Bookshelf

[christophjohn]

First they came for the homeless

This was posted about the immigration issues. I applied it to the homeless. The homeless are losing possessions, and dying in the streets. That's number 8. The government is denying doing anything...

Immigration and homelessness

[christophjohn]

Rediscovering Bill Frisell this evening. Thanks to this terrific portrait by Emma Franz: https://youtu.be/zYOzmTfzp5U. 

[christophjohn]

upclassing housing policy in Berkeley

[konvolutes]

Opinion: The Bizarre Behavior of Turkish-German Voters - SPIEGEL ONLINE - International

A clear majority of Turkish voters in Germany cast ballots in favor of Erdogan's presidential system -- many out of spite for the country. The development reveals how far immigrants from Turkey still have to go before they will be integrated at the center of society.

Watching the referendum vote come in on BBC world news service, late in Athens on the jet-lag felt like a stone in my stomach. 

This is blowing my mind though.

“In the course of my reporting, many have told me that they had chosen to vote in favor of the presidential system because they felt they had been poorly treated in Germany. And that they wanted to vote "yes” because they knew how critically the majority of Germans view Erdogan and his plans.“

Is this really the driving rationale behind the Turks abroad in European Cities to vote Yes on the referendum (in contrast to the majority of urban citizens of Turkey who voted no)? 

[christophjohn]

Chancellor Dirks: The Yiannopoulos Event: Rights and Values

Nicholas Dirks Chancellor <[email protected]>

3:13 PM (3 hours ago)

to calmessages_co.

To the Campus Community:

The concerns around the upcoming visit of a controversial speaker to campus make it necessary for us to reaffirm our collective commitment to two fundamental principles for our campus. The first of these principles is the right to free expression, enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and reflected in some of the most important moments of Berkeley’s history. The second of these principles has to do with our values of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity – values which we believe are essential to making this university, and indeed any university, a site of open inquiry and learning.

While both these principles are fundamental to who we are and what we aspire to be as a community, we must at the same time acknowledge that at times these principles can be in tension with or even in opposition to each other. This sometime tension between rights and values is at the heart of the current controversy concerning the planned visit to Berkeley of Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been invited to speak on campus by one of our registered campus organizations, the Berkeley College Republicans (BCR). Like all student organizations, the BCR is a separate legal entity from the University, and it is technically the BCR, and not the University, that is the host of this upcoming event.

Mr. Yiannopoulos is not the first of his ilk to speak at Berkeley and he will not be the last. In our view, Mr. Yiannopoulos is a troll and provocateur who uses odious behavior in part to “entertain,” but also to deflect any serious engagement with ideas. He has been widely and rightly condemned for engaging in hate speech directed at a wide range of groups and individuals, as well as for disparaging and ridiculing individual audience members, particularly members of the LGBTQ community. Mr. Yiannopoulos’s opinions and behavior can elicit strong reactions and his attacks can be extremely hurtful and disturbing. Although we urge anyone who is concerned about being targeted by Mr. Yiannopoulos to consider whether there is any value in attending this event, we stand ready to provide resources and support to our community members who may be adversely affected by his words and actions on the stage (we will provide more detail about these resources in a subsequent message).

Since the announcement of Mr. Yiannopoulos’s visit, we have received many requests that we ban him from campus and cancel the event. Although we have responded to these requests directly, we would like to explain to the entire campus community why the event will be held as planned. First, from a legal perspective, the U.S. Constitution prohibits UC Berkeley, as a public institution, from banning expression based on its content or viewpoints, even when those viewpoints are hateful or discriminatory. Long-standing campus policy permits registered student organizations to invite speakers to campus and to make free use of meeting space in the Student Union for that purpose. As mentioned, the BCR is the host of this event, and therefore it is only they who have the authority to disinvite Mr. Yiannopoulos. Consistent with the dictates of the First Amendment as uniformly and decisively interpreted by the courts, the University cannot censor or prohibit events, or charge differential fees. Some have asked us whether attacks on individuals are also protected. In fact, critical statements and even the demeaning ridicule of individuals are largely protected by the Constitution; in this case, Yiannopoulos’s past words and deeds do not justify prior restraint on his freedom of expression or the cancellation of the event.

Berkeley is the home of the Free Speech Movement, and the commitment to free expression is embedded in our Principles of Community as the commitment “to ensur(e) freedom of expression and dialogue that elicits the full spectrum of views held by our varied communities.” As a campus administration, we have honored this principle by defending the right of community members who abide by our campus rules to express a wide range of often-conflicting points of view. We have gone so far as to defend in court the constitutional rights of students of all political persuasions to engage in unpopular expression on campus. Moreover, we are defending the right to free expression at an historic moment for our nation, when this right is once again of paramount importance. In this context, we cannot afford to undermine those rights, and feel a need to make a spirited defense of the principle of tolerance, even when it means we tolerate that which may appear to us as intolerant.

