Take the weekend off.
Family Vacation for a few days. Back late Sunday!
CIT Training - A police beating that didn't happen.
There's been a lot of focus lately on Crisis Intervention Training for police officers. It's being billed as an antidote to the failures of police to handle situations involving mental illness. Maryland just became the first state to mandate it state-wide for all officers, thanks to the work of the #JusticeForEthan movement. I'll be writing more about it over the summer, but here's a single anecdote from the Boston area.
We'll keep watching.
Earlier this month, Somerville Police Officers Alan Monaco and Timothy Sullivan responded to a call about a fight between two young men. They found one of them, Mike, in an agitated state.
“He started flipping out — get your effing hands off me, don’t touch me!” Monaco recalled. “He was up and down, he would be screaming and yelling one minute, nice and talking and smoking cigarettes the next. We talked about what the issue is; he said the other kid said something detrimental about his mother, and his mother’s sick, and he spit in his face.”
Coincidentally, the two Somerville officers had just been in a training session on mental disorders — including Asperger’s, one of Mike’s diagnoses. So they knew people with Asperger’s can be hyper-sensitive about being touched and insensitive about how close to get to other people. Like Mike, who got far too close to the officers when he talked to them, right up into their faces.
“Normally for a police officer, if you invade our space, we have a safety zone where we don’t want people close to us,” Monaco said. “I would have pushed him away. I would have physically pushed him off me.”Instead of getting physical, the officers just let Mike talk, and rant, and spit, and de-escalate. No one went to jail. No one got beaten. This is the opposite of the cult of compliance. I'm genuinely optimistic about this training as a pathway forward for us, not just in terms of disability, but in general what it looks like when you have a police force trained to empathize, to guard, not to be warriors.
We'll keep watching.
Tale of Inclusion: Down Syndrome and Violence at the Play Area
Yesterday I got a comment on another post from a parent who ended up on my blog. The short version is that at a public play-place her son was hurt by a child with DS and she didn't know what to do about it, because how can you blame a child with DS for anything? I offer the comment in full and then my response.
DEAR READERS PLEASE NOTE - The person with the comment and I have exchanged emails and I anticipate she will read this blog. If you are rude in comments, I will simply delete your post without warning! It's fine to disagree thoughtfully, I'd love to hear better ways of framing a response, but no rudeness to someone genuinely looking for help. Dear S.
I'm really glad you wrote me and want to have this conversation. It's important. When my son was three, the idea that he could just go into a play area and be around the other kids as seemed impossible. How could he control his behavior? What if the other kids didn't understand his limitations? Most of all, what if he got stuck in one of the big climbing contraptions? Could he even physically, ever, go up those ladders and down those slides?
Now he does it all the time. I'm so proud of his physical and social development, but I'm still always worried something will go wrong. So far mostly so good, but your story reminds me of the challenges.
Now he does it all the time. I'm so proud of his physical and social development, but I'm still always worried something will go wrong. So far mostly so good, but your story reminds me of the challenges.
Here are my two key points:
First - Having Down syndrome does NOT mean one can hurt other people without consequence. That is exactly the opposite of the message that I would hope to convey. I actually think it's extra vital that we make sure that our children understand the consequences of their actions. It's a harsh world out there for people with disabilities, and learning control is vital to inclusion. The problem is how. How do you make the connections between actions and results apparent with someone who has speech/developmental delays? There are solutions, or at least ideas, and I'll offer them below.
Second - I was struck by how often you talked about feeling shame. Other parents were looking at you, you felt like a bad mother, but you know that you didn't do anything wrong. It's not a good feeling. Here's something to consider - That shame you were feeling, the shame that the other parents are looking at you and blaming you, parents of kids with disabilities live with that shame all the time. It can get really oppressive, making parents like us self-isolate. We just stay home, keeping our kids out of the grocery store, playground, or even school.
I've felt it, I feel it all the time when my son acts in a non-typical way, or his nose is too runny and people are judging me, when he shouts in the barber shop, when he dances randomly in the mall, I encounter so many micro-aggressions on a day-to-day basis that you'd think I'd be used to it, but no. I still feel shame.
Second - I was struck by how often you talked about feeling shame. Other parents were looking at you, you felt like a bad mother, but you know that you didn't do anything wrong. It's not a good feeling. Here's something to consider - That shame you were feeling, the shame that the other parents are looking at you and blaming you, parents of kids with disabilities live with that shame all the time. It can get really oppressive, making parents like us self-isolate. We just stay home, keeping our kids out of the grocery store, playground, or even school.
I've felt it, I feel it all the time when my son acts in a non-typical way, or his nose is too runny and people are judging me, when he shouts in the barber shop, when he dances randomly in the mall, I encounter so many micro-aggressions on a day-to-day basis that you'd think I'd be used to it, but no. I still feel shame.
So I'm asking you, as a parent, to think about that emotion you felt, to know that you were in the right here, but to approach those parents with compassion and empathy.
So now what? I operate under the principle of inclusion, but not same-ness. My goal is to have your son and the boy with DS included together, safely, in the play-space. That doesn't mean consequence-free violence, but it also doesn't mean that you can respond to the incident as you would for other kids, because the usual methods of parental reaction - yelling (sadly), time-outs, removal of privileges - might not have any meaning. Yeah, a parent can take away a toy or fun activity from a four-year-old with Down syndrome, but depending on their developmental level, it might not have any meaning. How do you connect the consequence to the act of hurting your son? That's the challenge here.
