Greener than Kermit after a cheap jewelry bender

Siemens recently unveiled an electric chopper custom-built built by the folks at Orange County Choppers.  Here is an interview with the OCC patriarch, Paul Teutel:

If you skip to 0:16, Paul points out that his new world headquarters building is so environmentally friendly that it is actually “fifty-two percent above green.”  If the arrival of green as a meaningless catchphrase has not yet been announced, I propose that this serve as its announcement. The thing that makes catchphrases meaningless is, of course, the fact that they can be applied to nearly any referent without causing any logical contradictions: nowadays, you can see green used to describe New York, the Pontiac G5, Gmail, and various other random things. When Paul uses it to describe the baseline LEED certification requirements, then, he isn’t breaking from any conventional use of the word that would associate it with a particular thing.

According to this site, the OCC headquarters has been certified as LEED Silver, which means that it scored between 50 and 59 points during the LEED auditing process, whatever that involves. Aside from the fact that he apparently confused LEED points with percentage points, Paul actually deserves some commendation for his new building; 75% of the materials used were recycled, all of the lighting is attached to motion sensors, a top-of-the-line HVAC system controls the internal environment, and the building is clad with “Dryvit Outsulation,” which allegedly offers an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions over the lifecycle of the product compared to brick.

Prolegomena to any future dumb questions about Women’s Studies

Someone asked me the other day, with a straight face, if there are women’s studies conferences. Being the diplomat that I am, I said, “Yeah, of course”; in response to his comment that perhaps women’s studies would be better off if there was a man teaching courses along with the “five” women professors, I feebly replied, “our department has like 30 professors!” I would have liked to pursue an extended diatribe about the ignorance that it takes to completely overlook the contributions of the forty-year-old department not just to academic knowledge but to real women’s lives all over the world,  about how our department receives a yearly $1 000 000 endowment for the Ruth Wynn Woodward chair, has eight full professors and 18 additional faculty members, and joins 44 degree-granting Women’s Studies programs in Canada, 900 Women’s Studies programs in the United States (this many that offer graduate degrees alone) and 250-odd programs worldwide to teach tens of thousands of students every year, how the Canadian Women’s Studies Association is a member of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and American Women’s Studies programs are overseen by the National Women’s Studies Association, which has been around since 1977, that a professor from my department recently published a column in the Georgia Straight, that everyone should read, about the ongoing importance of Women’s Studies .

It did get me thinking, though, about what the hell is wrong with the modern university that would allow one department to be so oblivious about what is going on just down the hall, or just across the quad, or on the other side of the student union building. And unfortunately I don’t have any good answers that extend beyond woebegone sentiments. I do have a theory, though, that I’m hoping has been taken up in detail by some clever scholar, and that I will one day stumble across in a thick tome dug up from the back corner of a used bookstore that will answer all of my questions once and for all. My theory is that the humanities and social sciences, especially the humanities, somehow project a perception toward laypeople that no special training is required in order to achieve proficiency. This is not to say that people aren’t aware that there is the possibility of graduate and post-graduate education in the humanities, or that people can and do devote their lives to studying things like “power” or theorists like Bourdieu. Rather, there seems to be a perception that even though this is the case, a layperson can still engage in a conversation with a humanities scholar and assume that they have all of the knowledge and competence that is required to formulate an argument about a topic in the humanities to a degree that is appropriate to engaging the arguments of the scholar on a peer-to-peer basis.

There is a stark contrast, then, between how laypeople approach the sciences versus how they approach the humanities, and more importantly, how people in the sciences versus those in the humanities regard these laypeople who are trying to interpret the work done in their fields without the necessary competence. Let me give a quick example. A quick Google search of blogs coming out of the sciences reveals a vast distaste with the way that science journalists handle science topics (Language Log, Bad Science, and Neuroskeptic, for instance, are highly critical of science journalists misinterpreting science stories). While some of their complaints can be attributed to laziness on the part of journalists, many of them can be more accurately attributed to science journalists having poor or deficient knowledge of the subject matter, which leads to them misinterpreting things that would be obvious for anyone proficient in the field. The humanities, on the other hand, don’t have a well-embedded and -accepted body of critique of the way that laypeople (e.g. journalists) misinterpret humanities topics, even though such misinterpretations happen all the time.

