Crows Don't Cry...

@zefrank ...

I never wake up anywhere near 6 a.m.

Sometimes, I go to bed around then, but unless the destruction of my reputation depends on it, I ignore it completely.  In fact, of all the hours on the clock, I think we've met the fewest times.

That said, yesterday (or the day before, I don't remember... all the days are running together) I woke up at 6:17.  On my own.  With no alarm.

I woke up with a desire to get back to work.  Then I remembered that I had already been dreaming about being awake... having my coffee... and getting back to work... at 6 a.m...

This is what happens when you focus on one, single, project for too long.

Here, in the home stretch of turning this thing - this thing to which I've given more than a year of my life - this thing that's changed the way I look at the world and my role in it - this thing that has finally proven to me that there is something I fiercely love to do and can continue doing past the point I run out of fuel - from a pop-up book cut-out into a new life in which the things I dream become real... I have to admit that I'm very tired.

I miss my friends, I miss reading, I miss the sun, my family, lazy afternoons in the park, watching movies, going to shows, playing boardgames over wine...

So when I woke up this morning, ready to get back to work, I really, really, really, really, needed to find this:

I feel deficient as a creative person that I've not known about Zefrank until two hours ago, but sometimes when you're completely run down, you accidentally stumble across what you need to keep going.

What brought me to my knees this morning, however, while looking around his unbelievably diverse, interactive, and creative website, was the concept of generous creativity.  It's so easy to curl yourself around your projects like an evil old dragon around its precious egg.  It's your vision, your idea, your catharsis, your catalyst, your heart, your soul, your offering... But Zefrank is the opposite of this.  His projects are about interactivity.  He reaches out for people to participate and they reach back to him.  The result is stunning, beautiful, and utterly, utterly comforting.

Tuning into his 2010 TED talk (which I didn't intend to watch all the way through), I felt like I was being reminded of something I hadn't realized I'd forgotten: creativity is not an island.

Creativity is most beautiful when it listens to those it's trying to reach.  It's a lot like love in that way; it's a two way street, and it can create powerful bonds for those who approach it with and open heart and an open mind.

I did end up watching that TED talk to the end.  And after having barely left the house in over a month, pouring over my computer for as long as I can remain conscious, feeling the stress mount over whether the manuscript is good enough, what to put in my proposal, how to navigate the publishing world, how to use punctuation properly, whether anyone will be interested, whether my stamina will even hold out, and whether one can start a sentence with and...

...the end of the TED talk brought me to...

Ah, well... I don't want to get into it.  You'll know what I mean when you get there...

Thanks, Zefrank.  I really needed you today.

A. Crow

#goodnight

How about a little Slavoj Zizek before bed?  This is one of my favorite combinations of illustration and philosophy... but having said that, I think it's the only combination of illustration and philosophy I know...

A. Crow

#education #ethnicstudies @DemocracyNow @ThreeSonorans

Arizona Ethnic Studies and the Caballo's Mouth - links and further readings/viewing material

Though Democracy Now! included a headline about the firing of the director of Arizona's Ethnic Studies Program director, Sean Arce, yesterday, I didn't really poke any further into it until this morning.

Just peering around from the top of the iceberg, I thought I'd put together a short collection of things I found interesting or marked for further attention while I had my morning coffee.

The city of Tucson, Arizona, according to the 2010 U.S. census has a population of approximately (because these things can only ever be approximate, no matter how hard they try) 41.6% who are of "Hispanic or Latino origin".  Within the Tucson Unified School District, a Mexican American Studies program had, until earlier this year, existed.  Though Sean Arce, the program's director, who received the 2012 Myles Horton Award for Teaching People’s History, heralded the success of the program, the Arizona superintendent of schools, John Huppenthal voiced concerns that the program was teaching its students to resent white people and took steps to shut the program down.  Though Huppenthal paid for the Cambium Learning Group to perform an audit, the report found that "During the curriculum audit period, no observable evidence was present to suggest that any classroom within the Tucson Unified School District is in direct violation of the law."  In an Democracy Now! interview in which Nermeen Shaikh and Amy Goodman speak to both Huppenthal and Richard Martinez, the attorney representing those trying to save the Mexican American Studies program, Huppenthal articulates his position mostly by avoiding questions and using vague language.