The first step is to understand what might have happened. What does the violent behavior - pinching, tripping, hitting - mean in this case? Does it come from anger? Aggression? Confusion? Fear? Sometimes it's from over-stimulation. Or, and this is pretty common, people with Down syndrome use physical responses as an alternate form of communication. When you don't have words, hitting or hugging communicates perfectly well from the perspective of the child, and it might not even communicate what you think it does.
The goal here is to communicate. We don't want four year olds, or fourteen year olds, hitting as a way of expressing their frustrations. On the other hand, typical interventions - yelling, time outs, taking away privileges - might not have a lot of meaning for the child with Down syndrome. When my daughter misbehaves, we talk about it, we make sure to verbalize a clear cause-effect relationship. When my son, who has DS, misbehaves, we have to be more creative.
There are intervention strategies for kids with Down syndrome who are "challenging." You focus on skills. You focus on communication. You find positive reinforcement rather than punishment (which works better for all kids).
So what might you do if you see the parents again, or if something like this happens again?
Comfort your son and comfort yourself! I'm sorry that people looked at you as if you were a horrible parent, but don't let them get you down! People judge all the time and are usually clueless about context; ultimately, the opinions of strangers aren't that important (to me anyway). Remember that no outsider ever has a clue about what's going on in a family and try to just do what's right.
Engage the parents. Tell them what happened. I would be devastated to know my son hurt another child, and so might they. Remember that raising a child with special needs is pretty difficult, so once you have calmed yourself and your child, engage with empathy.
If you see these parents again, I can't tell you they'll be happy to hear from you, but I think you have the right to talk to them because your son was hurt. Moreover, I think building an inclusive society requires someone to make the first conversational move, to reach out, and I'm hoping you are the one to do it.
I would say something like, "I know you've got a lot of challenges, but I felt it was important to tell you that that your child hurt my child today in the play area. Is there a way we can talk to him about more appropriate play? Is there anything that I or my son can do to help?"
In the end, I'm really sorry that your son got hurt.
I hope, though, that this is a moment that can lead towards a more inclusive society, not away from it. Inclusion, not same-ness. We don't respond to this boy hurting your son the same way that we might from another child. Same-ness just won't accomplish anything. But we DO respond. We must respond, and respond with dialogue, patience, creativity, and empathy.
I would say something like, "I know you've got a lot of challenges, but I felt it was important to tell you that that your child hurt my child today in the play area. Is there a way we can talk to him about more appropriate play? Is there anything that I or my son can do to help?"
In the end, I'm really sorry that your son got hurt.
I hope, though, that this is a moment that can lead towards a more inclusive society, not away from it. Inclusion, not same-ness. We don't respond to this boy hurting your son the same way that we might from another child. Same-ness just won't accomplish anything. But we DO respond. We must respond, and respond with dialogue, patience, creativity, and empathy.
Breaking: BMW i3 REx Not Tax Exempt in NJ After All!
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| My i3 REx. Will it now cost me $3,900 more than my contract calls for? |
It what can only be categorized as a major misstep, BMW of North America has announced that the i3 with range extender is not tax exempt in the state of New Jersey as what was previously reported. Back on January 27th, BMW of North America manager of Electric Vehicle sales and strategy Jacob Harb told his client advisers on a conference call that the i3 REx would be treated as a zero emission vehicle in New Jersey, and qualify for the state's Zero Emission tax exemption. That was big news at the time for New Jersey residents including myself, and was one of the final deciding factors for me to actually choose the REx version over the BEV i3.
"The sales tax exemption in NJ only applies to zero-emission vehicles--and as such, does not apply to the i3 with range-extender as it does not apply currently to any vehicle with an internal combustion engine."... "Any assumption that the i3 with range-extender would qualify was premature"
Dave Buchko, BMW's product and technology communications
The misinformation was further reinforced at the BMW i3 dealer training event held at BMW headquarters in Woodcliff Lake in April when the client advisers were again told that the i3 REx would be sales tax exempt in New Jersey. Now that BMW has begun delivering i3s with the range extender in the State since last week, the dealers haven't been collecting sales tax on the cars since they were instructed that they didn't have to. I'm one of the people that took delivery already and didn't pay sales tax. It's unclear if BMW is going to now ask me to go back to the dealer and pay the additional $3,900.00 I'd owe for sales tax. I'm not even sure they can do that. I have a signed contract that is paid in full and I wonder where the law stands on this. I don't even know if I'd want to keep it if I have to pay the sales tax now. Don't get me wrong; I love the car, and I think the REx is a great option, but this will double the cost of the range extender. Instead of it costing me $3,850, it will cost me about $7,750! It really is a great option and so far I have loved how well it works, but it's just not worth $7,750 in my opinion. I could buy a good used second car for less than that and use it for the long trips I need to take.
Then there are the people that have an i3 REx on order here in NJ and haven't taken delivery yet, what will they do? At the last minute they find out the car is now costing them nearly $4,000 more! My good friend Chris Neff's car just arrived at the dealer yesterday and he's planning on picking it up as soon as possible. I wonder how he's going to react to it now costing him nearly $4,000 more! My client adviser Manny Antunes of JMK BMW has nine i3s with the REx options on order for customers. How many will cancel their order when they find this out? I bet at least half of them. What happens to the people like me that have signed contracts, and paid for the car already? I wonder where the law stands on this? Can we now be forced to pay more than our contracts stipulate? Personally I'm not sure what I'll do if I'm told I have to pay the $3,900 now. Will BMW NA eat the extra cost for the few people that already took delivery of their REx in NJ? Will they push it on the dealers? Perhaps this was a sign that I was really meant to get the BEV i3 after all. I've already tinted the windows and now my car is being wrapped a new color at Designer Wraps down in Millville, NJ. Will JMK BMW end up with a custom-colored, Electronaut Edition i3 REx to sell as I wait another few months for a new i3 BEV to be made and delivered? This is going to be very interesting, stay tuned!