I think this is for a couple of reasons. First, there is no clear demarcating line between academic humanities topics and non-academic ones: academics talk about ideology, for example, but so do Republican talk show hosts. To a layperson, there is no reason to assume that what the academics are talking about is any different from what Rush is talking about, even though the difference is enormous. Similarly, academics talk about feminism, and so do our hippy moms; to the layperson, there is no recognition of the vast gulf that exists between the meaning of the term as it is used by academics and the meaning of the term as it is used by your mom (let alone the differences between academics). The second, related reason is that humanities jargon is often homonymous or heteronymous with everyday words. There is no reason for a layperson to assume that the word subculture has a different meaning in a cultural studies context than it does in an MTV context, or that the word competence has a different meaning in a literature studies context than it does in a Starbucks conversation context, or that the word problematic has a different meaning in a conversation about Althusser than it does in a conversation about a leaky faucet, or that the word imaginary has a different meaning in a sociology context than it does in a Disney context. Thus, when laypeople hear humanities scholars using the words problematic and imaginary as nouns, they get accused of being opaque for the sake of appearing erudite, when they are actually using terms of jargon that have decades-long histories of definitional specificity. Third, the humanities and social sciences, by their very nature, do tend to deal with issues that come up in people’s everyday lives, topics that are often dealt with by laypeople in Starbucks conversations and Disney movies (to some degree). However, scholars tend to use different tools and approaches to analyse these topics, and they often come at them from different approaches and have different goals than the laypeople. And not surprisingly, the approaches they use, and the arguments they formulate, require a great deal of training and specialized knowledge to create and comprehend. A person in the welfare lineup might have a lot to say about poverty, but they are not going to be saying the same things as someone in a graduate-level seminar about the same topic.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a topic of much debate, but it is a thing nevertheless. The salient difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences/humanities is that the natural sciences are known to be “private” for the most part, in the sense that the inner workings of science tend to take place behind closed laboratory doors rather than out in public, and they deal with issues that are usually only of interest to specialists in the field; the humanities deals with issues that are public to begin with, so the divide between public issues and “closed door” social sciences/humanities is hard to distinguish, and thus specialist knowledge is considered, or appears to be, public property.

This is both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. It is fortunate because many social science/humanities types are wary of the way academic institutions separate scholars from the people and situations that they are studying. It’s hard to feel good about capitalizing on the experiences of the person in the welfare lineup by writing a thick dissertation on poverty and getting a cushy, well-paid tenure track professorship while the welfare recipient keeps receiving welfare. At the same time, this disparity between the natural sciences and the social sciences/humanities is unfortunate because we live in a world where institutional legitimacy goes a long way; it’s tough being in a department that has limitless potential for improving people’s lives, and seeing that potential go down the drain because academic success is so incumbent on the pretense that quantitative knowledge is unassailable. But I digress. The meat of my theory here is that people ignore the legitimacy of the social sciences/humanities because of a fundamental difference in the way that the two poles are conceptualized by laypeople. Science is considered Scientists’ Business, and humanities is considered Everyone’s Business; this dichotomy erases the existence of the specialized knowledge and training that forms the basis of research in the humanities and social sciences. What’s the solution? More education for everybody.

Now where’s that book?

Gmngeri

I was searching Women’s Studies International for “Naming Our Work” by Christina Gringeri, but I couldn’t remember the title. This is what I eventually found:

Aaargh! Of course, EBSCO has no simple feedback mechanism to correct errors like this.

Whoops!

I just discovered that my post about ovulars has been featured on the “ultra” anti-feminist blog aggregator Masculinisme. I can only assume that my post was picked up by some kind of automated web-crawler that noticed the words “Christina Hoff Sommers,” because linking here deliberately would be embarassing.

