Home » Archives for June 2014

Cult of Compliance - Arizona State Cops vs Ersula Ore

Monday, June 30, 2014 0 comments
At the end of May, a black female professor named Ersula Ore at Arizona State University was walking across the street when she was arrested for jaywalking. By report, people cross at that site regularly to avoid construction and it is reasonably suspicious that a black woman was the person singled out by police.

She has been charged with a felony for kicking at him after she was flung to the ground. Police reviewed the file and said they did nothing wrong. There is a move-on petition (I have signed it). Here's a local article on the story as the case is being re-reviewed in the wake of viral social media response. Then Huffington Post and CNN. There's lots more.

I argue that along with race, which is central to the case I believe, we've got an example of the cult of compliance. We have made it possible to criminalize non-compliance. If you don't obey police, they can physically hurt you, and if you defend yourself, you get charged with attacking the police. This happens all the time across America, especially to non-white people, but we rarely hear about it. The stories that make the news often involve disability, as the disability functions to absolve the victim of police violence, or at least complicate the narrative. In this case, we hear about the story because it involves a professor the means to leverage social media outrage, to speak for herself, and because professor does still command some respect in American discourse. An average black woman harassed by police is not news, and the new would not cover it.

We also only hear about it because someone called 911 on the COP who was being too aggressive. I'm grateful to that person.

Here's the video. There's also dash-cam video now if you follow that link.


This is the cult of compliance. If she just complies, gives her ID, is nicely respectful, she probably just gets a citation. Stand up for your rights, even as a professor on your own campus, and this is what happens.

As always, we can do better.

MUSIC! PLEASE HELP!

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We interrupt this blog to bring you a special announcement.

I am recording a live album with my band, The Tooles, this September. It will be all original music and we're really excited about it. It is, however, expensive, and so we have a kickstarter. If you like music, please check it out and consider supporting our project. Thank you.

Me, singing at the Kalamazoo Irish Festival
And now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging on language, power, and privilege.

Maintenance Monday: How-to Check & Refill Engine Coolant

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Visually check the engine coolant level in the overflow tank. Your owner's manual has the directions. The level should be between "Low" and "Full" marks. (Don't open the radiator cap or the pressurized overflow tank cap when the engine is hot! The cooling system is under pressure when hot!) If the coolant level is low, you can top it up using recommended type of coolant mixed with water. Again, your owner's manual has the proper way to do it. 
 Add coolant only when the engine is cool. Use only recommended engine coolant. Sometimes engine coolant is sold already premixed with water and sometimes you will have to mix it. Check you owner's manual or read the directions on the coolant bottle. Carefully add the coolant into the overflow tank to make it between "LOW" and "FULL" marks
 If the coolant level drops within a short time after topping up, there may be a leak. Have the coolant system checked - lack of coolant may cause the engine to overheat which may result in serious damage.


Source:

Sunday Roundup: Pro-Information and Girls and Science

Sunday, June 29, 2014 0 comments
I had three pieces this week that I thought were especially important.

First, I hosted a guest post by Nancy McCrea Iannone on the troubles of the Pro-Information law in Louisiana, where anti-abortion activists have hijacked what was an unusual, important, coalition.
  • I wrote about my own thoughts here in Pro-choice, Pro-Information, Anti-Eugenics.
  • Mark Leach has a key followup. Like the bill, the comment thread was hijacked by an anti-choice radical. It's precisely why I am skeptical the pro-information coalition can sustain. 
  • One more thought: I suspect making a discussion it illegal to discuss termination, will cause MORE eugenic abortions. It's analogous to me the way that anti-abortion radicals fight birth control and sex ed. Education is the way forward, not silencing.
Second, I reacted to a terrible Scientific American blog post in Girls and Science - Makers vs a Scientific American blogger.
  • Here's a good blog post on the ensuing kerfuffle, where Lee Billings, a very famous science journalist, told the women in the thread to stop "whining" on Twitter and take it to the comment thread. Which they had, in fact. And whoever controls the SciAm Blogs "favorited" Billings' tweet.
  • I thought the irony of the video to which I link appearing the same day as I became aware of the SciAm blog (it was published in April) was interesting, but am not really a science writer or in that community. Still, the notion that some famous male writer can try to control female discourse by using the "whining" word is appalling. Pro tip: Avoid whining and hysteria words when talking about gender.
Third, I wrote a new piece in the Chronicle on counting public engagement and offered a few thoughts on it here and here. In that second one, I ask whether it would be reasonable to take a sustained effort of successful, "impactful" public engagement and exchange it for one piece of peer-reviewed writing in a tenure and promotion portfolio?

Thanks for reading and sharing this week. Next week, I expect, will be more on violence against people with disabilities (sigh. It never stops).

Men want kids because privilege

Friday, June 27, 2014 0 comments
I've been working on work-life issues lately, focusing on fathers and discourse around working dads.

This has led me back to an important piece by Amanda Hess from last year, important not only because of its argument but because of the rabbit hole of links and studies to which it leads.

Hess responds to the frustrating "have it all" debate and some numbers that suggest men are increasingly likely to "want it all" because for them, having a family doesn't seem to mean surrendering their career. She writes:
Men aren’t more “obsessed” with having it all. They don’t have to be. Pursuing a family and a career requires less professional sacrifice for men than it does for women, so it’s easier to claim to prioritize both in their definition of success. Men face fewer barriers to being both “family-oriented” and “ambitious.” They’re rarely even asked how they manage to juggle career with kids, so the question carries less weight—you don’t conceive of a contradiction if you’ve never been asked to choose.
What I like here is the focus on perception. It's not that men who do caregiving don't struggle in their careers - Hess in fact cites this piece by Bryce Covert to show that the opposite is true - but that men don't perceive the challenge of "having it all." Women, beset by the fraught category of working mom, know that trouble is coming if they try to do both. So many don't.