Nissan announces U.S. pricing for 2015 Versa Note
Nissan today announced U.S. pricing for the 2015 Nissan Versa Note hatchback, which is on sale now at Nissan dealers nationwide. Following its highly successful debut as a 2014 model, the Nissan Versa Note enters its second year of production with a number of significant enhancements – led by the addition of new Versa Note SR and Versa Note SL trim levels. There are now a total of five models: S, S Plus, SV, SR and SL.
Read the complete release on NissanNews.com.
Talking While Privileged - A continuing series
When writing about a given power dynamic, I often have the power by virtue of my race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. And yet, I really do want to engage on these important issues. What to do?
My response was to come up with some guidelines, writing first about gender (my rules for male feminist discourse) then academic privilege. In the wake of #UCSB, I've been watching men talk, even men who take the label of feminist, perhaps especially men who call themselves feminists, who could really use these rules.
For example, here are two posts on Charles Clymer, who has said some amazingly offensive things in pursuit of his perfect male feminism. Some of the issues here aren't new, but they have re-emerged in recent days. Here's one particularly telling quote:
"Stephanie, I'm going to let you in on a little secret that, apparently, no one has had the guts to tell you up to this point in your life: having a vagina does not grant you magical powers of perception and nuance anymore than my penis magically blinds me from the horrors of the world.This may, I guess, have some truth in it. Our genitalia does not necessarily determine our degree of knowledge. And yet, our gender identity does position us on various power spectra that come into play here.
So for Mr. Clymer and anyone else who need it, it feels like it might be a good time to revisit my rules, with a few revisions.
- Don't talk at all. Listen for awhile.
- It's not about you (it's about the people with less privilege)
- It's sometimes about you (i.e. it's very important that men talk to men about rape)
- It's always about them, so amplify their voices.
- When you speak, don't expect gratitude and take criticism graciously.
Make sure, throughout the process, that the people with less privilege, with less power, have their voices at the center of the discussion. For example, I never publish about feminism or gender, or really just about anything, without linking to articles written by women, usually women of color, and preferably naming them and their expertise in public.
I do this for two reasons: One, rule #4.
Two, these people are brilliant. And while folks such as Amanda Marcotte, Brittany Cooper, Jessica Valenti, Soraya Chemaly, Melissa McEwan, Tressie McMillan Cottom, just to name a few who I read and from whom I learn, don't especially need me to amplify their voices, they lead me to lesser known feminist writers who do.
Men have a crucial place in this conversation. But instead of asserting it, I try to ask those who are disadvantaged by the power dynamics what would they like from me? Sometimes, I get told to listen. Sometimes, I get told to call out sexism when I see it. Sometimes, I get told there is in fact no place for me in this conversation. I think that's wrong, but by understanding the privilege at play, thinking about my rules, I let such things go.
My advice for Mr. Clymer, which is clearly too late, is this - When you have privilege, sometimes people will get angry at you, be rude to you. It will feel unfair. It may be unfair. Be gracious. If you are a male feminist, there will be women who are deeply angry at men, who just want men to shut up, or more reasonably want men to allow women to have their own conversation without you. And you will REALLY REALLY want to insert yourself into the conversation, to show that you are a great ally, that you really get it, that not all men are bad, and that maybe you even understand feminism better than lots of other women!
Men have a crucial place in this conversation. But instead of asserting it, I try to ask those who are disadvantaged by the power dynamics what would they like from me? Sometimes, I get told to listen. Sometimes, I get told to call out sexism when I see it. Sometimes, I get told there is in fact no place for me in this conversation. I think that's wrong, but by understanding the privilege at play, thinking about my rules, I let such things go.
My advice for Mr. Clymer, which is clearly too late, is this - When you have privilege, sometimes people will get angry at you, be rude to you. It will feel unfair. It may be unfair. Be gracious. If you are a male feminist, there will be women who are deeply angry at men, who just want men to shut up, or more reasonably want men to allow women to have their own conversation without you. And you will REALLY REALLY want to insert yourself into the conversation, to show that you are a great ally, that you really get it, that not all men are bad, and that maybe you even understand feminism better than lots of other women!
Instead, please revisit rule #1.
"It's so sad when people have special needs": Thoughts on Inclusion from the Bus Stop
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| Not Nico's Actual Bus |
A caring, sweet, 4th-grader said this to me at the bus stop a few minutes ago. My son and I crossed the street, running and laughing, happy. Then he asked me to go see a dog that was being walked across the grass, I said no, we had to go get in line for the bus, so he said no to me, and then pouted. Nico is really developing his pout lately.
The girl, M, came over and reached out her hands to Nico asking if she could help. He said, passionately, "No!" Then she turned to me and smiled and said, "It's so sad when people have special needs."
It's one of those moments when, as a parent, words fall with a kind of physical force. It's not that they hurt, at least not in this case, but for me my whole body tenses in these kinds of interactions. I know, or I suspect, that I'm hitting a moment in which I might shape language, perception, action, reaction, and more - not just for my son, but for anyone this child interacts with who has special needs, and her friends and family.
If I handle it right, I hope, I might help build a more inclusive society and I might even manage to erode the gap between help and friendship (seriously, follow that link. It's really interesting).
I said, "I don't think having special needs is sad. I think it can be sad when people with special needs don't get the help they need, and even worse when they don't have a good community of friends and family around them."
M. thought about this and said, "I used to help my grandpa. He was in a wheelchair because of the war and his leg."
I replied, "Exactly, and imagine if he didn't have you and your family and his friends not just to help push his chair, but to be his granddaughter, to be his friends, and to make sure he has what he needs. And if our community didn't build wheelchair ramps or automatic doors, so he couldn't have moved around."