Long live feminism! Men are all assholes!

Anal vulnerability

Getting humped by a dog:

I personally find it fascinating how demeaning and humiliating it is to get humped by a dog. A dog jumping into your lap or leaning against your leg might be endearing, but once it starts thrusting its hips, all cuteness gives way to revulsion – the dog is no longer being affectionate, it’s using you to get its rocks off. How much more humiliating it must be, then, to have a human hump you on a crowded subway train, because the threat of sexual vulnerability then is not so symbolic.

I bring this up because of an article I read by Calvin Thomas, which links men’s sexual invulnerability to the conception of men’s impenetrability. It’s not uncommon to hear men claim that men who engage in sexual relations with another man are not gay unless they are being penetrated (see for example here); this would indicate that there is something significant about the act of penetration that defines masculinity in opposition to pseudo-masculinity (male homosexuality) and femininity.

This, Thomas suggests,  serves as part of the reason that men shit in stalls but pee out in the open; it’s not a matter of modesty or embarrassment, but rather an admission that exposing the anus is a central focus of male vulnerability. Additionally, he suggests that perhaps, in order for men to consider themselves feminists, they should first be fucked in the ass, because being fucked in the ass is incumbent on being able to comprehend the magnitude of vulnerability that is associated with penetration.

So why am I talking about vulnerability when I started by talking about humiliation? Because sexual vulnerability is gendered (except in prison), whereas humiliation is not. Getting humped by a dog serves as a good link between sexual(ized) humiliation and sexual vulnerability, in a society where not many men can make that link. I’m not trying to trivialize sexual harassment or rape by comparing it to getting humped by a dog, nor am I claiming that men can never feel sexually vulnerable; I merely think that getting humped by a dog is symbolic of a more general feeling of sexual objectification, and I think it deserves more attention.

Toilet As Metaphor

Jennifer Baichwal’s film about Ed Burtinsky, Manufactured Landscapes, seemed to set off a sense of public awareness about the problems of e-waste. By now, a great many, if not most, major media outlets have covered the problem of e-waste to some degree or another; the Globe and Mail, CBC television, and National Geographic are three examples that I’ve come across just recently. The revelation that’s being covered by these stories is that when we throw stuff out, it actually ends up somewhere rather than just disappearing off the face of the earth. In a thought paper for my first women’s studies class (Women and the Environment), I remarked that I found it phenomenal how easy it is for my trash to miraculously disappear from my life the moment I decide to get rid of it. I keep putting garbage out on the curb, and it keeps disappearing! It’s like magic!

Regardless of how many news stories cover this issue, I have the feeling that people are still swept up with the fantasy of easy trash disposal. It pains me to imagine how little would be recycled if the city didn’t come right to our doorsteps to pick up our trash; even the effort of separating our recyclables is becoming too much to bear, and city councils are bowing to the pressure to ease their citizens of this burden. One solution to e-waste that has been thrown around is to have the manufacturers of electronics take responsibility for recycling their goods once their useful life is over, but I think that’s merely a stopgap measure as long as our trash keeps disappearing from our curbs. If anything, landfills should go right in the city centers, and the labour of recycling electronics should be a duty like serving in a jury; maybe then people would actually be disillusioned about the reality of waste disposal.

Free Software: It’s What’s for Dinner

Sorry for the poor showing lately, I’ve been horribly sick and only today committed to getting out of bed to do some work. Anyway, wince I don’t have any great blog posts lined up at the moment, I wanted to give a shout out to two free pieces of software that everyone whould get.

The first is Synergy, which allows you to use one mouse and keyboard across multiple computers, just as though they were multiple screens on one computer. I set up my desk with a Dell PC and a Mac Mini, with two screens connected to the PC. When both computers are turned on, I can flawlessly go from one screen to the next, including from the PC desktop to the Mac, without even blinking an eye. Brilliant. No more trying to figure out how to fit two keyboards and two mice on my keyboard tray.

