Tuesday, December 16, 2003
I'm on break
See you sometime in the future.
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Wow, fake news
Check out this editorial from The Chron. Blah blah, cutting disabled services are bad blah blah. But:
"The governor's plan also would suspend the Lanterman Act, the disability-rights law that has been a national model for 34 years. It requires the state to provide support services that allow people with disabilities to live independently."
Provide support services that will allow them to live independently, eh? I must come from an older school of English, where we use a different definition of "independent."
In gardening news, there are vines in my garden which are self-standing, because they are attached to the roof with string.
Also, in the chem lab today, I discovered that combustion occurs spontaneously at room temperature if I increase the temperature.
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Thursday, December 11, 2003
Wow, real news
Berdahl has picked the new dean for Boalt hall, Christopher Edley. While The Chronicle changed it for their website, in the paper version, the headline reads "Black Appointed Dean of UC Law School." It turns out Edley is a big fan of affirmative action, and if this article is any indication, he is now a beneficiary.
According to the article, there is little to be said about Edley other than that he's black and supports affirmative action. Says Berdahl:
"I chose him because he is absolutely outstanding. He is a leader in issues related to social justice and has written some magnificent books on issues related to affirmative action and is concerned about civil rights and immigration, all of the issues that are important in California and nationally."
That's great. Now, does he have any qualifications that would make him a good dean of the law school? Apparently, the only thing Edley plans to bring to the law school is his pet civil rights research project, and perhaps more blacks. Says one of the excited students:
"We think that he would be a great source of support for diversity. It is important to have a spokesperson who is very knowledgeable about the subject."
I agree. You should hire him as the spokesperson for the Coalition for Diversity, not as dean. The dean is not the spokesperson for the students, he's an administrator for the school.
On the other hand, it doesn't look like Edley's been screwing any of his students, so that's a big plus.
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Tuesday, December 09, 2003
It's election day
I think. Or maybe not. Anyway, SF is electing a new mayor. You really ought to judge a candidate by who he surrounds himself with. Take these Chron images:
Nice job there, Newsom. That's a hot wife. Meanwhile, Gonzalez has:
Right. Well. I think the decision is clear.
On the other hand, Newsom looks like he lives the secret life of a serial murderer, while Gonzalez just looks kinda' drunk.
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Sunday, December 07, 2003
So sue me
GradAss wants to sue. If they don't win in negotiations, out come the lawyers.
First, a prediction: GA is going to get every one of their demands. Not out of any righteousness or justification, but just because the university has no real motivation to stop them.
Second, "Stupid things Jessica Quindel says":
"If you limit what someone can spend money on, you are limiting free speech." Yet you seem to support the concept of taxation. How do you feel about campaign finance reform?
"As a student government, we are not a social club." Wow. Looks like GA spokesfolk don't have enough words to go around, eh, Mo?
"We are there to be political." Actually, you are there to shut up whining students who want things. Perhaps you are there to represent students' interests, both politically and non-politically. If you think your role is merely that of being political, you've got one hell of a narrow view of student government.
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Friday, December 05, 2003
Play the "I am self" card
Michelle Meyers is telling it like it is. Or not. For the rest of this post, though, I'm just going to call her "Ms. Black" because that seems to be how she wants her identity perceived.
Regarding Devin Andre's well-played comment about "underrepresnted bitches," Ms. Black declares that "It’s just another racial slur." Underrepresented is a slur, people! Be careful! Nevermind that folks like Ms. Black seem to beg us to think of them as "underrepresented." She uses the "slur" four times.
[I]f we continue to let such insensitive flippancies... slide from our elected leaders, we accept these leaders’ irreverence for political consciousness.
So? We should be irreverant of political consciousness. "Political consciousness" doesn't even mean anything.
On an individual level we have to change the way we think about each other and the way we perceive our individual responsibility within the system. Changing the system starts with a collective understanding of what the system is and how it’s self-operated and perpetuated.
On an individual level, we need to reach a collective understanding... umm...
As the only black writer for the Daily Cal this semester, I accepted the responsibility of representing the black voice and educating readers about controversial racial issues.