As part of the defense of this crucial right, we have treated the BCR’s efforts to hold the Yiannopoulos event exactly as we would that of any other student group. Since the event was announced, staff from our Student Affairs office, as well as officers from the University of California Police Department (UCPD), have worked, as per policy and standard practice, with the BCR to ensure the event goes as planned, and to provide for the safety and security of those will attend, as well as those who will choose to protest Yiannopoulos’s appearance in a lawful manner.

Like all sponsors of similar events, BCR will be required to reimburse the University for the cost of basic event security. Law enforcement professionals in the UCPD have also explained to the BCR that, consistent with legal requirements, security charges were calculated based on neutral, objective criteria having nothing to do with the speaker’s perspectives, prior conduct on other campuses and/or expected protests by those who stand in opposition to his beliefs, rhetoric, and behavior.

In addition, however, we have also clearly communicated to the BCR that we regard Yiannopoulos’s act as at odds with the values of this campus. We have emphasized to them that with their autonomy and independence comes a moral responsibility for the consequences of their words, actions, events, and invitations – and those of their guest. We have made sure they are aware of how Yiannopoulos has conducted himself at prior events at other universities, and we have explained that his rhetoric is likely to be deeply upsetting and perceived as threatening by some of their fellow students and members of our campus community. Our student groups enjoy the right to invite whomever they wish to speak on campus, but we urge them to consider whether exercising that right in a manner that might unleash harmful attacks on fellow students and other members of the community is consistent with their own and with our community's values.

Finally, we have also made the BCR aware that some of those who are opposed to Yiannopoulos’s perspectives and conduct have vowed to mount a substantial protest against his presence on our campus. UCPD has been directed to maintain public safety and to do what it can to prevent disruptions and preserve order. It should be noted that the anticipated cost of those additional preparations and measures will be borne entirely by the campus, and will far exceed the basic security costs that are the responsibility of the hosting organization. We will not stand idly by while laws or University policies are violated, no matter who the perpetrators are.

Nothing we have done to plan for this event should be mistaken as an endorsement of Yiannopoulos’s views or tactics. Indeed, we are saddened that anyone would use degrading stunts or verbal assaults on marginalized members of our society to promote a political platform. And yet, I would quote my colleague, UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman, who recently wrote that, “Universities support free speech and condemn censorship for two reasons — to ensure that positive, helpful, illuminating messages can circulate widely, and to expose hateful or dangerous ideas that, if never engaged or rebutted, would gain traction in the darker corners of our society. Hate speech is like mold: Its enemies are bright light and fresh air.” This admonition may be more important in our current political moment than ever.

As always, we encourage those of you who wish to exercise your right to protest this event to review our standing suggestions regarding how to protest safely. We also want to re-affirm our shared commitment to the campus Principles of Community and the extent to which they capture and support our most important values and aspirations.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Dirks Chancellor

[christophjohn]

Tamalpais Walking Pt. I

Diablo to the East, St. Helena to the North, Hamilton far South, and Tamalpais, the Western Mountain - four high points of the Bay.

A Passage from Myths and Texts describes the hike with his young love Robin

Walked all day through live oak and manznita

Scrabbling through dust down Tamalpais - 

Thought of high mountains;

Looked out on a sea of fog.

Two of us, carrying packs

“It made you feel remote from the city so quickly. . . close to San Francisco yet so far. Oceanic vegetation on one side, and then her was this Mediterranean scrub. The serpentine, the aromatic smells.”

Snyder’s shack named Marin-an

A walking world

a world that faded in the aftermath of WWII as the booming car culture took urban holidaymakers farther afield, while military remained in control of key ridgetop and coastal portions of the mountain.

“Rucksack Budhism” - a simple but engaged life, honest to compassionate ideals.

Marin-an

sun breaks over the eucaluptus

grove below the wet pasture,

water’s about hot,

I sit in the open window

& roll a smoke.

distant dogs bark, a pair of

cawing crows; the twang

of a pygmy nuthatch high in a pine - 

from behind teh cypress windrow

the mare moves up, grazing.

a soft continuous roar

comes out of the far valley

of the six-lane highway --

and thousands of cars

driving men to work

Kerouac’s relation to reflection and writing from experience, not unlike the ethnographer’s itch: “And going up on Tamalpais really charmed him. Whatever stories I could tell him about the mountain and the people where we were, he loved it/ The sam with going up into the SIerras, that was really a blast of new air for him. But then, at a certain point he says, “Well, I’ve got to go back home now and organize my thoughts.’ So he goes back to his mother’s house and writes. . .”

Snyder and Ginsberg while in India, 1961 were impressed by pradakshina, or sun-wise circumambulation of holy places. Later , in India at the Kumbh Mela festival of yogins and ascetics, they heard about hte circumambulation of Mt. Kailash in Tibet. “We soon shared a simple thought, ‘One should do hikes like this in America.” in 1965 Snyder, Ginsberg, and Whalen initiated the project in playful earnest.