The second is the Firefox add-on Leechblock, which blocks selected websites during selected times of the day or days of the week so you’re not tempted to bum around on the internet while you should be working. The first day I installed it was my most productive day ever, and the subsequent days have not failed to disappoint. The program is very thorough, too; if you’re the type of person to mess around with the system clock or go into about:config to get around the restrictions, it gives you suggestings for stopping that kind of behaviour as well.

Kudos to free, open source software developers.

Another layer of defenselessness

We were dicussing imagery associated with the Willy Pickton trial and all of the missing women from the Downtown Eastside today in class, and this image came up:

I noticed right away the contrast between the victims all being women and the rest of the people, especially the lawyers, being men. Of particular interest to me is the fact that Peter Ritchie is defending Robert Pickton, and Michael Petrie is defending the Crown, but no one is defending the women. Michael Petrie, while he is ostensibly on the “side” of the women, is actually defending the state from lawlessness and disorder. Compare Max Weber’s definition of the state:

[T]he state is the form of human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a particular territory [...]. [A]ll other organizations or individuals can assert the right to use physical violence only insofar as the state permits them to do so. (“Politics as a Vocation,” italics in original)

Pickton threatened the autonomy of the state by using physical violence without permission, which is why he is being prosecuted by the state rather than by a lawyer working for the women. Considering the Crown symbolism, in fact, the women have very little to do with this trial whatsoever.

Get off my lawn! Youth culture and social stigma

The cities of Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster have undertaken a project to build a bike path from the Vancouver waterfront to somewhere in New West, called the Central Valley Greenway. In true government style, the project is so far behind schedule that some of the earlier parts are decaying from lack of use while they plug away slowly at the newer parts, like the bridge near Sperling/Burnaby Lake. At the same time, the path seems like it was poorly advertised, so the parts that are usable only see a couple of travelers every day. For these reasons, much of the path seems forgotten and abandoned, particularly the section near my house, which passes a number of homeless person bush camps, a partially washed out bridge, lots of industrial warehouses and trailer yards, some derelict old buildings, and some train track embankments that are heavily graffitied and covered with trash. Many of these areas would serve as active deterrents to average people who might otherwise find the pathway very useful and enjoyable.

One of these areas is under the overpass where Kensington Avenue crosses Still Creek. When I first walked by here in the early fall, I was suprised to find that some enterprising kids had built an elaborate dirt BMX park under the bridge, with about 8 or 10 jumps of various sizes, as well as some phenomenal graffiti pieces on the massive bridge pylons. The jumps were clearly well-used, as indicated by the bike tracks in the dirt, the empty cans of coke and other detritus scattered on the ground, and the well-worn path crossing the tracks toward the suburban neighbourhood across Lougheed Highway. Unfortunately, when I walked by there again about two weeks ago, the entire park had been bulldozed flat, presumably by the city.

This got me thinking about the attitudes toward youth that are ingrained in the bylaws of cities across North America. For some reason (and there are probably lots of good ones), things that are associated with unchaperoned youth, like skate parks and graffiti, are often put in the same category as halfway houses and brothels when the prospect of their appearance in a gentrified neighbourhood comes up. (Even “txtspk” seems to signal the apocalypse for some people.) I’m sure there are lots of good reasons why adults are scared of youth culture, and they probably boil down in one way or another to the feeling of losing touch with the youth, or coming to no longer understand their actions and communication, which would be an early manifestation of losing control of them altogether and having them take over the world. Some youth are out of control, and lots of youth are insubordinate, spiteful, hateful and even violent toward adults, but I still don’t think this is a good justification for societally repudiating youth culture in general as foreign and dangerous.