Wow. I hope black folks know that they don't have any individuality anymore. Ms. Black seems to be speaking for all of them. And they all seem to agree about exactly the same things. Or, alternatively, Ms. Black is full of shit when she says she can speak for an entire race. The "black voice" is nothing. Every individual has a voice, and Ms. Black's voice is her own. If blacks agree with her, it's on an individual basis, not as a racial collective.
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Ha!
There's almost an infinite amount of "Ha!" today. Something's bound to get left out.
However, I'd like to commend Goatmilk senator Adnan Iqbal for being both eloquent and concise in relaying the truth about the ASUC. "Right now, we suck."
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Thursday, December 04, 2003
Disgraceful!
David Mourra is a disgrace to engineering students everywhere. He just doesn't get it. The superiority of engineers over humanities folks is not a real function of job-finding ability, it's a matter of perception. We are better than them because we study engineering, and they study stupid pointless things. That's all there is to it. By attempting to rationalize our superiority, he's falling into the trap of humanities, and should be ousted immediately from the college of engineering so he can take up philosophy or something, where questioning the way of the world is appropriate.
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Oh, those crazy activists
Today's candlelight vigil brought to you by: People who hate haters.
Will you people please stop throwing around the word hate? "Hate is bad!" "I hate hate!" You folks are just as guilty of hating things and people as anyone else.
"Move sexist, get out of the way."
Move sexist? Like, move towards sexism? Move in a sexist direction? That's how "move North" or "move liberal" work. Way to suck and punctuating chants. I hope they didn't really chant it like that.
"Nobody elected you to be sexist"
Slow down there, protest folks. How do you know? Do you know everyone who voted for him? If I had known he was going to be sexist, I would've voted for him first.
But the sexist label here is so out of place. He called someone a name. That's not sexist. It's name-calling. Sexist would be "Shut up, you underrepresented bitch, this is why women shouldn't be allowed to hold office."
Andre's comments are also being called racist. Why? He called Layug "underrepresented"? If calling someone from a minority "underrepresented" is racist, most of the damn university is racist. They call themselves underrepresented. That was the whole joke of it.
"My sole fear is that if this action goes unpunished, it will allow for more aggressive instances and acts of hate."
Umm. What? "For the crime of not committing a crime, you will be punished because if we don't punish you for not committing a crime, it allows for crime." Yes, I understand.
FREE WEED! finally does something productive, though: "You’re not going to fight hate by having this counter-hate against him."
Even Dean Kenney and Chancellor Bob got in on the fun. Says Bob: "We have to be very careful as a campus to see to it that speech doesn’t incite others to acts that would qualify as hate." What the devil are these people talking about? "Qualify as hate"? There's not a list of criteria that makes something hate. If it's hate, it's hate, if it's not, it's not.
And is this really candlelight vigil material? "And so, we must be vigilant that no one ever says something mean to anyone else ever again." Good luck with that, folks.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Strike three
Kevin links to reports that the strike has been averted because of some tentative agreement. Stand by for both sides to come out declaring a victory. Of course, the university's "victory" will be something to the effect of "We're glad that we were able to resolve this issue in a non-disruptive manner" etc.
By the way, if any Daily Cal folks are reading this, this might be one of those things which deserves a mid-day update on the website. You know, because students have to plan for Thursday, when the strike was planned for.
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Aha! Now that's justice
I dunno if it's been there all day, but walking home from the library today, I noticed, chalked on the ground between Sather Gate and Wheeler Hall:
"Shut up, you underrepresented bitch."
Student Action ASUC senator Devin Andre
Approximately. There was also a phone number, which I didn't bother to write down. I dunno what the number's for. If it's a home phone number, some CalSERVEr's going pretty low, even for CalSERVE. Not that I'm suprised, though, as we know CalSERVE has such elements that'll think they're doing something good or just by generally being assholes.
Oh well.
