✻✻ iro iro ✻✻✻✻

[ir0ir0-blog]

Friction is required to keep global power in motion. It shows us (as one advertising jingle puts it) where the rubber meets the road. Roads are a good image for conceptualizing how friction works: Roads create pathways that make motion easier and more efficient, but in doing so they limit where we go. The ease of travel they facilitate is also a structure of confinement. Friction inflects historical trajectories, enabling, excluding, and particularizing.

Anna Tsing, who is my jam

[ir0ir0-blog]

Mac class as soulcraft

I'm proud to say my dad and I just fixed my hellaciously intricate 2006 G5. The project involved 4 different screwdrivers, a lump of beeswax, some double-sided tape, and much squinting. We are left with a combined admiration/consternation for the late Steve Jobs, and a good deal more money in our pockets than we would otherwise have. My hard drive (salvaged from an even older iMac with an ornery squealing fan that made it unusable) is a lot smaller. But it beats a new hard drive or a new computer. Now that I have seen this machine come apart and come back together again, I am determined never to buy a seductive but unfixable MacBook Air. Even the iPad in my hands seems less enchanting. Why didn't I let the old goofball show me how to fix things before?

[ir0ir0-blog]

Linda Katehi's email and police brutality as privatization enforcement

Yesterday, Chancellor Linda Katehi ordered the pepper-spraying of peaceful UC Davis protestors defending their encampment on the quad. If you've seen the video, you may feel outraged and sickened. You may wonder how the decision to systematically terrorize a gathering of students could possibly seem sensible or ethical to someone ostensibly hired to serve those very students. Chancellor Katehi sent out an email justifying her actions to the UC Davis community on the day of the event. I sat down to read the email with some fellow UCD anthropology students. We were laughing at Katehi's absurd logic, but it was a sickened sort of laughter. More than anything, I was gripped by the eerie feeling of reliving a nightmare: Katehi's mushy, Orwellian language recalled, to a phrase, the email I received exactly one week ago from Chancellor Birgeneau about his order to sic riot police with batons on Berkeley students. As zunguzungu puts it, Birgeneau's email didn't so much espouse a philosophy about the protests as assert that the administration needed no philosophical justification to crack down on students whenever and however they wanted. Sure enough, events at Davis bore out the UC administration's promise to continue to commit acts of violence without justification--right down to the nonsensical mass email after the event, designed to sow confusion and division among the university community at large. We have to recognize that this will always play out the same way as long as we accept the structural changes in UC that have brought people like Birgeneau and Katehi (who made $382,000 last year, a $140,000 increase from the year before) to power at an increasingly high cost to the California taxpayer. Decisions about these salaries are made in the halls of the UC Office of the President and in secret meetings of the UC Regents, whose conflicts of interest with banks and big business are well-known. Corruption at the expense of average people isn't something that happens somewhere else, in Egypt or Tunisia. It happens here in California, where administrators are given pay raise after pay raise despite the widespread suffering that any UC student can see: increasing tuition, increasing class sizes, budget cuts, and on and on. While more than 500 UC administrators make over $300,000 a year, Katehi and Birgeneau are here to tell us to tighten our belts. Only according to this logic does it make sense when, in Katehi's email, she blames the victims of her actions--the protestors--for the cost of sending in riot cops, armed with riot gear, pepper spray, and batons and getting paid time and a half. Protestors did not ask to have cops sent in. Protest is not the problem, as Katehi would have you believe; people like Katehi are the problem. Witness another instance of Katehi's Orwellian logic: In a 2010 op-ed, she cheerily assures us that the California master plan for higher education is alive and well. What is the master plan? The 1960 California master plan states that a top-quality publicly-financed education must be freely available to any Californian eligible to receive it. With tuition rates higher than ever and UC President Mark Yudof now proposing a staggering 81% tuition increase, Katehi's claim is plainly false. Anyone at UC, student, faculty, or staff, can see the devastating effects of this trend on the students and their families--who are increasingly taking on massive amounts of student loan debt that they may never be able to pay off--and on the quality of the university, where budget cuts are shrinking departments and cramming lecture halls. It should be plain enough from these circumstances that UC administrators lost their commitment to the master plan long ago. UCSC's Bob Meister details in a recent article for the Chronicle of Higher Education how administrators have abandoned the master plan idea that education is a public good (because educational opportunity benefits all Californians) in favor of the idea of education as a private good, something purchased by individuals as an "investment in the future." People like Katehi see it as their job not to serve the people of California and protect their right to assemble freely and peacefully in a public space, but to maintain the value of the "investment," the commodity that is UC (one increasingly being marketed to out-of-state and international stuents who pay much higher tuition.) That requires the advertising-industry logic of repeating lies until they have the force of truth. When that doesn't work, it requires violence--unjustified because it is unjustifiable, because it serves only the 1%, as we have seen again and again across UC campuses since the first mass protests about tuition increases in 2009. Tuition increases and police brutality are not two separate phenomena at our university; they are two horrifying effects of the logic of privatization threatening the greatest public university system in the country (maybe the world). When I called my mom (a woman who will be working hard long after the age of retirement to pay for her children to attend California public universities) to tell her about what happened yesterday, she said, "It took a hundred years to build this." A hundred years, and now it is threatened by people like Linda Katehi. UC Davis English professor Nathan Brown has written a powerful open letter calling for her resignation. There is a petition you can sign, and you can write her an email demanding her resignation as well. Ultimately, however, this problem is bigger than Katehi, her despicable actions, and her despicable email. Sitting in that living room, my friends and I were laughing bitterly at Katehi's email, because this kind of utter nonsense, this refusal of logic and human feeling, this insult to the intelligence of every UC Davis student, faculty member, and worker, was reaching thousands. Meanwhile, our perfectly sensible philosophy seemed to be stuck in a living room. It's not. It was alive in that chain of students protecting their tents on the quad. It lives right now in the Occupy movement, which grows every day, in spite of police brutality in Davis, Berkeley, Oakland, Chapel Hill, and New York. Katehi might have the ear of thousands of Davis community members, but we have something better. We have each other, and we are many. So occupy, mobilize, do something, wherever you are. As Nathan Brown put it at the rally on the quad on Tuesday, we are winning.

