A heart-wrenching, must-read piece. Our media covers the deaths of American soldiers fairly regularly — but we don’t often hear about the tens of thousands of Iraqis who we’ve murdered. Nine-year-old Ali was only one of them. And because we’re tired of hearing about Iraq — I’m tired of hearing about Iraq — I can’t [...]

Ezra says it perfectly, so I’m just going to quote him in full: This really seems to be the difference between liberals and neoconservatives on foreign policy, doesn’t it? Neocons envision a near-static population of terrorists, and prescribe an aggressive policy of killing them in order to rid the world of terrorism. Liberals see a dynamic [...]

My question for “feministe feedback” (thanks for adding this feature, by the way - I wouldn’t know where to ask this question, otherwise) has to do with some of the apparently false scare tactics certain factions of the anti-choice movement employ. My 14-year-old neighbor told me the yesterday, upon noticing my pro-choice bumper sticker, that [...]

1. A.C. Newman - On the Table 2. Interpol - C’mere 3. Silver Jews - Time Will Break the World 4. Darren Hanlon - Ends of the City 5. The Shins - Gone for Good 6. Minmae - Cold Steel Minders 7. Death Cab for Cutie - Someday You Will Be Loved 8. Mellowmen - Sunshine Shell 9. Andrew Bird - Fiery Crash 10. [...]

The WAM conference kicks off tomorrow evening, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m currently praising Past Jill for not proposing a workshop or speaking on a panel; there are so many fantastic women to meet and learn from that I’m looking forward to shutting up for a weekend and just taking it all in. [...]

Perhaps we should be focusing on the fear-mongering and outright lying on behalf of anti-choicers. Amanda tackles the hypocrisy of Wright’s critics — the same people who attack him for repeating inaccurate messages about HIV/AIDS were the primary architects of Bush’s anti-science, deadly HIV/AIDS policies abroad. And while Wright’s conspiracy theories about where HIV came [...]

This week’s question: Are there feminist journals who publish pieces by men? Currently I’m dating a guy who is a pretty ardent feminist and has written a lot for campus newspapers. He is looking to shop some of his pieces around to different feminist online journals/publishing outlets. I feel absolutely terrible because every journal he’s [...]

This article makes me want to stab something. Registration is required, so I’ll excerpt most of it here. It’s one attorney’s take on what “woman lawyers” (am I the only one that hates when the word “woman” is used instead of “female” in these situations?) can learn from Hillary, and the moral of the story [...]

But women are fighting back: Women Thrive Worldwide has more info on the feminization of poverty. Women like Leticia and Betilde are doing the day-to-day work of surviving, and are helping other women in their communities do the same. But this is not an individual problem, and it shouldn’t be treated like one. World-wide [...]

This is disgusting: Up until just a few years ago, lawmakers would go “window shopping” for interns at the start of every legislative session. In a practice that went on for decades, the interns would be corraled in a Capitol newsstand, and legislators would take their pick. The hanky-panky even has its own lexicon: There’s the “Bear [...]

Notable moments at C&W

1. Jenn Fishman gets elevated to goddess status for pulling a french press and coffee out of her bag on Sunday when there was no coffee to be had at the conference. I was really in need of some caffeine.

2. Beer with Barbara Schneider at Circa Saloon, complete with the horrible sticky tables and surly, but sweet waitresses (much like sweet and sour chicken) that I have been nostalgic for.

3. Ethiopian food and crepes with Michelle, Pat, Will, and Lisa.

4. Monster ass irradiated baked potatoes at the Potato Place on campus.

We've been in Detroit since Thursday and I have seen some good sessions and some not so good sessions. But that's about par for the course, right? What I have been disappointed in is the attendance. There are a lot of folks who just didn't show even though they were accepted and some who never even thought about coming. I'm pretty sure that attendance is so low because it's in Detroit. Folks are afraid of Detroit. I don't know if they are afraid of the rumors or frightened by the thought of a true chocolate city. Afraid of being outnumbered the way us Black academic folk are at all of our professional meetings, in our departments, and many times in our own towns. To those folks I just say get over yourselves, your closed mindedness caused you to miss one of the greatest cities in the United States.

We are already hearing rumors of folks being "concerned" for their safety in New Orleans at Cs next year. To those folks I say again Get. The. Fuck. Over. It. Don't let your ignorance make you miss out on another of the great cities in the U.S. (ironically another chocolate city). NOLA (and Detroit) are no more dangerous that any large city in the U.S. They may be a little darker (and you know what I mean) than you are used to, but they are no more dangerous.

Ok, enough of my ranting. I'm going to bed. I'll put my notes up soon.

Edited to add: I just finished my last session so here are all of the notes that I took.

If you haven't seen this commercial for Super Princess Peach you need to see it!

Edited to add: See previous rants about Peach here.

Oh well, back to my C&W presentation!

Nothing professional like to blog about until I get my C&W paper done, but I have been knitting itty bitty hats from a book with the same name. They are too damned cute!

Purdue University will put alerts on Facebook | IndyStar.com

How stupid is this? Using this as a plan to notify students would assume many absolutely ridiculous things.

1. That students have access to a computer at all times.

2. That students are constantly logged into facebook, even when they are supposed to be paying attention in class.

3. That Facebook won't become obsolete ten minutes after being mainstreamed like every other social networking technology known to man.

What the hell are these people thinking?

