges and universities . . . do not, when it comes to political and cultural ideas, look like America.”

At about the same time, a poll of Ivy League professors commissioned by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture found that more than 80 percent of those who voted in 2000 had cast their ballots for Democrat Al Gore while just 9 percent backed Republican George W. Bush. While 64 percent said they were “liberal” or “somewhat liberal,” only 6 percent described themselves as “somewhat conservative’ — and none at all as “conservative.”

And the evidence continues to mount.

The New York Times reports that a new national survey of more than 1,000 academics shows Democratic professors outnumbering Republicans by at least 7 to 1 in the humanities and social sciences. At Berkeley and Stanford, according to a separate study that included professors of engineering and the hard sciences, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is even more lopsided: 9 to 1.

Such one-party domination of any major institution is problematic in a nation where Republicans and Democrats can be found in roughly equal numbers. In academia it is scandalous. It strangles dissent, suppresses debate, and causes minorities to be discriminated against. It is certainly antithetical to good scholarship. “Any political position that dominates an institution without dissent,” writes Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory and director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts, “deteriorates into smugness, complacency, and blindness. … Groupthink is an anti-intellectual condition.”

Worse yet, it leads faculty members to abuse their authority. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has just released the results of the first survey to measure student perceptions of faculty partisanship. The ACTA findings are striking. Of 658 students polled at the top 50 US colleges, 49 percent said professors “frequently comment on politics in class even though it has nothing to do with the course,” 48 percent said some “presentations on political issues seem totally one-sided,” and 46 percent said that “professors use the classroom to present their personal political views.”

Academic freedom is not only meant to protect professors; it is also supposed to ensure students’ right to learn without being molested. When instructors use their classrooms to indoctrinate and propagandize, they cheat those students and betray the academic mission they are entrusted with. That should be intolerable to honest men and women of every stripe — liberals and conservatives alike.

“If this were a survey of students reporting widespread sexual harassment,” says ACTA’s president, Anne Neal, “there would be an uproar.” That is because universities take sexual harassment seriously. Intellectual harassment, on the other hand — like the one-party conformity it flows from — they ignore. Until that changes, the scandal of the campuses will only grow worse.

But, you didn’t have to prove it. So, y’all failed my test, but it doesn’t really matter. I am gonna keep writing anyways. I guess that I am going to just have to get a little more caustic in order to illicit a response.

We Need Dialog

Now, more than ever, we need to keep interacting. The deadline is coming for the electors to vote. Kenneth Blackwell is not eveer going to tell us the results of the votes that were counted behind closed and locked doors. So, stay close and stay active. We have a four-year typhoon that is about ready to hit with Biometric Passports, electronic listening, and a further suspension of our personal rights. Do not be lulled into complacency by the media that can only report about their famous anchors retiring . . . .

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]