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003
What a dork
I'm not a big fan of gun control, but I'm also not a big fan of anti-gun control nuts. (The nuts only, you hear)
Take Gary Gorski, anti-gun control lawyer, showing off his sniper rifle. First of all, don't show off your guns. It's really not that cool, and practically screams "I'm compensating for something." (Check out the length of that thing)
Secondly, if you want to make the case, as he does, that:
"The rounding up of guns from private homes, facilitated by gun registration, leaves families defenseless against burglary, gangs, violent civil disorder, and terror, unless they have exceptional wealth or hold high office.''
it would make a little more sense to show off a handgun or shotgun or something. (Shotguns rarely even need to be loaded to scare off mischief) Honestly, what would you need a sniper rifle for? "Oh, I think I see a burglar coming from 400 yards!"
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Slow news ahead
So the big news is, of course, the dead guy. I didn't know him, nor did I ever experience him in any fashion, so there's not a whole lot for me to say.
But here's something you'll not see every day: The University's opinion on the strikes. The university rarely publishes its position on anything, so to see them make a case in The Daily Cal should raise alarm bells for the pro-union folks.
It does look pretty grim for the union on the negotiating side of things. It's kind of hard to argue that sympathy strikes aren't strikes. And I don't see what the union wants them for. Are they really willing to sacrifice students for the ability to make pointless political statements? They expect us to back them up? And a neutral ground for grievances? The union doesn't even want anything, what do they need neutral ground for? The academic senate is far from anti-grad student, anyway.
Curiosly, in "Students weigh in on upcoming GSI strike," note how the two critics of the strike are seniors, and the supporter is a freshman. Someone hasn't been here long enough to actually notice what is being said instead of just hearing the word "strike" and thinking "They're being oppressed!"
“I think it’s smart because they are going to strike during a very important week, which puts more pressure on the administration.”
Pressure on administration: none
Pressure on students trying to secure a future for themselves: slightly more than none
Good work, lads. (Although using "lads" is probably inaccurate. This kind of whining: "Oh, why won't you listen to me?" "Fine, what do you want" "Oh, nothing, I just want to make you suffer" is a lot more womanly than anything else.)
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Monday, December 01, 2003
End my confusion
If you've ever looked at the wall of the Free Speech Movement cafe, you'll notice on the far left a woman. This is the only woman you'll see on the wall, so she's probably just the token female. (I couldn't find the token black person) While her expression looks "I just lost my boyfriend/crush" sad (for an example, see the Daily Cal's picture associated with its spectacular piece "Silence, Wishes and the Torment of War."), her sign sends the angry message:
End Cal's Shame.
Give Free Speech Now.
But wait a second. Presumably, "End Cal's Shame" has the subject "you" and is addressed to the audience of external observers. But the subject they want free speech from is Cal, so the subject of the second sentence would have to be Cal. But that, too has a subject of "you", which means the two halves have two different subjects, both described by "you." That's just bad English.
Further, "Give Free Speech Now" looks to be severely lacking in an object for "give." Do they mean "Give us free speech now"? "Give squirrels free speech now"? "Give Free 'Speech Now' brand condoms to everyone"? Hmmph. And they called themselves educated.
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Of all the opinions
Of all the possible GSIs from all the possible fields The Daily Cal could possibly question about the strike, they ask a philosophy graduate student. And while Socrates Jr. is out "weighing the moral impact," your average Joe is thinking in entirely different terms, specifically "Does my sense of duty as a teacher outweigh my sense of loyalty to the union." Put this way, it becomes infinitely more clear why the union's failure to communicate with the GSIs beyond hate-filled "The University is evil" rants has a huge impact on the success of the strike.
Any GSI who sacrifices teaching her students because she wants to engage in "sympathy strikes" and have some "neutral ground for negotiations" even though her pay and benefits are perfectly acceptable is a disgrace to teaching. If I hear one striking GSI call herself a teacher, I'm going to explode. Part of being a teacher is sacrifice. You sacrifice your freedom to act and speak as you please in order to teach your damn students. It's not a game, like this bullshit. If you are a teacher, you have a duty to teach, even if it means you don't get to make political statements whenever the hell you feel like it.
Pop quiz: What happens when the Labor Contract Negotiators' Union goes on strike?
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