[christophjohn]

‘Ghetto,’ by Mitchell Duneier

The notion of the ghetto as both a physical space and an embodiment of power and restriction.

a book about books and a study of studies.

Should revisit/re-read side by side the Myrdal / Drake and Cayton comparison. Only 1 year apart in publication

But Cayton and Drake’s research didn’t shape the direction of policy making over the next several decades. It was overshadowed by a more racially accommodating and far more influential work: Gunnar Myrdal’s “An American Dilemma,” published the year before “Black Metropolis.” In the tradition of Tocqueville, the Swedish economist was hired by the Carnegie Corporation to bring a foreigner’s impartial eye to America’s racial scene in the late 1930s. Myrdal had great intentions from the start, and he built an impressive team of researchers, many of whom were senior black scholars. But the colossal study had two major biases. Myrdal put the full weight of American racism on the South, fueling the Southern exceptionalism myth that white supremacy was parochial, atavistic and doomed. He also placed tremendous faith in “white people’s conscience.” If the reality of black suffering were put before white Americans, Myrdal surmised, they would abide the egalitarian principles of the American Creed: “A great many Northerners, perhaps the majority, get shocked and shaken in their conscience when they learn the facts.” Cayton and Drake had far less faith, given their findings, as well as the fact that the president of their own university, Robert Maynard Hutchins, publicly supported restrictive covenants, and used university funds to maintain them. To his credit, Myrdal knew Cayton’s research was valuable and tried to recruit him to his team, but after months of going back and forth over compensation, they could not agree on fair terms. Myrdal’s bible of mid-20th-century race-relations policy — a book so influential it was cited in the Brown v. Board of Education decision — left a gaping hole in the scholarship. Thus with only two mentions of the word “ghetto” in his 1,400-page book, Myrdal, and by extension the nation, failed to understand Northern racism and its enduring impact.

The consequences of all this are still with us. The American Creed has stood its ground, shaken but undeterred. And the black ghetto remains for many people a product of what Myrdal called “certain characteristics of the Negro population,” rather than, as Duneier concludes and the history attests, “a phenomenon of ongoing external domination and neglect.” Indeed, given how much we now know about the racial dimensions of mass incarceration, it is striking how little attention these pathbreaking studies gave to the topic of, in Duneier’s words, “place-based policing” as one of the “specific mechanisms by which the white majority has historically used space to achieve power over blacks.”

Philanthropy is a weak substitute for Public Policy

“Ghetto” tells several stories of other missed opportunities, ideological disagreements, and research and policy paths not taken. The psychologist Kenneth Clark’s 1965 indictment of the “Dark ­Ghetto” as the result of an “institutionalization of powerlessness” through redlining and white control anticipated urban uprisings from the mid-60s up to Ferguson, but it gained little traction. Instead, the White House policy adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s “tangle of pathology” thesis from the same year won out, making him the new Myrdal in policy circles. The famed African-American sociologist William Julius Wilson, starting with the 1978 publication of “The Declining Significance of Race,” made a strategic gambit to emphasize economic inequality, in the hope that white Americans would be more likely to support policies perceived as race-neutral. But his work did not lead to a massive jobs program, as he had insisted upon repeatedly, and was instead distorted and appropriated by conservatives in the Reagan administration and later inspired President Bill Clinton to “end welfare as we know it.” Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, made a valiant effort to prove that a cradle-to-college approach could transform the 21st-century ghetto. But his funders expected results in a few years, not decades.

Lesson learned: Philanthropy, ­Duneier writes, is a weak “substitute for public policy.”

[christophjohn]

[christophjohn]

Good riddance, gig economy: Uber, Ayn Rand and the awesome collapse of Silicon Valley’s dream of destroying your job

The Uber model just doesn't work for other industries. The price points always fail -- and that's a good thing

[christophjohn]

The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2015

Just in time for your holiday travel needs

[christophjohn]

Why do some hallucinogens cause universal hallucinations?

Hopes&Fears answers questions with the help of people who know what they’re talking about. Today we ask the experts about common visions while tripping on psychoactive substances.

[christophjohn]

America's Whites-Only Weed Boom

Black Americans were disproportionately targeted in the "war on drugs." Now state laws and steep regulatory costs have left them far more likely to be shut out of America's profitable mar...

[christophjohn]

Why don't drug use patterns match up with incarceration rates?

[christophjohn]

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

Hannah Arendt

[christophjohn]

[christophjohn]

New SAT is

On Saturday, high school students across the country will sit down to take a revamped Scholastic Aptitude Test. The revamped SAT will, in most cases, give colleges a tool to help determine whether the student will be accepted to that institution of higher learning. But at Bard College in upstate New York, the SAT carries little weight.

[christophjohn]

When in late April Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont a democratic socialist but not a Democrat, announced that he would run for president in the Democratic Party primary no one c…