Here’s why: it’s been my experience as a youth, and in my observations of other youths, that kids who are really into something are  going to stay out of trouble, for the most part. I was into climbing, for example, and when I was at the climbing gym or up in Squamish five days out of the week, I didn’t have a lot of time to drink and do drugs or whatever else I might have done. I was preoccupied with climbing. Contrary to what seems to be the popular conception of youth culture, things like skateboarding, BMX, snowboarding and graffiti are the same way. If a kid is really into skateboarding, or really into graffiti, they are probably going to be preoccupied with that activity to the degree that it deters them from activities that we should be afraid of, like gang violence, hard drug use, rape, and so on. Sure, kids who are into skateboarding and graffiti are going to smoke pot, and they’re going to have sex, but they’re not going to devote their lives to pot and sex if they have something more compelling that occupies their time

I realize that I’m making a lot of unqualified statements in this post, and that’s why I’m going to put out a call for research. I would greatly like to see some deep, intellectually and empirically rigorous examination of youths to see if there really is any basis for being afraid of youth culture, and for actively deterring kids from participating in it. Let’s analyse a healthy number of kids from across the continent, and see if pot really is a gateway drug, if graffiti really does lead to gang activity, and if text messaging really does lead to illiteracy. Would kids who participate in these activities be more likely to end up in prison or in gangs than kids who don’t? What exactly is the relationship between activities like these, that we seem to be afraid of, and the things we really should be afraid of? I think the results might surprise us. The city of Burnaby made a decision to pay to have that BMX park under the bridge ploughed down, and the graffiti buffed, and I would be very interested to see if there really is any reasonable basis for doing so. And if not, how do we remove the stigma that’s associated with anything youth culture?

Quit while you’re ahead

Bitch PhD posted this glowing praise of graduate school in the humanities yesterday:

Just Say No

She wrote in it response to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Thomas Benton that lists reasons why undergrads considering applying to a graduate program in the humanities should refrain altogether. He outlines many of the most common motives that undergrads have for pursuing more education:

• They are excited by some subject and believe they have a deep, sustainable interest in it. (But ask follow-up questions and you find that it is only deep in relation to their undergraduate peers — not in relation to the kind of serious dedication you need in graduate programs.)
• They received high grades and a lot of praise from their professors, and they are not finding similar encouragement outside of an academic environment. They want to return to a context in which they feel validated.
• They are emerging from 16 years of institutional living: a clear, step-by-step process of advancement toward a goal, with measured outcomes, constant reinforcement and support, and clearly defined hierarchies. The world outside school seems so unstructured, ambiguous, difficult to navigate, and frightening.
• With the prospect of an unappealing, entry-level job on the horizon, life in college becomes increasingly idealized. They think graduate school will continue that romantic experience and enable them to stay in college forever as teacher-scholars.
• They can’t find a position anywhere that uses the skills on which they most prided themselves in college. They are forced to learn about new things that don’t interest them nearly as much. No one is impressed by their knowledge of Jane Austen. There are no mentors to guide and protect them, and they turn to former teachers for help.
• They think that graduate school is a good place to hide from the recession. They’ll spend a few years studying literature, preferably on a fellowship, and then, if academe doesn’t seem appealing or open to them, they will simply look for a job when the market has improved. And, you know, all those baby boomers have to retire someday, and when that happens, there will be jobs available in academe.

And then explains why many of them later become violently disillusioned:

[H]umanities Ph.D.’s, without relevant experience or technical skills, generally compete at a moderate disadvantage against undergraduates, and at a serious disadvantage against people with professional degrees. If you take that path, you will be starting at the bottom in your 30s, a decade behind your age cohort, with no savings (and probably a lot of debt).

The great thing about this is that I’m right at that point where I can see things from both angles: I share many of the motivations for pursuing this and possibly my next degree, but I’m also fully aware of the dearth of academic positions available for graduates of this most abhorrent and first-to-be-underfunded of university departments. I’ve been very open with telling people that one of the reasons that I have pursued this degree, aside from my interest in it, it that I am afraid of the real world. All the while, I have held in the back of my mind some level of fear and loathing for the day that I will inevitably be faced with the choice of competing with hundreds of others for a meager number of academic positions, or else competing with fresh, young, and much more ambitious undergraduates for whatever positions I might be qualified for outside of academia.

One thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that I’m exactly $0 in debt.