She nodded. Then the bus came and I had to get my surly boy onto his feet and onto the bus, which he did with only mild protest, surrounding by his aide and three girls, M, F and H, with G waiting for him on the bus.
I'm not quite satisfied with my answer, but I'll keep working on it.
Two other stories about inclusion and the girls who go to school with my son. And yeah, it's pretty much the girls, a sign of the ways that girls are pushed towards caregiving early, but that's another essay.
I've written about H before, back on the first days of school, when she included herself with Nico in a way that made me weep. She comes over and has playdates sometimes, and while she and my daughter have a beautiful big-sister/little-sister relationship, she's never satisfied just playing with Ellie for all my daughter provides her with an imaginative hyperverbal playmate for their games. Instead, every few minutes, she breaks away to go find Nico and see if she can bring him in. Sometimes, it works. On Sunday, the three kids sat huddled in a corner of couch passing two ipads around, giggling and happy. It was so powerfully inclusive, especially given that Nico had refused to participate in my daughter's birthday party earlier that day (too many kids, too loud, too hot).
F, on the other hand, lives across the street, but I haven't really processed her relationship with Nico. She's quiet, or at least a bunch of the other neighborhood kids are really loud. Two Fridays ago, though, Nico's aide wasn't on the bus and F was one of the girls who volunteered to help. It didn't go well at all, but everyone made it home safely.
Monday morning, though, I saw F with a plastic bag with little rectangles of paper, pencil drawings, and words written on it. I asked her what they were and discovered that she was trying to replicate one of the communication systems that the teachers and aides use for Nico. They carry a bunch of communication cards (bathroom, thirsty, desk, marker, etc. They look more or less like this.) to supplement the use of an Ipad-based communication program. F decided to make her own cards. As near as I can tell, no one told her to do this or helped her - she just observed what the teachers were doing and decided to generate her own assistive technology.
So, M, thinking more about the community in which my son lives, I can say pretty strongly that it is not so sad when people have special needs. Thanks to you and his other friends who are trying to do their best to create a more inclusive society. I'll do what I can to help you.
First i3 REx Road Trip: Hotels, BMW Dealerships & Wraps
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| Charging up at Hampton Inn in Turnersville... but for how long? |
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| Once I got to see my car in person I realized how much I really do like the Laurel Grey |
Then I realized I had also overlooked something, but not anything with regards to the car though. We were planning on driving down early on the morning of Saturday, May 24th, and that turned out to be the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. If you live in New Jersey, you know how bad traffic is going south on the Parkway or the Turnpike during either Memorial Day or Labor Day weekends, as tens of thousands of people migrate to the Jersey Shore for these two weekends that bookend the summer. A two and a half hour drive could easily take five hours under these traffic conditions. So we came up with plan B. We would drive about 100 miles late Friday night which would get us passed the major traffic areas, stay in a hotel and continue on the next morning.
Since we would be spending the night, I figured I might as well find a hotel that would let me plug in 120v while we were there. After all, the goal is to drive on electric as much as possible, even with the REx and an overnight stay would give me enough range to make the final 40 miles or so without the REx kicking on. After making some calls, I found an Hampton Inn in Turnersville, NJ that said I could plug in and it was just about perfectly along our planned route. The hotel was about 100 miles into the trip and we would then be 40 miles from Designer Wraps. An overnight charge would give me just enough to complete the trip the next day without the range extender. If I really wanted to, I could have probably found a hotel that was only halfway there, and tried to complete the entire trip without the REx, but then I would have needed to find a L2 240v EVSE, as overnight charging on 120v wouldn't have been enough to fully replenish an empty battery. It just wasn't worth the trouble, and if everything worked out, the 140 mile trip would end up with me using only a little more than a half a gallon of gas and without any inconvenience.
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| I drove nearly 90 miles before the REx came on |
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| Plugged in at Hampton Inn |
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| Will Hampton Inn honor their guarantee? I'll find out soon |
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| Charging at Camden County College |
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| Giving a quick i3 seminar! |
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| Final stats of the trip |
Elliot Rodger and Intersectionality. Fighting "the shrug."
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| A representation of possible intersections. Not representative of Rodger. |
Who is to know, such voices ask, why he did it and what we ought to do in response? For some, this shrug of "what can we do?" is genuine. For others, though, it's a strategy to keep attention OFF of misogyny or gun violence, in particular (two fields relevant to this crime on which large groups of people do not want attention focused). "The shrug," as I'm calling it, serves the pro-gun and misogynistic status quo.
It turns out, though, that feminist theory has (since the late 80s) come up with a way to proceed through this morass of fields, ideas, and complexities: intersectionality.
I hesitate mentioning the feminist origin of this concept, as it will immediately turn some people away, but perhaps that's important to acknowledge as well. It emerged as a way of talking primarily about race, class, and gender together, then sexuality, and now any other relevant field. It allows us to say - today, I am focused on one topic, but I acknowledge the others exist. More importantly, I see that they interact.
I see clear arguments to make the UCSB killings about misogyny, about guns, about class, about mental illness. And that's why the concept of intersectionality is so important - it allows us, when confronted with life, which is always complicated, to get past the almighty shrug.
Intersectional thinking allows us to:
...take his misogynistic words and link them to other groups who say the same things, and say that perhaps these trends in our culture matter, but that we tend not to notice the quotidian horrors and only the extraordinary, and maybe think about what it might take to classify such as hate groups and how we might want to respond after that, given that MRAs (Men's Rights Activist - here's a not-objective primer on the movement) and their ilk have regular access to mainstream discourse (as opposed to white power, for example)
...consider access to guns and whether it is reasonable to advocate for a policy that might have allowed the police to easily realize that he had been buying guns and ammo after the police received a call from his parents.