The strange irony of his position, however, is that while John Huppenthal's concern that students not be exposed to a program that promotes racism towards whites, he allegedly campaigned on the promise that he would "Stop La Raza".  La Raza appears to be one of those phrases that is difficult to fully understand without intimate knowledge of its use in the region in which it's being used.  Being nowhere near Arizona, the best I can do is to trust Richard Martinez's definition when he says it means "the people".  Huppenthal's use of this phrase was apparently made in video advertisements but when I tried to locate one, I found that all of them had been removed from the web (if I'm wrong, do let me know!).  In the Democracy Now! interview above, however, Amy Goodman (who I sincerely hope to never be on the wrong side of) questions him about this comment and he doesn't deny that he said it.

Controversial HB 2281, signed on May 11, 2010, amends Title 15 in a way that made Tucson's ethnic studies program illegal. The amendments made to section 15-112 outlines that a school district cannot do four things:

"1. Promote the overthrow of the United States Government.

2. Promote resentment towards a race or class of people.

3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group

4. Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

In the wake of SB1070, which outlines some of the strictest anti-illegal alien measures ever put into place (explained loosely here), HB 2281 angered an awful lot of people.  Close reading of HB 2281, particularly to section 15-843, regarding student discipline, puts angry students in a vulnerable position if they choose to exhibit their frustrations.

Then Superintendent of Public Instruction and current Attorney General of Arizona, Tom Horne, has also been at the centre of the dispute. A supporter of the bill, he can be seen in a debate with Richard Martinez in five parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Something that really captured my attention this morning, though, is the documentary, Precious Knowledge, an Ari Palos film documenting the now dismantled program and the people fighting for it. Currently unavailable online, it is available from the website above and occasionally has screenings at various institutions.

One of the issues that has been popping up is in regards to whether HB 2281 actually led to book banning. In the Democracy Now! interview, John Huppenthal is adamant that they were not banned, but Richard Martinez argues this.  The books in question are listed here:

Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez
Message to AZTLAN by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna (I'm particularly interested in finding out more about him.)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow

Somewhere in the conflict, there was an accusation that Shakespare's The Tempest was also banned, but the Tucson school district's official press release makes no mention of it.  In the release, the TUSD states that the books "have been moved to the district storage facility because the classes have been suspended," and that "NONE of the above books have been banned by TUSD.  Each book has been boxed and stored as part of the process of suspending the classes.  The books listed above were cited in the ruling that found the classes out of compliance with state law."  The press release continues on to say that "Every one of the books listed above is still available to students through several school libraries.  Many of the schools where Mexican American Studies classes were taught have the books available in their libraries.  Also, all students throughout the district may reserve the books through the library system."

Confusing, depressing, and charged, the situation doesn't appear to be showing any signs of cooling down, especially after yesterday's news about Sean Arce. The website, http://saveethnicstudies.org/, has been set up to serve as a resource for those interested and I'll be keeping my eye on it for updates.

A. Crow

#rainwater #OWS #innovation #freedomofinformation #sustainability @OccupyWallSt @erinvollick

It's Plagiarizing Cats and Dogs...

Recently, Erin Vollick, novelist and self-titled post-modern scholar, found herself a victim of plagiarism when she found an article she'd written had been nicked and re-published in on a UK engineering blog as though it was their own.  Unamazed, her reaction was simply to dryly celebrate that her Canadian article had crossed the pond on its own several-thousand-letter feet.

Vollick, obviously, is not silly and knows that having something nicked on the internet is like having a boy put a spider in your lunchbox in third grade; it's a compliment, in a way.  It means they like you.