[ir0ir0-blog]

Linda Katehi's defense of pepper-spraying UC Davis protestors

To UC Davis Campus Community, I am writing to tell you about events that occurred Friday afternoon at UC Davis relating to a group of protestors who chose to set up an encampment on the quad Thursday as part of a week of peaceful demonstrations on our campus that coincided with many other occupy movements at universities throughout the country. The group did not respond to requests from administration and campus police to comply with campus rules that exist to protect the health and safety of our campus community.  The group was informed in writing this morning that the encampment violated regulations designed to protect the health and safety of students, staff and faculty.  The group was further informed that if they did not dismantle the encampment, it would have to be removed. Following our requests, several of the group chose to dismantle their tents this afternoon and we are grateful for their actions.  However a number of protestors refused our warning, offering us no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal.  We are saddened to report that during this activity, 10 protestors were arrested and pepper spray was used.  We will be reviewing the details of the incident. We appreciate and strongly defend the rights of all our students, faculty and staff to robust and respectful dialogue as a fundamental tenet of our great academic institution.  At the same time, we have a responsibility to our entire campus community, including the parents who have entrusted their students to us, to ensure that all can live, learn and work in a safe and secure environment.  We were aware that some of those involved in the recent demonstrations on campus were not members of the UC Davis community and this required us to be even more vigilant about the safety of our students, faculty and staff.  We take this responsibility very seriously. While we have appreciated the peaceful and respectful tone of the demonstrations during the week, the encampment raised serious health and safety concerns, and the resources required to supervise this encampment could not be sustained, especially in these very tight economic times when our resources must support our core academic mission. We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested.  We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal. We appreciate the substantive dialogue the students have begun here on campus as part of this week.s activities, and we want to offer appropriate opportunities to express opinions, advance the discussion and suggest solutions as part of the time-honored university tradition.  We invite our entire campus community to consider the topics related to the occupy movement you would like to discuss and we pledge to work with you to develop a series of discussion forums throughout our campus. I ask all members of the campus community for their support in ensuring a safe environment for all members of our campus community.  We hope you will actively support us in accomplishing this objective. Linda P.B. Katehi Chancellor