...think about the limitations of psychiatric care and how we might do better with people experiencing these kinds of issues and try to better integrate, if that was indeed his needs.
....think about the complexities of class privilege, race, bullying and all the other categories that intersected in this lone, deranged, killer.
Then ask - in which of these fields might we reasonably do better?
I personally have spent many hours in my context as a writer about gender talking to MRAs, trying to see their side of the story, trying to find common ground. I wonder if it's time to shift and deal with them as I do antisemites and the white power folks who, like MRAs, do sometimes notice real problems with their lives but blame them on the wrong things and inspire fringe members to direct acts of terror.
...think about the limitations of psychiatric care and how we might do better with people experiencing these kinds of issues and try to better integrate, if that was indeed his needs.
....think about the complexities of class privilege, race, bullying and all the other categories that intersected in this lone, deranged, killer.
Then ask - in which of these fields might we reasonably do better?
I personally have spent many hours in my context as a writer about gender talking to MRAs, trying to see their side of the story, trying to find common ground. I wonder if it's time to shift and deal with them as I do antisemites and the white power folks who, like MRAs, do sometimes notice real problems with their lives but blame them on the wrong things and inspire fringe members to direct acts of terror.
I'm thinking about it.
Intersectionality matters. We can focus on the controlling ideology of misogyny that underlies this particular crime without losing sight of the intersections.
In case you aren't convinced, here's another way of looking at it:
On Saturday, three people were shot at a Jewish Museum in Brussels. There may be many things involved with the shooter, but it's reasonable to suspect antisemitism is part of the cause. A month or so ago three people were shot near Jewish community center in Kansas City. It was reasonable to suspect antisemitism was the cause, and it was, even though one can certainly argue the killer was mentally ill and could have done the killings without firearms, and even though he actually killed Christians.
It's necessary, in the wake of such killings, to think about the ways that antisemitism is replicated in our country and what we might do to change attitudes.
In Isla Vista, a man said misogynistic things - he hated women, he hated men who had access to women - and then he killed people. Like the killers in Kansas City and Brussels, we can note that other factors matter.
Intersectionality matters. We can focus on the controlling ideology of misogyny that underlies this particular crime without losing sight of the intersections.
In case you aren't convinced, here's another way of looking at it:
On Saturday, three people were shot at a Jewish Museum in Brussels. There may be many things involved with the shooter, but it's reasonable to suspect antisemitism is part of the cause. A month or so ago three people were shot near Jewish community center in Kansas City. It was reasonable to suspect antisemitism was the cause, and it was, even though one can certainly argue the killer was mentally ill and could have done the killings without firearms, and even though he actually killed Christians.
It's necessary, in the wake of such killings, to think about the ways that antisemitism is replicated in our country and what we might do to change attitudes.
In Isla Vista, a man said misogynistic things - he hated women, he hated men who had access to women - and then he killed people. Like the killers in Kansas City and Brussels, we can note that other factors matter.
It is necessary, however, to think about the ways in which his ideology is replicated in this country and what we might do to change attitudes.
Note: heavily updated with an explanation of intersectionality after 10:00 CST 5/26:
Note: heavily updated with an explanation of intersectionality after 10:00 CST 5/26:
Sunday Roundup
It's Sunday and it's my birthday. Here's my blog post.
I wrote good stuff this week. Please go read it and share it. :) I published three essays - Chronicle on being a working dad, CNN on trigger warnings, and Chronicle Vitae on labor identity for full-time faculty, which is a record for me. All of these are themes to which I will return frequently in the year ahead.
Thank you, as always, for reading. Next week I am probably on semi-break as I work on footnotes. I do have a dozen essays I want to write, but I really need to do these notes.
And now, Venice cake.
I wrote good stuff this week. Please go read it and share it. :) I published three essays - Chronicle on being a working dad, CNN on trigger warnings, and Chronicle Vitae on labor identity for full-time faculty, which is a record for me. All of these are themes to which I will return frequently in the year ahead.
- I wrote about Scorn in the Trigger Warning/Commencement debate - Resources: Scorn
- I wrote about avoiding the phrase "last acceptable" when talking about prejudiece in - The Last Acceptable Prejudice is ________.
- I added on to my essay on labor identity from Vitae: Work is Work!
- I added on to my essay on Academic fatherhood from the Chronicle: Awww, What a Good Father
- I added in to my essay from CNN on Trigger Warnings: Trigger Warnings Continued
- Still more on my essay on Academic Fatherhood from the Chronicle: Working Dad
- And a collection of Resources: Trigger Warnings in the Classroom
I did an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio. The segment is here. I closed with:
If as professors, we just teach empathetically and respectfully, and think about what is our material and who our students are, I do feel that we're going to take care of a lot of these cases before it comes up.As an off-the-cuff remark, I'm pretty pleased with that. Approach conversations as dialogue, meet people with respect, and we'll accomplish a lot in trying to be good humans.
To some extent students are taking responsibility, it's students who are driving this conversation who are asking for these policies. And we need to listen to them. That doesn't mean we have to enact the policy that they are requesting, but we do have to be very open to the conversation and think about what's happening in our classroom.
Thank you, as always, for reading. Next week I am probably on semi-break as I work on footnotes. I do have a dozen essays I want to write, but I really need to do these notes.
And now, Venice cake.
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| Not actually my cake! |
Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Bill from The UK
Hi, my name is Bill and I was born electric on 14 March 2014.