There are limits to what my focus on language can accomplish. Policy has to follow. Before we can get to policy, however, we have to change perceptions so we ask the right questions and come up with the best plans. That's why I keep talking about "working dads."

My Google results this morning for "working mom" = 1,100,000. "Working dad." = 124,000.

Girls and Science - Makers vs a Scientific American Blogger

Thursday, June 26, 2014 0 comments
So Verizon and Makers teamed up to make a great new video about the insidious ways that we push girls away from science.


I am always suspicious of corporations getting involved in social causes, as they tend to be followers rather than leaders. Still, Makers is pretty great and I think the video highlights some typical ways that we push girls away from science, math, and so forth.

The takeaway is that starting very early, mostly without meaning to, our society (and especially parents, but surely friends and school and media and commerce and so forth) lets girls know that their place is NOT in the lab or the workshop or the field. It's socially constructed, it may well not be intentional, but it works.

This conversation matters because, much to my surprise, the fundamental premises are still subject to debate. This morning I was alerted to a post on Scientific American blogs, in which a psychology doctoral student named Chris Martin wants you to know that women are just naturally not so scientific, at least not when we're talking about the super-duper-smart people. He invests in the Larry Summers argument because he wants to debunk Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who when asked about women in science, gave a smart answer about race and science by way of analogy.

Martin writes, with intense disciplinary snobbery to my reading:
Neil deGrasse Tyson responded to the question quite well, but since he’s not a social scientist, he wasn’t able to draw on psychological research on gender differences. His answer focused on stereotyping and self-fulfilling prophecy effect. I don’t blame him the slightest for lacking expertise in an area outside his specialty, but I do think people who only watch that video could come away with a misconception about the impact of stereotyping. I’m not going to discuss self-fulfilling prophecies here—they have a weak effect—but I will talk about how recent research has addressed this question.
Yes, Martin argues, there might be a weak effect of stereotyping, but really it's not such a big deal. The key, he argues, is that there are plenty of women in science, but they tend to be in biology and psych, and most of them do not "choose" to go into academic careers. Martin wonders why.

I am not going to quote more fully. At the end, he nods to the notion that stereotyping might have a tiny bit to do with why women don't become scientists, but mostly he makes claims that in the context of the Larry Summers debate have been well discredited. Yes, it's not impossible that there are evolutionary factors that have a tiny effect on career choice. It's not impossible. But as said on twitter (quoted with permission):
We've been through this before.

There's a place for a smartly argued thoughtfully nuanced piece on the ways that evolution may in fact shape certain kinds of gender difference. This is not that piece. This makes these bold confident truthy statements claiming that the matter is resolved, and this man will tell how it really is.

It wouldn't matter. Except that it is on Scientific American's blogs, a major forum, and I suspect it reflects the beliefs of countless people in positions of authority, people who hire, people who train, people who run labs.

Here's the deal I'll make.

Let's get rid of all the stereotyping, all the micro-aggressions that drive girls and women out of science, the social messaging that women who nurture are the only real women, that pretty matters more than smart. The phrases in the video are real, I hear them, I see them in our media. Let's beat those back, and then we can see where the evolutionary gender differences really take us.

Because these stereotypes run deep. Sometimes, I feel them coming out of my own mouth, directed at my daughter. She'll be wearing a pretty dress, she'll be heading for the mud, she'll be doing something that might be a bit dangerous, and I'll find my words telling her to stop. And I'll be appalled at myself.

Then, even if my daughter's wearing a pretty dress, I hand her a shovel and we go out and dig for worms. I would dig out the science kit and do an experiment with her, but it turns out ... her mother is a scientist.

I leave the hard science to mom. 

SUSTAINED (emphasis) Public Engagement, not just engagement.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 0 comments
Here are a few more points related to my article on public engagement - how it might work and what I mean by "there is no ivory tower."

1. How might it work?

No one is seriously advocating that an op-ed is equal to a piece of peer-reviewed scholarship. At least no one I know of. But I hear, as push-back, "Well, it's not like an op-ed is equal to a peer-reviewed article." Right!

This is why I emphasize "sustained." I actually think a single op-ed is not unlike writing a complex book review or encyclopedia article in terms of effort, and I'd be happy for one op-ed to count about as much as either of those. They are portfolio filler, they show a kind of engagement with the field and expertise, but they don't carry significant weight in hiring, tenure, or promotion decisions.

Sustained public engagement, whether via a regular column, a blog, community organizing, agricultural extension services or public history (for which the reward structures already work this way, as far as I know), is something else though. For example, would it be so wrong to take a tenure system requiring a book + 2 peer reviewed articles, and instead accept a book + 1 peer reviewed article + record of sustained pubic engagement?

I do believe that for most of us, our identity as academics depends on a record of specialized discipline-specific research, usually undergoing a blind peer review process (though I will be happy to critique peer review at a later point). This is as it should be. I just think that if someone is really committed to public engagement of whatever sort, one could develop a structure that substitutes some of the requirements for tenure with this other kind of activity.

We will need metrics, much as we have metrics for "good" or "impactful" (ugh) with scholarly publications. This is a doable challenge.