[ir0ir0-blog]

Dear Chancellor Katehi,

When you said in your recent email that the safety of UC Davis students was in jeopardy on Friday, you were absolutely right. Students' safety at a peaceful protest was jeopardized by your decision to order in scores of riot police to pepper spray them. These UC Davis students were doing nothing to threaten anyone. Protestors had no desire to harm anyone; UCPD can keep that dubious distinction all to themselves. An encampment on the quad posed far less of a threat to hygiene than, for example, cramming hundreds of students into ever-larger lectures. There was nothing to fear but the potential of UCPD brutality, which we saw just last week in Berkeley.

You saw what we did last week in response to that brutality: we rallied in the thousands. If by some gross injustice you still have your job in a week, you will only see our movement grow. Our message is perfectly clear: Free speech on this campus will not be threatened. Students' right to assemble and to speak their minds will not be threatened. We will not stand for this. As long as you continue to brutalize us like you did this afternoon, we will strike. We will protest. We will occupy. We will speak truth to you, and we will show the world that UC administrators have systematically aimed to privatize our once-great public university, and now are brutally suppressing any student who dares to question them.

I love the University of California with all my heart. It revolts me to see my (higher than ever) tuition pay for pepper spray and violence, rather than for the education of the people of California. How can someone hired to serve the students feel any other way? Chancellor Katehi, I respectfully request that you resign, and renounce what you did today.

[ir0ir0-blog]

Goodnight camera, goodnight boom Goodnight cops in the corner of the room chatting with students about their camping gear Goodnight old dude with pierced ears Goodnight barefoot lasses and lads Goodnight critical theory grads Goodnight empty pizza box Goodnight guy who always talks Goodnight girl who has cosplayed Goodnight folks who've gotten tased Goodnight university under attack Goodnight Davis. Goodnight, Mrak.

[ir0ir0-blog]

I saw tule fog for the first time tonight. It looked like the world had grown mold. Headlight beams acquired a new materiality. Everything seemed muffled, except the train whistle.

[ir0ir0-blog]

Strike

Today I and my fellow TA Adam wrote emails to the instructor of the linguistics class we TA for, asking her to join us in striking tomorrow. As we hit send and packed up our things, we reminded each other that there was a slim chance that this would do anything. The instructor seemed totally politically disengaged to us, and she also didn't seem to like me or Adam too much. We expected a curt email back saying what we did on our time was our business but politics didn't belong in the classroom. Or something.

But I came home today, surprised to find that it had worked. The instructor had cancelled lecture and forwarded our emails to the whole class. I don't know how I feel about that, as the email was intended just for her. (She's already forwarded an email to me from one of my students saying "the TA's bias and opinions should be left out of my education.") But now, well, the email is out there and I'm glad it did something. I never thought we'd actually convince her, someone who's about to finish her dissertation and get out of here, and probably doesn't feel invested in the university like we do. But we did. This is my email with her name removed:

Dear [X],

I'm writing to inform you that I will be on strike tomorrow, and I urge you to cancel lecture and do the same. AGSA, the Anthropology Graduate Student Association, has asked the Anthropology Department to cancel all lectures tomorrow. I've attached AGSA's letter to the faculty below.

We are joining together in solidarity to denounce the extreme use of police brutality against Berkeley students last week. We are also protesting budget cuts that will severely compromise the quality of public education at this university at all levels. This affects graduate students like us as well as undergraduates. Already, we have seen UC administrators on various campuses drastically cutting funding to many departments that are not perceived as "valuable"--ethnic studies, language departments. I know that these studies have a real value, that anthropology has a value, that linguistics has a value. Striking tomorrow is a way of insisting that these things still matter.