I've done 2,000 miles in my i3 so far so I thought it was time to contribute first impressions viaTom's blog (thanks Tom). As you can see from my photos, this i3 is definitely not a city dweller, although in the south of England you're never that far from a city to be honest. Driving country lanes so much makes it really tough to keep clean though.
I came to the i3 via a curious route, because I had really been looking for an electric motorbike. Sadly, there are not many to choose from and none from the established mainstream motorcycle producers. The more I looked into things the more I was convinced I could live with the range limits inherent to EVs; my daily commute (25 mile round trip) is very compatible with the range of most pure electric vehicles. Coupled with the luxury of having other family vehicles available if needed, it made it really easy to make the switch. But when I started looking to replace my ICE car, nothing really excited me, until the i3 that is. The focus on weight reduction resonated with what I look for in motorbikes; the development of new car construction technologies was unusual in the EV market and designing the car to be an EV from the ground up rather than converting an ICE model seemed much more satisfactory. All this indicated to me that BMW have a level of commitment to this EV which is very welcome as a consumer. Although the price point of the i3 comes in for some criticism, next to the competition I think it is amazing considering the development. And, in the UK at least, the price benefits from a plug in grant which is not the case for electric motorbikes.
Car specification and options assessment
This car was bought primarily for my daily commute and circumstances meant that I decided early on to go for the pure electric model. The REX is a great choice if you need the daily range or you are buying one as your only family car, but that wasn't my situation. As I was buying a BEV I initially specified the following options to help with range on the odd occasion that I might want or need it.
ZWT Winter pack, includes 494 (heated seats), and ZHV (high voltage battery preparation).
4T9 Auxiliary cabin preparation
4U7 DC rapid charge preparation
As for the cosmetic options, I will probably keep the car for some time so went for the Suite interior hoping that the leather will wear well. I added turbine 428 wheels and LED headlights, and finally added parking assist when I realized it was the only way to get front parking sensors. The Pro navigation system and real time traffic info was a free of charge upgrade. I chose Arravani Grey as my colour option.
Of the options I didn't chose I'd make the following comments. I've had cars with sun roofs before and never used them. I don't like how cruise control takes away my control of the car so the idea of the driving assistance package did not appeal at all. My commute is virtually traffic free down country lanes so it would not have much use anyway. I don't need to make much use of my phone when on the move so enhanced bluetooth was an option without much benefit. I was coming from a 20 year old Mazda which had no remote central locking so I'm still enjoying the “thrill” of opening it without using a key making comfort access seem like overkill. I don't need the car to have the internet (I have a smart phone) and couldn't justify spending the extra on the premium sound preparation when it cost more than I spent on my home hi-fi speakers. I won't often take more than 1 passenger so the lack of rear speakers is not a worry. On the specification front I would say that a lot of the details about what these options actually do were only filled in after I placed the order, and having owned it for a couple of months I'm still not sure what the adaptive part of the headlight function refers too!
Having lived with the options I thought scoring them might be of interest to potential buyers:
Winter pack – heated seats hardly affect range at all, even on full chat – a must have for temperate climates 10/10
Auxiliary cabin preparation – not sure how much this helps so difficult to score.
DC rapid charge preparation – time will tell but a potent game changer in functionality terms so I wouldn't be without it 10/10
Suite – love the mix of leather and wood so 10/10.
LED headlights are an expensive cosmetic option which I think I could have done without. As is common on modern lights they produces a blue halo around the edge of the beam which is off-putting for me and other drivers and I quite regularly get flashed by cars heading in the opposite direction even though I only have had dipped beam active. In the past I've had motorbikes which produce a light with a blue halo and I've had cars in front of me on a motorway brake hard and pull onto the hard shoulder because they thought I was the police – not ideal! 2/10. If I did it again I would probably drop LED lights in favor of the premium sound preparation.
Park Assistance front sensors are very handy but the rear camera takes some getting used to using and trust. Park assist parallel parking works very well although day to day I don't have much call for it. 10/10 for how well it works but 5/10 in value terms as it is an expensive option if like me it's just to add the front parking sensor functionality.
Efficiency, Range and average speed
My daily commute is 25 miles and at the end of two days commuting I typically have 25-30 miles of range left, but I haven't tried a third day without charging yet. I commute in Eco Pro mode with the speed limit set to 55 mph. When I can get away with it I just use heated seats (climate control only being used for demisting). Bear in mind that morning temperatures for the bulk of my mileage were rarely above 10 C here and most of the time I've owned the car the evening temperatures have been similar. My 2 day cycle therefore normally includes one pre-warm while attached to the mains and 3 pre-warms without mains. My longest trip between charges was 84 miles with 4 miles remaining. The trip was made early morning at temperatures between 6 and 10 C, the last 15 miles was warmer, up to 14 C. This was in Eco Pro mode with no climate control apart from some occasional demisting, along mostly country lanes and A roads, rarely breaking the 55 mph limit I have set in Eco Pro. The car tells me my average speed is 29.0 mph, average consumption is 4.2 miles/kWh and I've done just over 2000 miles. The car once told me I had 111 miles of range, but I didn't believe it!
Accessories
Public charging cable, cargo net, all weather floor mats and additional 13 amp UK charger. These all work well and like others I find the mats slippery in the wet but this doesn't bother me and I like the way they look. The additional 13 amp UK charger was bought because I wanted to mount the one that came with the car to the wall of my garage but also wanted one to carry around in the car. I've swapped the main beam bulbs for a cooler light as I didn't like the mix of white and yellow beams. I don't have a level 2 charging station at home yet but have started the ball rolling.