2. There is no Ivory Tower

There is an ivory tower, but it's not real. That's to say, the notion that academia is separated from "real life" is a mirage, but a mirage that some people cling to. I think it's a response to the anti-intellectualism that permeates American culture. We build these imagined walls, often fortified with snobbishness (that I encounter too often), as a defense mechanism.

What I don't want to do (and did in an earlier draft) is to denigrate specialized scholarship and call it "ivory tower."

3. Dear conservative commentator ...

From the Chronicle:

Robert Oscar López, a conservative commentator, wrote:
Don't overlook the problem with political bias. I contribute a huge amount to "civic engagement" but I am conservative, and my activism works to ensure that every child has a relationship with his mother and father, something that drives the homofascists into hysterics. I've published hundreds of articles and collaborated on research about the importance of children having a mom and dad, but I would have to be smoking crack to put any of that in my personnel file. The lesbians who run the our campus offices would just start hating me more than they already do. Part of me feels that this stuff shouldn't really count; you should have organic intellectual work as a truly altruistic pursuit that you do for the love of it.
I responded:
Robert - I find your language here offensive. There's no place for "homofascists" or the assumption that lesbians cannot recognize good work with which they disagree. As an academic, you of course already know that fascism in fact is about using state power to enforce a perceived normality - usually the man/woman norm in fact that you advocate for in your work - rather than a push for a more inclusive society. I'm pleased to stand with the inclusivists, personally, but the great thing about inclusion (rather than fascism) is that there is room for bigotry to thrive, be free, speak openly, get published, get tenure, and so forth. As opposed to fascism, where perceived deviant behavior suffers from state (and often private) action.
That said, I suspect you are using such language to troll the liberals who mostly post here, inviting venom, so that then you can engage in conservative victimization fantasies to justify your sense of grievance. I won't give you that out. Instead, let's take you seriously.
Your position is why having clear tenure and promotion standards matter. You build a structure in which you measure quality NOT by whether you agree with it politically, then apply those metrics across the board. In such context, impact and quality matter. You should be advocating for such measurements much more forcefully than I in order to protect not just yourself, who with your hundreds of articles must be doing fine, but the next generation of conservative academics who wish to engage with the public.
Good luck!
And with that, I'm done writing. It's time to start writing.

Cigars And Cars at Shula's 347 Grill

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Join the Peoples Station V-103 and Budweiser Black Crown to Experience a Night of Sophistication and Elegance with Free Hors D’oeuvers, Casino Games, Cigars and you at cigars and cars at Shula's 347 Grill located on 3405 Lenox Rd from 6pm-9pm hosted by the Gentleman of V-103 must be 21 and up to enter brought to you by Budweiser Black Crown and the Peoples Station V-103

Sustained Public Engagement

Monday, June 23, 2014 0 comments
I have a new piece up at the Chronicle on public engagement in higher education. I've written about public engagement both here and on various sites before, but now I am starting a series of columns for the advice/careers section of the Chronicle. I will be writing about how both individuals and institutions could be engaging and are engaging, and some of the lessons we might draw from this. Next month, for example, I will discuss Catholic universities and undocumented students.

This piece, however, has been in the making for months, especially with my response to Nicholas Kristof.

Here are the points I make today:
  1. First, academics of all sorts are already deeply engaged with the public in many different ways.
  2. Second, many universities explicitly recognize public engagement as a category that may count toward hiring, tenure, or promotion.
  3. Third, in the United States and in academe itself, the widespread perception is that most faculty members do not engage with the public—either because they don’t want to or because they know they won’t be rewarded for it.
If you read this blog, you knew point 1 already. Many of you are, in fact, the very evidence of point 1. Academics are already in public, not just as writers, but as organizers, activists, outreach coordinators, and so much more. 

Point two surprised me. I set out to write this column as a screed, to shout, "count this!" In fact, many universities have ways of counting it, though standards and types vary. 

Point three, then, is the conundrum. If one and two are true, shouldn't we all know it? What's going on? 

I think we have a problem of discourse. We somehow perpetuate the idea both that academics don't do public engagement and that specialized scholarship is useless to the broader world, neither of which is true, though they function very differently. 

Here are two steps I think we might take.
  1. Be smarter than me. What does your institution count?
  2. Start disciplinary conversations. I think this might be a great function for the MLA, AHA, AAR, CAA, etc. They have no power over institutions, but that's not the step here. The step is to persuade other faculty that we could do more to count and measure public engagement.
I finish with the following:
The myth of the ivory tower dismisses the public academic as an aberration and the specialized scholar as detached. Neither is true. But we do have a problem with how we define, count, and value many types of public engagement. If we can improve this and tear down the mythic tower, we can make sure that all of our varied but important types of work get the credit they deserve.
And now, the sources I cite in the piece.
  • Patricia Limerick, president of the Organization of American Historians, recently put out a call to locate scholars who do public work.
  • In response, Matthew G. Schoenbachler, professor of History at the University of North Alabama, wrote that all such efforts are just “pro bono - the entire academic system of incentives and rewards militates against such activities.”
  • My university includes “scholarship of engagement” as one of the types of scholarship that count for tenure or promotion, a phrase that emerged from the expansive taxonomy of scholarship pioneered by Ernest Boyer of the Carnegie Foundation. 
  • Syracuse employs the phrase “publicly engaged scholarship” in their tenure and promotion documents.
  • The University of Illinois uses “public engagement” and “public service,” recognizing the problem of categorizing diverse acts of engagement in our standard tenure and promotion framework.
  • Other universities categorize such activity solely as service. Portland State, for example, uses the phrase “community outreach.” 
  • Community colleges routinely link service to tenure and promotion, with the potential for that service to be outside the university. At the Central Oregon Community Colleges, for example, full professors will “regularly serve the community as an expert resource.”
  • Also, I link to this (now slightly outdated) study on shifting workloads.