Here's an idea for university administrators (here and elsewhere). We have 36K students and God knows how many faculty and staff members. Contact three major cell phone carriers. Tell them that we want to special Purdue package that offers all students 100 minutes a month with free nights and weekends with a basic phone (with the ability to upgrade phones and packages) for $10 a month. Wait for the companies to try to underbid each other. Here we are also making note of the fact that a good number of our students already have cell phones permanently attached to their heads.

At this moment what parent wouldn't work an extra hour or so, in the most extreme situations, to insure that their children were alerted in case of emergency? Maybe you can even agree to have some kind of parental block put on the phone so that the students can't run up ridiculous phone bills. Either way, it seems that the promise of upwards of 40K new customers would get most cell phone carriers excited.

Let's get it done folks!

Tengrrl sent me this link today because she wanted to make sure that I wasted valuable time playing games. Oh wait....I like playing games and it's part of my research, Nevermind. Thanks tengrrl! ‘Speare: The Literacy Arcade Game by the Canadian Apollo Games is basically a space shooter (much like space invaders except you don't get to hide behind barriers) where you destroy enemy ships in order to retrieve orbs that bear key words of a Shakespearian phrase that you are supposed to complete for that round. During each round you also receive a series of "transmissions" that give you Shakespeare themed trivia facts. Once you successfully complete each round you can then answer a series of trivia questions for additional points. Accumulated points can be used for ship and weapons upgrades.

I played the demo through and it kept my attention for a few minutes. The trivia facts were more interesting than the Space Invaders knockoff interface, but they definitely pulled you out of the narrative of the game in the attempt to build a Shakespearian meta-narrative. I'm not sure of what the proposed age range is supposed to be, but the ringing endorsements from a 13 year old student and a 6th grade teacher makes me think that the intended audience is middle school aged children. As a former elementary school teacher I am a bit skeptical of edutainment type games (even if the developers don't want to call it that) because children generally see through the thin level of entertainment very quickly. Oddly enough I think that 'Speare might actually grab the attention of a gamer for a few moments. The question is how do you draw in a non-gamer? One of the things that I noticed about the game really quickly was that there were a lot of transmissions coming through, but no faces to put with the voices. I wonder if adding a more "personal"/human touch to the game might be more friendly.

I also wonder about what happens if you die. Do you have to start all over again? You have a limited number of ships and you can earn more, but to be perfectly honest I am too damned competitive to actually keep dying so that I can see what happens when/if I run out of ships/lives. Someone else want to try out the demo and tell me what happens?

via TheStar.com -'Wherefore art thou (zap) Romeo?' by way of tengrrl

IN case you haven't figured it out yet, I am not your average girl gamer. I have never been a big Nintendo gamer. Lisa was always the Nintendo buff. We have always had the systems (consoles and handhelds) in the house. I would pull these games out at undisclosed times and play. Then I got the DS and all bets were off. There were great sims and classic RPGs. (Have I told you lately how addicted I am to FFIII for the DS?) I was hooked, but the console still not so much. I have just never been able to get into side to side platformers. I bought a Wii because I was fascinated with the interface. There have been some good party games for it. Things to draw non-gamers into the madness. And then there was Zelda a great RPG that allows you to wander around.

Yesterday I bought Super Paper Mario for the heck of it. Ok, I was trying to balance my grown up/child universe after having to purchase a washing machine (the most un-fun grownup appliance one can buy). Last night I popped SPM into the Wii at about 11:30 p.m. or so for a little recreational gaming (something that I haven't had much of a chance to do lately) and 5 hours later I dragged my dead ass to bed only after falling asleep with the Wii-mote in my hands. Can I just say that I love this game? It does still have elements of wakawakawaka side scrolling, but you can "flip" from 2D SPM platforming to 3D SPM RPGing. If you have a Wii you need this game. Be prepared though, the RPG-ness of the game makes it take a while. I spent a LOT of time pushing 2 to get through the dialog sections of the game. While it took me about 3 hours to get through the first full chapter with all of text it only took me a few minutes when I used the escape pipe to make it through beginning to end in just a few minutes when I didn't have to stop and talk to folks are re-trigger traps and doors. Now that the fun is over I am seeing how this game might be useful for my C&W and GLS presentations this year.

On to the controversial post. Not a post here, but a post over on joystick101 by Nathan Mckenzie on the macabre lack of transfer of violence and strategy in video games. Mckenzie wonders why IF video games teach gamers how to be offensively violent wouldn't it also make sense that they also learned defensive moves. So the question was in light of last week's VT tragedy “Why didn’t they just Zerg rush?” Macabre to say the least, but an interesting question for nutbags like Jack Thompson and Newt Gingrich, who blames video games and "liberalism" for the VT shootings. Yes folks this specific nutbag does want to be your president.

I didn't take very many pictures at the 4Cs SnB, but I did finally take them off of the memory stick. Here they are! I never cease to be impressed by the creativity of a bunch of Rhet Comp folks.

Pictures are below the jump. Click the title of the post to get the pictures.

Remember the bread that I was making on Sunday/Monday? Well I forgot to post pictures. It came out well. I am going to tweak the wheat recipe a bit and play around with add-ins for the white. Maybe I'll work with some whole grain white flour so it's at least a little healthy!

Here's the wheat:

Sliced:

Now for the white:

Sliced. The crumb and interior was much better for this one.

Now that I am posting pictures I am really wanting to make some more bread!