Reliability
The app needs a bit of work, both in terms of the functionality it offers and whether it reliably updates. I find the algorithm behind delayed charging (which makes it difficult to predict whether the car will take a charge when you've plugged it in but told it not to) hugely frustrating and wish BMW had included a simple “charge controlled by smartphone” option in the car's charge settings. If I want app control over charging I have to fudge it by swapping from charge immediately to charge using off peak time settings. I've had the car report interruptions to charging a couple of times and I've had it fail to precondition a couple of times but other than that it's been trouble free. A slight grumble with the climate control is that it tends to noticeable oscillate from warm to cold air but I will get used to that. I'm still confused by the preheating function which appears to leave my car with less that 100 % in the battery when attached to the mains. The attachment of the charging socket protective cap to the charging flap leaves a lot to be desired and I still don't have a manual for the Pro-Nav system.
Public charging
This is my first EV and reading stories about charging points being out of service, ICE'd or otherwise not available has left me nervous about committing to a public charge as the only means of completing my journey. By scouting potential destinations I have confirmed the need to do this as the information about public charging points can be hit and miss. I have come across points listed as operational which were no more than concrete standings and other points listed as public which are really intended for the sole use of the company who have installed them. So when I set out for Bristol which is a 120 mile round trip requiring a charge to complete I was quite nervous, despite having visited and found that the listed charging points were mostly available (most common problem I saw there was being ICED, about 25 % of bays). But the trip went without a glitch and I was pleased to see the BMW app updated the availability in real time which is useful for all users. I moved the car off the bay once fully charged so that another EV could use it. When I returned to the car after the gig I'd been to, the EV bay I'd been in was ICED!
In summary I hope you can tell from my photos that I love the car. The only option I regret including is the LED headlights and if I was buying again I would have swapped the LED lights for the premium sound package. That's not to say that the standard sound is bad, on the contrary it is very pleasing. I could go on as there are so many aspects to this car to but overall so far I'm a happy EV driver and a very happy i3 owner.
Cheers for now
Bill
Resources: Scorn
I'm working on a piece about the various ways that writers about higher education, especially those within the academy, write about students with absolute disdain. Here are some of the responses to the Trigger Warning and Commencement issue, both filled with scorn and not getting it.
Here's the worst, one so bad I am hesitant to even include the link. It's from Chester Finn, who has "devoted his career to improving education in the United States."
Jonah Goldberg, of the American Enterprise Institute, does some similar work in the LA Times, writing:
In The Stranger, we get "not about protecting delicate flowers from the sadz"
Salon calls it "dumbing down education."
In the New Yorker, Jay Caspian King is really upset that someone told him Lolita is about the systematic rape of the young girl, because it distracts him from Nabokov's amazing sentences. I'm not really sure how to respond to that.
There are lots of ledes saying: trigger warning for trigger warnings. Hah hah!, I say. I get your joke.
Then there's the strange argument: Life doesn't come with TWs, so why should the classroom? Professors who think their classroom is "life" are, I believe, not thinking about the complexities of their highly mediated environment.
Karen Prior comes out against empathy in The Atlantic.
Meanwhile, in the commencement story front, we see some similar patterns. Stephen Carter, law prof at Yale, writes in a spoof address:
Then there's Matt Bai, who ultimately blames us for being too soft on our kids.
UPDATE: From the Wall Street Journal, this diatribe. I can't even quote it, as the whole thing says - students are babies, parents and employers will thank me for being cruel, and you humanities professors (i.e. me) are semi/post-literate.
So, what did I miss?
Here's the worst, one so bad I am hesitant to even include the link. It's from Chester Finn, who has "devoted his career to improving education in the United States."
Maybe not, for such unfamiliar and provocative views might make them, precious as they are, feel unwelcome, excluded, even distressed. And they surely don’t want that. Let’s face it. A growing portion of today’s student population, at least on elite campuses, holds expectations that are both schizy and spoiled: They should be free to do absolutely anything they want without institutional barriers or interference of any kind, yet the institution must protect them from every conceivable sort of harm or upset. Try to thread that needle. While you’re at it, write a very large check to pay for your child’s opportunity to benefit from four years in such a high-status center of learning.There's another conservative voice, "No Wonder Putin Sneers at Us" from a non-educator who makes much the same argument.
What a bunch of titty babies American college students can be. Who spends $50,000 per year to send their kid to a college where they are coddled like mental invalids? These aren’t institutions of higher learning; these are sanitariums. These Special Little Snowflakes are going to be as bunnies in the gator pit when they hit the real world."Titty" babies." Mental invalids? It's interesting how Finn, with "schizy," and this author, with "invalids," relies on such language to talk about something that is in fact about mental trauma.
Jonah Goldberg, of the American Enterprise Institute, does some similar work in the LA Times, writing:
I can sympathize. But this way leads to madness.The psychologist Michael Hurd, in "Is Academia Going Mad," ruins some interesting points when he writes:
And what a strange madness it is. We live in a culture in which it is considered bigotry to question whether women should join combat units — but it is also apparently outrageous to subject women of the same age to realistic books and films about war without a warning? Even questioning the ubiquity of degrading porn, never mind labeling music or video games, is denounced as Comstockery, but labeling "The Iliad" makes sense?
I do wish these people would make up their mind. Alas, that's hard to do when you've lost it.
Why is it automatically and always assumed that people wish to be taken care of, fussed over or given special attention because of their victimization? In my experience, people actually want just the opposite. They’ve been put upon enough and they don’t wish to draw even more attention to their problem. It’s not that they’re ashamed. They’re desperately looking for a way to move on, and being given an Official Victim Permission Slip in order to make some vapid college undergraduate feel superior does not help them"Vapid college undergraduate feel superior."