Maintenance Monday: Oil Changes and Tire Care

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Since the weather is heating up I decided to start sharing tips on how to care for you car during the Summer Months. Starting with Oil Changes and Tire Care.

 Today I gave my car some TLC starting with an Oil Change:

For my oil changes I go to Sears Auto Center because they have great service and offer coupons for loyal customers today I got my oil change for $14.49

#ChickAutoTip: Many mechanics, dealers and quick-change lube shops suggest 3,000-mile oil change intervals for many cars but refer to your owners manual to be certain.

Next up, I needed one tire so I headed to Brown Tire Shop in Marietta--
1629 S Cobb Dr SE, Marietta, GA
One of the best places in Cobb County to get Tires! Quality Tires at a Discounted Price

I needed a tire for long time and I don't advise driving on a tire with the tread that is that low. I thank god for his mercy because that tire was DONE.


Penny Tire Tread Test- If you always see the top of Lincoln's head, your treads are shallow and worn and needs to be replaced--Top Picture

If Part of Lincoln's head is always covered by the tread, you have more than 2/32 of an inch of tread depth remaining. This means you don't need new tires --Bottom Pic



Main Image Source: Google
Penny Test Image: Firestone

Pro-choice, Pro-Information, Anti-Eugenics

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Yesterday I published a guest post by Nancy McCrea Iannone, an expert on Down syndrome and pregnancy. I would like you, please, to go read it and share it. Independent blogs like mine need your help to spread the word on any given message.

The post talked about an assault on the pro-information coalition by anti-abortion activists and legislators in Louisiana. Pro-information stands for the many pro-life AND pro-choice people who have come together to try and change how the pre-natal diagnosis is being presented. We know that at least some of the very high percentage of terminations after a pre-natal diagnosis of Down syndrome take place after being told things that are either simply false or skew towards the negatives. We know that doctors deliver the diagnosis, then ask, "so would you like me to schedule a termination for you?" We know we can do this better, and we are, thanks to the efforts of so many.

It happens with post-natal diagnoses too. When Nico was born, in that terrifying and grief-stricken first hour, we were given a huge list of things that might possibly go wrong, This was, I know, merely medical due diligence, like the list of side-effects or complications that the doctors feel required to give you, but it skewed our early encounters with our baby in ways that took awhile to un-do. Fortunately, we had an actual living baby to care for, and cuddle, and get to know, and that made all the difference. In the absence of that child, in the pre-natal context, the negative overwhelms.

Hence, pro-information. It's a complicated position for a pro-choice man like me, because mandating information has become a tactic in the anti-abortion movement - the mandatory transvaginal ultrasound is proposed as an "information" procedure, though clearly it's meant to discourage women from having abortions rather than go through with the invasive procedure. It's also a complicated position for pro-life folks as ultimately they are hoping the woman chooses life, but they are acknowledging choice is part of the equation.

Here's the bottom line though on which (I think) we all agree: whatever information is provided in the context of the pre-natal diagnosis should actually be true and inclusive.

Can we all agree on that? Doctors should provide the whole picture to their best of their ability, representing the best current knowledge on life with Down syndrome and what it's like? If they don't, they are not in fact best serving the needs of their patients.

But one of those options is abortion. It's not the option I want people to choose. I am deeply worried about the eugenic strains that run deep in American culture and plan to do much more writing on the subject in the year to come. But it's one of the options. Laws that exclude that option, that criminalize that option, are not part of my movement.

The minute pro-information becomes a smoke-screen for anti-abortion activism, I am out.

After 2,000 Miles Part Two: Dislikes

Sunday, June 22, 2014 0 comments

I have to say that overall I am very pleased with my i3. It's living up to what I had hoped it would be, and after a month of ownership I'm convinced it was the right electric vehicle choice for me. However that doesn't mean it's perfect. In fact it's far from perfect, but so is every other car out there. As much as I really love my i3, I can probably list a couple dozen things that I would have done differently. Listed below are some of the top things that I'm not particularly fond of.

I took this picture from an i3 display at the LA Auto Show. Somehow 100 miles turned into 82 miles once the production i3 was revealed.
The Range. So let's just get this out of the way now. I'm disappointed that BMW didn't deliver a real "100 mile" electric vehicle as they had been promising. The 81 mile EPA range on the BEV i3 and the 72 mile rating for the REx, falls a little short in my opinion. If the BEV i3 had an EPA range of 95 miles per charge or greater then I wouldn't have ordered the REx, and I think a lot of others share that opinion. I hope I'm wrong, but I believe this is going to hold back BEV i3 sales significantly. I think 82 miles falls just short of what many US customers will find acceptable for a premium electric vehicle.
Looks like the battery is 3 & 3/16th's out of 4 bars full. Wonderful.