I believe that high-quality scholarship and education is possible in a truly public university. I'm guessing that you, like me, are a native of California [note: she often refers to her "California English" accent in class, since it's a linguistics class]. If you're anything like me, you have benefited to an incalculable degree from what the uniquely strong public education system in this state has to offer. I hope that together, we can show the world that we still believe in a future for public education for this state.

 The UC and the state in general are plagued by mismanagement on a large scale. If we don't act to change this now, California's future--my future, your future, and the future of all the students in ANT 4--will be written for us. Adam and I would like to help educate students about this, because this isn't a matter of giving them a day off. I have already taught a section about linguistic registers using Tweets from the Occupy Movement, and I would be happy to do something similar again.

Thank you for reading this. I hope you will watch the YouTube videos of police brutality at UC Berkeley, read the letter below, and think about this. Yours,

Caroline

[ir0ir0-blog]

Wind

Con: Spooky noises in the vines on my balcony when I'm trying to go to sleep.

Pro: Bike lanes full of fresh crispy leaves for me to bike through when I wake up.

[ir0ir0-blog]

To this day, whenever I accomplish something, I hear a voice in my head saying: "Dere yo you got it." (One YouTube commenter glosses this phrase as "There you go, you got it" but I'm not entirely sure.)

And I'm still terrified of bees, and empathize with one-eyed things.

AAAAAH. SUUUUUURE.

[ir0ir0-blog]

Laclau and Mouffe: Batman sound effects or French Marxists?

"Now, a relation of exteriority can be considered under two aspects: as a relation of exteriority and as a relation of exteriority."

-Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy

Can you really be serious, guys?

Fucking grad school.

[ir0ir0-blog]

I like to take cell phone photos, and I dread the day when I will get a better phone camera.

[imremembering]

Clown Cones

[ir0ir0-blog]

They were strangely flavorless. The frosting was very hard, but melted into a paste in your mouth. And that wasn't a bad thing.

[ir0ir0-blog]

smile every day

[ir0ir0-blog]

She's a criminal mastermind, she's got 108 IQ, she reads at a fifth grade level, and... (sigh) her hair smells like red Froot Loops.

-Bart Simpson

Not too long ago I took a road trip. SJ and I intended to soundtrack it with the entire discography of the Mountain Goats, but most of the CDs got scratched. We were left with just the old albums. The ones John Darnielle likes to forget.

We drove for hours steeped in early Mountain Goats. We were sinking deeper into the hypnotic trance of the road, and thinking of nothing but those songs. And then we came to an epiphany. It was the kind of sparkling moment of truth that can only rise up, lotus-like, from the muck of boredom. The kind of thing you only realize when you're closely-confined for many hours in a space that always smells like chips, and you're kinda delirious.

John Darnielle has an obsession with hair. Almost a fetish, in fact.

I should stop right now and say that before I actually and really begin this pathetic adventure in wild speculation, you should probably leave. Unless you're me or SJ, you probably won't find this interesting or even a little bit amusing. Consider yourself forewarned.

Maybe JD is so into hair because he himself went so long with so very little of it (Fig. 1), but it likely goes back even further, judging by some trichophilic lines on The Sunset Tree, an album intended as an autobiography of JD's high school years. Or maybe this hair-obsession trope is just evidence of a heretofore unrecognized recurring narrator--like the Alpha Couple, but for hair.

Well, I don't know, but that last explanation is how I'm going to read it, and I am now making a playlist of Mountain Goats songs wherein hair is a prominent image, ordered in such a way as to form a narrative arc. Like, first this guy is just looking at some girl's hair, then he touches it and burns like a bonfire in the morning, then he's all up in it and he is a wild freaking creature.

So I guess, having nothing better to do with this silly little Tumblar, that's what I'll be posting for the next few days.

(I should say that that Simpsons quote has probably subconsciously determined everything I aspire to be as a woman, although I have never succeeded in getting my hair to smell like red Froot Loops.)

[ir0ir0-blog]

Visit Original Link

Flatten me out til the projection's Mercator

Get me a phrasebook and a French interpreter

[ir0ir0-blog]

I don't know. I don't know though. I don't know.

a-nna-a-na-nas