In The Stranger, we get "not about protecting delicate flowers from the sadz"
Salon calls it "dumbing down education."
In the New Yorker, Jay Caspian King is really upset that someone told him Lolita is about the systematic rape of the young girl, because it distracts him from Nabokov's amazing sentences. I'm not really sure how to respond to that.
There are lots of ledes saying: trigger warning for trigger warnings. Hah hah!, I say. I get your joke.
Then there's the strange argument: Life doesn't come with TWs, so why should the classroom? Professors who think their classroom is "life" are, I believe, not thinking about the complexities of their highly mediated environment.
Karen Prior comes out against empathy in The Atlantic.
Meanwhile, in the commencement story front, we see some similar patterns. Stephen Carter, law prof at Yale, writes in a spoof address:
And, before I go any further, I would like to express my personal thanks to all of you for not rescinding my invitation. I know that matters were dicey for a while, given that I have held and defended actual positions on politically contested issues. Now and then I’ve strayed from the party line. And if the demonstrators would quiet down for a moment, I’d like to offer an abject apology for any way in which I have offended against the increasingly narrow and often obscure values of the academy.
In my day, the college campus was a place that celebrated the diversity of ideas. Pure argument was our guide. Staking out an unpopular position was admired -- and the admiration, in turn, provided excellent training in the virtues of tolerance on the one hand and, on the other, integrity.At Haverford, William Bowen, former president at Princeton, did Carter one better. Carter was an op-ed for Bloomberg. Bowen actually scolded the graduating seniors:
A commencement speaker at Pennsylvania’s Haverford College called college students “immature” and “arrogant” Sunday for protesting a different speaker who ultimately withdrew.Bowen and Carter are criticized nicely here on "Dad's Rule."
Then there's Matt Bai, who ultimately blames us for being too soft on our kids.
America's college kids are back and resting at home this week, which is a good thing, because during the long months away they seem to have gone completely out of their minds.Bowen talks about Vietnam war protests. Bai talks about PC protests. These were "real" debates. More on that later.
UPDATE: From the Wall Street Journal, this diatribe. I can't even quote it, as the whole thing says - students are babies, parents and employers will thank me for being cruel, and you humanities professors (i.e. me) are semi/post-literate.
So, what did I miss?
The Last Acceptable Prejudice is ________.
Brief rant: 1) Nothing is EVER the "last acceptable" anything. There are multiple types of prejudice at work in pretty much every situation.
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 20, 2014
2) Calling something "last acceptable" is a way of saying no one is paying attention to your cause! But it's not needed.
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 20, 2014
3)No, - Prejudice against rural people is NOT the last acceptable prejudice. But yes, it should be unacceptable. http://t.co/XYo02oteuy
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 20, 2014
4) No - Prejudice against religious people is NOT the last acceptable prejudice. But yes, it should be unacceptable. http://t.co/XNcKAygwSCI think those four tweets say it pretty clearly. I link to two higher ed pieces. Both pick an issue - rural and religion - that imply the following. Higher Education may still contain prejudiced people about all kinds of things (race, gender, sexuality, for example), but those "mainstream" prejudices are at least not broadly acceptable. MY CAUSE, whatever it is, remains under the radar - it's the last acceptable prejudice we hav to deal with.
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 20, 2014
People, there are lots of prejudices. Some of them are more called out than others. Some of them in fact need to be rendered more visible. None of them are "last." I wish it were otherwise.
I am by far NOT the first person to notice this. s.e. smith wrote a great post in 2013 that said (focused on the widespread use of "last acceptable" in regards to obesity):
The phrase keeps popping up, over and over and over again, in a wide variety of media, and it often remains unchallenged; I see it coming up in quotes, in titles, in lengthy essays, with minimal pushback. When Tasha Fierce confronted it at Bitch magazine a few years ago, people seemed genuinely surprised and offended when she said she didn’t agree that fat was bigotry’s last stand.Later, smith adds [my emphasis]:
There’s a bigger issue at play here, which is the genuine belief that something is the ‘last acceptable prejudice’ in a world full of prejudicial attitudes. People use this phrasing because they think it’s true, and because they think it furthers their activism, and in the process, they do a lot of damage, in addition to making themselves look absolutely ridiculous...
More than just being wrong, it’s also a classic example of setting marginalised groups against each other, rather than helping them work in solidarity, and it explains why intersectionality and an understanding of intersocial prejudices is so important. Because when people hear that ‘x is the last acceptable prejudice’ and they’re members of group y, what they’re hearing is that they don’t experience prejudice—which is in direct opposition to their personal lived experience of the world, and to what members of their social group know to be true.I am focused on issues related to disability and gender, where they intersect and where they don't. I recognize all other kinds of intersocial prejudices exist. I am a little more concerned about the visibility of disability issues. I do think people in higher ed, and elsewhere, are more aware of sexism than ableism. So I try to raise the profile there.
But it's not the last anything.
When you are an activist and you see your issue being ignored, it's frustrating. Fat jokes, class jokes, rural jokes, religious jokes (just to take a few) permeate our culture, even our leftist intellectual academic culture, giving the sense that they might be "acceptable." That's a good conversation to have, the ways in which our ignorance of difference might lead us to perpetuate discrimination and prejudice.
When we privilege one category over the other, though, we say that it is only our issue that needs attention. That we are the most oppressed. That you (collectively) are the most ignorant in regards to our cause. It's not true. It is easy rhetoric to use, but it's actually not all that savvy for building alliances and trying to shift language, perception, or policy.
As s.e. smith says - the pathway out of these "last acceptable" woods remains: intersectionality.