No Proper State of Charge Gauge. When I first found out that the i3 wouldn't display the state of charge in numeric form, I was dumbfounded. Instead, the i3 state of charge display is just four bars that slowly erode as the range diminishes, and it displays the predicted amount of miles the car "thinks" you can travel. In other words, a Guess O Meter. When Nissan initially offered the LEAF, this is basically the same way they displayed the state of charge. Their customers complained so much, that after a couple years Nissan finally realized they made a mistake and added a proper state of charge display. I dedicated an entire blog post to this back in December of last year when it was revealed that the i3 wouldn't display the SOC. Still to this day I am in denial and refuse to believe it's not coming in a future software update. There is absolutely no logical reason for omitting it. It was simply a mistake on BMW's part and like Nissan they will indeed realize that and add it to the display at some point. I'm not saying they need to eliminate the bar system they have, just give us both and let the customer decide which they prefer to rely on.

Like the MINI-E before it, the ActiveE had a clear state of charge and battery temperature display. It's puzzling why both of these important features were omitted on the i3.

No Battery Temperature Readout. Like the state of charge gauge but to a lessor degree, this is a little puzzling. Maybe the majority of i3 owners might not really care what their battery temperature is, but I do and I know quite a few others who do too. It's further puzzling because both of BMW's beta test cars that I drove, the MINI-E and the ActiveE, had battery temperature displays. I like to see how well the thermal management system is performing, how hot the battery may have gotten while baking in the direct sun of a parking lot for a few hours, or how cold the cells are after parking outside overnight in the dead of winter. Knowing the battery temperature helps me know what to expect of the car performance-wise and can also help me to keep the cells from getting too hot in certain circumstances. The car knows the battery temperature, just provide that somewhere on a screen buried in iDrive somewhere and I guarantee many i3 owners will appreciate it.
When you are in "Glide Mode" the white bar is in the position it is shown here. As you use power the bar moves to the right (ePower) and if you are recuperating energy with regenerative braking, the bar moves to the left (Charge) of center.

Glide Position Difficult to Achieve and Maintain. BMW describes the i3's glide feature as such: "The BMW i3’s accelerator has a distinct “neutral” position; i.e. rather than switching straight to energy recuperation when the driver eases off the accelerator, the electric motor uses zero torque control to decouple from the drivetrain and deploy only the available kinetic energy for propulsion. In this mode, the BMW i3 glides along using virtually no energy at all." I've only had the car for a month, but it seems more difficult to find the glide (or coasting) position and then hold it, than it was on the ActiveE. A few years ago I was talking with a BMW engineer about this and I suggested there be a switch to turn off regen completely if the driver wished. I would prefer to do this on long, high speed highway driving where I want to coast as much as possible. I was told that they probably wouldn't offer such a switch to disable it because they would be worried the driver would forget they deactivated the regen, and possibly have an accident because they expected  it to engage later on. I still think this would be a good solution for maximizing efficiency by coasting at higher speeds.  

The kenaf deck in direct sunlight
You can see the reflection of the dash









Windshield Glare. The majority of the top deck of the dashboard is made of compressed kenaf fibers. The use of this material has garnered some criticism because some people think it looks cheap, and not worthy of being in a car made by a premium automaker. I actually like the look of it but what I don't like is that in direct sunlight I can see the reflection of the entire dashboard up on the windshield. After a few weeks I'm getting used to it and it isn't as annoying as it was when I first noticed it, but it definitely isn't ideal. The shiny kenaf surface does cast a pretty clear reflection on bright, sunny days.

No AM Radio. I like to listen to AM talk radio and I am a Mets fan (unfortunately). Mets games are only broadcast on AM so I was disappointed to find out that i3 doesn't have an AM radio. BMW spokesman Dave Buchko recently told Jim Motavalli the reasoning for excluding the AM radio was primarily due to interference from the electric motor: “We learned from our experience with MINI E and BMW ActiveE that the electric motor causes interference with the AM signal. Rather than frustrate customers with inferior reception, the decision was made to leave it off. HD Radio is standard on the i3 and through multi-casting, many traditional AM stations in key markets are available on secondary and tertiary HD signals.” I admit the AM radio in the MINI-E had really bad interference, so much so that I rarely listened to it, but it wasn't bad on the ActiveE. Other electric cars have AM radios and they don't seem to be all that bad. This is a little bit of a head-scratcher to me. I'm learning to live without it, but why should I have to?

Grooves like this in the pavement can be felt more in the i3 than in other cars. I believe it's because of the vehicles light weight combined with its narrow tires.
The Thin Tires Can Get Caught in Pavement Grooves. When roads are paved, unless they are narrow secondary or tertiary roads, they are usually done in multiple strips. This also allows the street to remain open with one lane of traffic flow at a time during the paving process. The problem is, the line where the two sections of the new pavement meet has tiny gaps and over time the road degrades with the help of water and ice and a groove develops. The i3's tires are so thin that they are effected by these grooves and uneven pavement more so than most cars that are heavier and have wider tires. It doesn't present a safety problem; the car doesn't lose any control, you just have to be cognizant of this and make sure you have a grip on the steering wheel when one wheel dips into pavement grooves - which is a good idea in any event. I also believe the very sensitive steering of the i3 adds to this sensation that the grooves are trying to steer the car for you. The i3 has very tight and sensitive steering. You only need to slightly lean in one direction or the other to make a turn, and it is something that takes a week or so to get used to. It has by far the most sensitive steering I have ever experienced on any car. The turning radius is also a freakishly-short 32.3 feet.
The Key FOB will open the front trunk, but not the rear hatch.