So good on Vollick.  Her blood-pressure stayed down, her hair remained in her head, and the heart attack was averted.  Wise.

I, however, find the practice of re-posting articles by websites who had no hand in their creation extremely tiresome.  Last week, while addressing an element in my manuscript that required knowing when Bolivia's Cochabamba water wars ended (April 11, 2000 - Happy anniversary, Óscar Olivera!), I came across a related article regarding American prohibition of rainwater collection in certain states.  Intrigued, I read it, feeling the familiar and satisfying rush that follows the discovery of anything else corporate America is doing wrong (Go, Occupy Wall Street! Go!).

Fueled by righteous indignation and a desire to rescue millions of home gardeners from certain prosecution and imprisonment, I attempted to look further into the matter with the help of Detective Google.  Well, about thirty combinations of words later such as, rainwater, catchment, laws, states, America, and legal, I found not the heap of beleaguered Americans fighting for the right to sustainably keep their carrots and tomatoes from dying of thirst, but page after page of re-published copies of the one, same, original article (try it!).  One of the most recent re-postings (March 24, 2011) was, disappointingly, posted by http://occupythe99percent.com, despite the fact that upon checking the facts in the article, one can easily discover that much of the information is outdated.

In the article, a link is presented to this video, which features the plight of a Utah car dealer, Mark Miller, who was prevented from using captured rainwater to wash his cars because the rain reportedly belonged to the state, even though it fell on his property.  Shocking as it is, the video linked above was posted back in 2008 - four years ago.  Eventually, I stumbled onto HarvestH2O, which contains more updated information and links to specific legislation and state water websites, and I quickly discovered that Utah approved Senate Bill 32 on May 11, 2010, making it legal for its citizens to collect rainwater without a water right by simply registering with the Division of Water Rights, a process for which there is no fee.

The damage of the treatment of the rainwater article is twofold:

First, the article acts as an catchment pool for anyone eager and inclined to denounce corporate America.  Unfortunately, many of the people in this pool don't bother to check the validity of whatever satisfies their eagerness and go on to tweet, post, blog, re-publish, email, like, recommend, and share it.  This carpet bombing of social media leads to the same result for informed progressives as banner ads and pop-ups lead to for the products they advertise: they all get tuned out.

Second, as mentioned above, this mass confusion makes it very difficult to get accurate information on the whos, whats, whens, wheres and the whys at the heart of any matter in question.  If we relate it to our rainwater article, we find that because of the number of times it has been re-posted, it's nearly impossible to find out the original author, publisher, or date of publication.  Now, it's perfectly possible that each state is, as suggested on the HarvestH2O site, working furiously towards environmental sustainability and the rights of the individual to harvest rainwater.  What's also possible is that the confusion and wealth of outdated information allows interest groups to influence policy makers in a much more furtive manner.  After all, if you can't find the policy, how do you know who stands to gain and who stands to lose from it?

I'm not, of course, suggesting that corporate underhandedness is the final conclusion we should draw from this example of careless re-publication.  Instead, I'm simply proposing that the above scenario does a disservice to the freedom of information.  While it's common practice, it's not common sense.  The article, in seeking to shed light on the subject of rainwater collection, actually ended up shooting it in the soggy foot.

So, what's the solution?

Well, being barely competent at using Twitter and Facebook, I doubt I am the person to invent a way of watermarking words, but if some innovator happens to stumble across this blog post and thinks himself or herself capable of creating such a thing, the internet could be a made a more reliable place.  Surely, with Google's ability to recognize groups of words, some method of locking an original article and preventing or otherwise regulating its re-publication elsewhere should be possible.  Or perhaps it already exists and isn't simply common knowledge?

The internet is too valuable a tool to have such Achilles' heels.

A. Crow

I am trying to figure out if I could ever justify ordering business cards from the people who did this one...

...and I'm not having too much luck.

#cooldesign