Centering whiteness

 Here's something I found.  William Washabaugh, whom I first encountered as a scholar of flamenco, writes an article "Philosophical Bases for Visual Multiculturalism at the College Level." For some reason not explained, visual literacy should focus on issues of race and gender: "visual studies can operate most effectively at the undergraduate level when combined with critical multiculturalism in a single mandatory general education course" (129). 

Quoting Nussbaum, he find that courses in multiculturalism are ... to diverse, too different from one another. Lacking a common methodology. This might be a good thing (for me), but apparently it is not. Apparently, we must all think in the same way. 

It turns out that this should center whiteness:

 Within such a single multicultural course, the issue of ideology should be central. Accordingly such a course should provide ample opportunity for contemporary studies of whiteness. In place of wide-ranging celebratory descriptions of minority groups and their histories, studies of whiteness focus attention on the ideological forces that create ethnic groups, and on the gendering and racializing processes that reproduce privilege.  (136; emphasis aded). 

Well, this is a lot more efficient, because you don't have to know much about these minority groups, just that they are produced, negatively, by "ideological forces." Don't focus on celebrating anything these groups have achieved, on their own ways of constructing their reality. Treat everything from the perspective of the self-questioning white intellectual, by all means.   

The idea that this would be a single, mandatory class is rather chilling. A unitary model for "multiculturalism."  

             

       

Pangram

 My new strategy for spelling bee is to go for the complete anagram (pangram) immediately, and stop there. When I try to get as many words as possible, and don't worry about the pangram, then the pangram will come fairly late, but if I try to get the pangram right away, often (not always) it will appear. 

You would think that getting a lot of smaller words would be helpful in solving the pangram, since it is sometimes a compound word, but it is not. 

If I stare at it a long time and still can't get it, I will sometimes go back to my old, less satisfactory was of solving.

***

I have trouble doing more than one hobby at a time. I can go birdwatching, but then I won't want to also play piano that day.  I think I should accept that rather than attempting to do all of it at once.  

Sausage

I made Ma Po Tofu the other day, with mediocre results. I will make it better next time, using more and firmer tofu, and more of every spice that I put in.  

I had half the pork that I didn't use, so I made some sausage, simply by kneading in some seasonings to the ground pork and leaving in fridge over night. I used red wine vinegar, some salt, some of the peppercorns I had ground up for the tofu dish, paprika, and some fresh herbs I had from my coq au vin from the week before. I had had a sausage patty for breakfast, and it turned out nicely, very flavorful.  The possibilities are endless, and the sodium content can be varied to taste. I don't think I'll ever buy sausage again, just ground pork and make my own. I guess I could get a meat grinder, but why bother. 

I'm writing every Sunday dinner down on the calendar in the kitchen.  That's the night my friend comes over, usually.  I aim not to repeat myself in the calendar year.  

From parking lot to building...

From parking lot to the building where I work, I had the Merlin app open and was recording for 3 minutes. I got 

Common grackle

House finch

Mourning dove

Northern cardinal

American robin

American goldfinch

American crow

European starling 

I heard and saw the finches; I heard dove and crow; saw robins. Listening back to the recording I hear myself breathing too loudly, the sound of my own steps; isolated human voices. 

Dumpster fire

 On twitter, a toxic environment to be sure, I saw a thread about people wanting to boat about how bad their dissertations were. Several referred to theirs as "dumpster fires." Perhaps they see it as a kind of cathartic confession, that they can admit they just produced a piss-poor piece of work but are proud of getting the degree anyway? Clearly, graduate education is a toxic system if it fosters this kind of mentality.

I didn't check to see what fields these people are working in. If the point is the credential, then it wouldn't matter how good the dissertation was. If the idea is that there are no jobs for PhDs anyway, that would be a justification for just doing the best you can but being resigned to not do a very good job.  

If you want to be an old-school scholar, then the idea that you should be 30 and have a PhD but not yet done any good work in the field is rather self-defeating. When are you planning to start?  But maybe that old school model doesn't work.    

Smelling funny

 Something smells a bit funny here. This is from the same journal that published one of the bad articles on Leonard Cohen that I saw recently, the International Review of Psychiatry, published by Taylor and Francis.  I just doesn't seem legit to me, because of the quality of writing and thought feels like something created by a perverse parodist. One of the authors appears to be a someone with a certain level of scholarly achievement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_T._P._Wong), but cannot write at a basic undergraduate level: 

"Love is the core of human experience and central to our meaning in life and wellbeing, yet it is also a complex concept full of ambiguity and contradiction. The main purpose of this paper is fourfold: Firstly, we want to clarify questions such as ‘What is the meaning of love?’ and ‘Why is meaning of love so important to us?’ Secondly, we want to explain why love is both suffering and essential for our happiness and mental health. Thirdly, we identify the major types of love and clarify which types are constructive and which are destructive. We also identify the key dimensions of true love. Finally, we emphasise that love does not always mean happiness; rather, it is meant to be a school to teach us important lessons and to make us complete. Therefore, we need to embrace suffering and at the same time cultivate the constructive types of love to improve our mental health and to make the world a more compassionate place."

April Aphorisms

 

The most essential musical punctuation: the repeat sign:  :|