Key FOB Doesn't Open the Hatch. This is a minor complaint, and since my i3 has comfort access I can open the locked hatch just by grabbing the hatch handle as long as I have the key in my pocket. I would still prefer to have a button on the FOB that remotely opens the hatch. There is a button that opens the front trunk, which I will rarely ever need to open, I don't know why BMW didn't use that button for the rear hatch, or just add a button and have one for both.

Regen Braking is Less Aggressive. Before I start complaining, let me say that I've driven just about every modern electric vehicle and plug-in-hybrid and I believe the i3 has absolutely the very best regenerative braking system on the market. Telsa probably comes in second and the Volt, when driven in low mode, is right behind the Model S. BMW dialed back the regen on the i3 a bit, probably in the vicinity of about 10% when compared to the ActiveE. People who never drove the ActiveE or MINI-E won't understand what I'm complaining about because the i3's regenerative braking is still strong and very smooth. It can bring the car to a stop without using the friction brakes faster than any regenerative braking system on any other EV will. Still, I liked it stronger like it was on the ActiveE and MINI-E. I guess regenerative braking is like coffee. Some will prefer the Blonde Roast with cream while others want the Dark Roast served black. Give me my regen as strong as possible please. I recommended to BMW that they offer different regen settings and let the customer decide how strong they like it, but that didn't come to pass on the i3. It's still very good, and integrates seamlessly when decelerating, I would just prefer it a bit stronger.

When the car is locked the connector will not release, even when charging is finished

Locking Connector. While charging, the connector is locked to the car as long as the vehicle is locked. The connector cannot be released unless you unlock the doors, even when the charging session is complete. I've found this very annoying and so have many other i3 owners. The ability to lock the connector to the car should be configurable in iDrive, giving the owner options like "Unlock when charge is complete" and "Do not lock connector". Allow the owner to decide what works best for them. Many people like to share chargers, especially in EV-friendly California. These people will leave a note on their dashboard telling others it's OK to unplug them and use the EVSE once they have finished charging or after a specific time. The locking connector prevents any charger sharing unless you leave your vehicle unlocked, which is not a viable option in most circumstances. I can understand this locking feature would be necessary in Europe because the charging cables are not tethered to the EVSE like they are here in the US and this prevents theft. It seems BMW may have built the i3 for the European charging process and didn't consider the inconvenience it would cause for US customers. This is another feature I believe we'll see changed in a software update at some point in the future.

When I navigate this bend in the road by my house, the regenerative braking disengages. Since the road is also downgrade I find I have to use the friction brakes to keep from accelerating down the  hill. I didn't have to do that in the past while driving my MINI-E or ActiveE as both would allow the regenerative braking system to hold back the car during turns like this.

Regen Braking Disengages During Hard Turns. I'm a little surprised with the second complaint I have with the regenerative braking. While negotiating turns, the regen sometimes disengages which will give the sensation that the car is actually speeding up. Of course it isn't (unless you are going downhill), but when you are in full regen and it suddenly disengages, it does feel like the car is accelerating when if fact it just isn't being slowed down by the regenerative braking. During the MINI-E and ActiveE programs, I personally spoke to dozens of people who contacted me asking if my car ever suddenly surged ahead. What was happening with those cars was different though. If the regenerative braking system was operating and the car hit a pothole or a bump that caused the wheels to lose traction, the traction control would disengage the regen in an attempt to prevent the loss of control. When this happened, it would give the driver the sensation of sudden acceleration, especially when driving downhill. This was unsettling if you didn't understand what was happening and typically when this happened the owner would take the car to the dealer for service. The dealer would look it over and find nothing wrong and give it back to them. Frustrated, many of the drivers then contacted me to ask if anyone else had complained of this sudden acceleration problem. After explaining what was actually happening to them they understood what was going on. I would also caution them to always have their foot ready to press the friction brake when they were using regen to slow the car down, especially if they were approaching the car in front of them as they were decelerating.

BMW has indeed improved the whole traction control/regenerative braking system communication and the i3 performs much better than the MINI-E or ActiveE did when the tires lose traction during regenerative braking. However it now disengages during cornering, and neither of its predecessors ever did this. I can tell by how it's working that it isn't a flaw in my system, it was intentionally designed to do this, perhaps to prevent the thin tires from losing traction while negotiating hard turns. Again, it's not a problem as long as you know it's going to happen and you are ready to use the friction brakes if necessary. I've found it mostly happens while I'm taking a highway off-ramp that circles down under the highway overpass. It seems the speed I'm traveling combined with the sharp, constant turn is too much and the traction control preemptively disengages the regen in an attempt to prevent the loss of traction. I believe this is something the dealers need to communicate to the customer. It can be a safety issue if new i3 owners aren't prepared for it. Just like with the MINI-E and ActiveE, I'm certain there will be customers that believe there is something wrong with their car and will take it to the dealer for service. And just as I'm sure that will happen, I'm sure the service departments won't have a clue what the customers are talking about and will tell them they checked it out and car is fine. Unless the service manager happens to read this post ;)


I haven't had this happen to me, but a couple people have reported it.
Software Bugs and Various Glitches. There have been a number of various software bugs and other issues reported since the car launched here in the US about two months ago. For example, all of the i3s with the range extender option have had their check engine light (CEL) come on sporadically. Evidently there is nothing actually wrong with the engine, it's just a software bug and BMW has just released a patch to stop the light from coming on, but it's still not something you want to see on a new car. I've also heard of a couple people have their onboard charger fail, and a few others report that the car flashed a "Drivetrain Malfunction" warning. In the cases I've heard about, it just cleared itself and the owner was able to take it to the dealer to be checked and there was no problem found. Honestly I did expect there would be some initial glitches, and it's really too early to tell if these are isolated cases or if it's an indication that there are indeed going to be more problems to come. Other than the phantom CEL warning, my car has been perfect so far, but I'll be watching it closely and reporting on what I experience as well as what I hear from other i3 owners as time passes.

Minor Annoyances:
There are a few things that really don't bother me that much, but I know other i3 owners who have complained about these things:
The dangling plastic charge port cap seen here isn't really too high on my list of annoyances, but I have heard quite a few other i3 owners complain about it. I even know a couple that have cut it off.

1) Charge port plastic caps. After you open the watertight charge port door you need to remove a plastic cap before you plug the car in. It really doesn't bother me, but I agree it isn't the best solution. a spring loaded cover that flips over and snaps in place like the ActiveE had would be better. Is this really even needed though?

2) The adaptive cruise control system will sometimes disengage for no apparent reason. When it works, it's really a great feature, but it does have a tendency to disengage by itself. It seems like driving in the rain, in direct sunlight and going under overpasses give it the most trouble. I have used it a couple dozen times now and it has disengaged four times by itself. Not a big issue, but one that BMW will hopefully improve.

3) The "Door Ajar" warning light is very sensitive. If you don't close the doors pretty hard, the door ajar warning light will come on while you are driving. The doors aren't in any danger of opening, I just think the warning trigger is just too sensitive.

4) BMW advertises that for home charging "a maximum charging power of 7.4 kW can be reached".  I have yet to be able to crack 7kW's and usually see my charge rate at around 6.7 kW to 6.9 kW. Sure, this is a minor complaint, but my supply is more than adequate to accommodate at least 7.2 kW, so why won't the car pull it? I've talked to other i3 owners about this also, and 6.9 kW is about the most anybody has seen the car pull.

5) No programmable button on the key FOB to initiate battery and cabin preconditioning. The European i3s have this feature, but for some reason it was left off the US i3s. You can still initiate cabin and battery preconditioning via the smartphone app, but having it on the key FOB is easier. Some people (you know who you are!) have told me it was a deal breaker and wouldn't buy an i3 without it.    

I'm sure I'll come up with more dislikes as time goes on, and I'll continue to post them here. Even considering everything I've detailed here, I'm thoroughly enjoying my i3. I drove it a total of 162 miles today and less than 2 miles was with the REx running. The range extender allows me to really push the range limit without worrying if I'll make my destination. Oh yeah, that reminds me of one more complaint. I want the ability to turn the range extender off if I know I'll make my destination. Twice so far the range extender turned on when I was less than a 1/4 mile from my house and once it turned on while I was pulling up my driveway! I believe the European i3s do allow the operator to turn it off manually, so that's just another feature (sunroof, programmable key FOB, REx hold mode) that we don't get here in the States. Yeah, I know... first world problems. :)

Take Flight with Ford Experience

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When I received the invitation to take part in this experience at the Pilot's Country Club I knew it was going to be nothing less than amazing. I served as one of the blog partners for this event and had the pleasure of attending an exclusive Media Program that included Ford Fusion test drives and vehicle demos and I was able to catch up with my Ford Executive buddies. Ford rolled out the Blue Carpet guests that attended were greeted by Top-flight attendants, rocked out to the AMAZING DJ Mars, observed the talented Monica Tookes create live art, enjoyed premium Ford Cigars, snapped photos in the OMG Booth,  savored complimentary Gentleman Jack Cocktails and hor' dourves. Great times were definitely had!


Shanti Das







Host Keisha Knight Pulliam and Monyetta Shaw

K.P Smith, Keisha Knight Pulliam and Tim Witt

Monica Tookes getting her paint on

Nataki Minix and Rashan Ali

Nataki Minix, Sheri Riley, K.P. Smith, Mali Hunter, Rashan Ali and Shanti Das

 Rashan Ali and Sheri Riley

Rashan Ali and Lena Danielle

MC Taiye Samuel

K.P Smith and Keisha Knight Pulliam

Keisha Knight Pulliam and K.P Smith Introducing the Ford Ambassadors
Rashan Ali, Keinon Johnson, Sheri Riley, Chris Luchey, Lena Danielle and Shanti Das


GUEST POST - Keep Abortion Politics Out of the Pro-Information Movement

Saturday, June 21, 2014 0 comments
Nancy McCrea Iannone argues that the new Louisiana law on pre-natal testing inserts abortion politics into what had been a non-partisan movement by forbidding health-care providers to present termination as a neutral or acceptable choice. 

Comments from David Perry on this post can be found here.

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Information: Proceed with Caution

by Nancy McCrea Iannone.

The Louisiana Legislature recently passed a law requiring health care providers to provide information to expectant parents receiving a Down syndrome diagnosis. While the law follows the positive and rising "pro-information" trend among the states, the Louisiana statute deviates from this trend significantly. Louisiana added a requirement that the information the Department of Health and Hospitals gives to health care providers, and which the providers are required to give out to patients, "cannot explicitly or implicitly present termination as a neutral or acceptable choice."

"Pro-information" is the word that many members of the Down syndrome community have used to describe the movement in support of expectant parents receiving accurate, balanced, and up-to-date information about Down syndrome after a prenatal diagnosis. The pro-information movement includes both pro-life and pro-choice members, united in the common mission of supporting and informing expectant parents.

Louisiana has taken an efficient, unifying model pro-information law and has tinkered with it, creating a situation which is more complicated for health care providers and potentially much worse for parents receiving a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. In the history of the pro-information movement, Louisiana's actions stand out as a major and harmful setback. Recent history provides the context for Louisiana's legislation as well as solutions for the problems this legislation creates.

Federal Law weakened and unfunded 

In 2007, two senators from opposite ends of the political spectrum introduced the "Kennedy Brownback bill," a pro-information bill. It required health care providers to provide up-to-date detailed information to parents receiving a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis. Sometime after it unanimously passed the Health Committee, the language was altered. The requirement placed on health care providers was deleted, and in its place appeared a much softer directive to the Secretary of Health to provide funds to a "grantee" who would, among other things, provide patient resources to health care providers. Written in this way, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act passed. Its passage excited advocates for people with disabilities, but as the bill was weakened and never funded, it had no impact on a federal level.

States pick up the mantle 

As advocates realized the failings of the federal law, individuals and organizations in various states proposed legislation to their lawmakers. The proposed language mirrored that of the original Kennedy Brownback bill, requiring health care providers to provide certain information to their patients receiving a diagnosis. Now, states such as Massachusetts and Kentucky require physicians to provide up-to-date information which has been reviewed by Down syndrome organizations as well as medical experts. This criteria was written with the Kennedy Foundation's booklet "Understanding a Down Syndrome Diagnosis" in mind, a booklet edited with input from representatives of major medical groups and national Down syndrome groups. It covers all pregnancy options, including termination, as was required by participating medical groups and understood by the Down syndrome groups.

Louisiana overshoots its mark; efforts set to backfire 

Louisiana's exclusion of termination in its state-mandated Down syndrome materials flies in the face of national, historic efforts to provide a unified approach to prenatal information and it threatens to harm the cause of providing accurate, up-to-date information to pregnant women and their health care providers. Beyond destroying the original unity between left and right, beyond ignoring the hard-fought consensus among representatives of medical and Down syndrome groups, Louisiana's legislation creates a very difficult situation for providers and patients alike. While providers in Louisiana are now bound by statute to distribute termination-free information, they are equally bound by law and professional ethics to inform patients about the option of termination. Louisiana is one of the many states in the country which recognizes wrongful birth/ life claims, which leaves providers who fail to provide diagnosis and termination information subject to liability. Such lawsuits use standard of care as a guide. Providers look to professional organizations such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the National Society of Genetic Counselors for such standards. These organizations include termination as information which must be provided to patients after diagnosis.

Thus in order to meet all of their legal obligations, Louisiana health care providers must give out the termination-free materials provided by the state, and also separate termination-present information. What form will the latter take? Will it present the option of termination delicately and neutrally as the Kennedy Foundation's booklet does? Or will providers look for strongly-worded pro-termination information to balance the perceived pro-life information provided by the state? Or will providers talk of termination with whatever bias they already have, be it a pro-life, neutral, or pro-termination stance?

In Louisiana and in other parts of the country, the short-sighted efforts of some advocates are set to backfire. They are desperately working to purge prenatal information of all mention of termination, even in neutral form which provides evidence-based information about the possible emotional impact of termination after diagnosis. In doing so, they seek to give up that neutral presentation of termination in favor of a presentation which will vary wildly among health care professionals depending on their biases. This is an enormous set-back to the "pro-information" cause, brings the credibility of Down syndrome information into question due to the perception of a "pro-life" slant, and leaves the field wide open for an unpredictable variety of termination materials given to expectant parents.

Salvaging the "pro-information" cause 

Hopefully, health care providers in Louisiana will supplement the state-forced materials with the Kennedy Foundation's booklet, which will allow them to meet all legal and ethical obligations and still present neutral information. These booklets are the only booklets to be recommended in the guidelines of both National Society of Genetic Counselors and American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. These booklets can be obtained at Lettercase.org.

In the meantime, various states across the country continue to consider and pass legislation which hold true to the original mission of a unified approach to prenatal information. You can keep track of these efforts here on Mark Leach's blog DownSyndromePrenatalTesting.com.

The Louisiana legislation will prove logistically problematic for health care providers in that state who wish to provide accurate, balanced, neutral information while meeting their legal and ethical obligations. More worrisome is the potential impact on the rest of the states if Louisiana's actions cause a ripple effect. The pro-information movement has been able to keep itself relatively free from partisan divisions because of the priority of providing accurate, medically approved materials to expectant parents. If there are more versions of "pro-information" legislation which exclude even neutral mention of termination, the movement may be destined to disintegrate into the typical red state/ blue state divisions. Advocates can prevent this by being aware of the potential implications of tinkering with the model language, and advising their lawmakers to keep focused on the goal of providing accurate, balanced information to expectant parents.

Nancy McCrea Iannone has been providing active support to expectant parents on Baby Center’s Down Syndrome Pregnancy discussion board since 2006. The story of her daughter’s birth is contained in Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives (“A Hopeful Future”) and Gifts II: How People with Down Syndrome Enrich the World (“An Enlightening Snow Day”). Nancy is the co-author of the book Diagnosis to Delivery: A Pregnant Mother’s Guide to Down Syndrome and the booklet “Your Loved One is Having a Baby with Down Syndrome.” Both of these publications and additional resources can be found at DownSyndromePregnancy.org, part of the National Center for Prenatal and Postnatal Down Syndrome Resources.

Amy Julia Becker provided editorial assistance for this post.

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