78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



Here I Am
2006-02-01   11:01 a.m.

At the post office about an hour ago, the line was held up by a woman trying to figure out whether or not the phone cards for sale would work in Iraq. "I just want to send it to him as a gift," she kept saying, "but obviously not if it won't work."

Maybe it's the stress of this new semester, or the stress of feeling much less stress thanks to my new, more secure position - and maybe it's just the way the moon is, but I felt like crying, listening to her. There was nothing particularly emotional about what she was saying, or how she was saying it; I guess I just pictured someone - her son, her husband, her cousin, whatever - at a goddamn pay phone in some hotel lobby in Iraq trying to call her to say thanks for the phone card and the cookies you sent.


I didn't watch the State of the Union address last night, because I've reached a point of such resignation now, especially with Alito's confirmation. It's quite pathetic that - political differences aside - I don't feel like I can trust one thing coming out of the president's mouth. How shameful that I feel like everything, everything is either a spin or a lie. That nothing is true - not figures about the economy, not promises for new programs, not defenses or explanations about war, wire-tapping, occupation, nuclear threats or terrorism. In pretty much every single area, from education to domestic economics and labor, from environmental issues to taxes and foreign policy, I feel let down. My mother would say I'm "looking for the bad", but the bad comes and slaps me across the face when I watch the news in the morning. I'd love to hear something promising. I'd love to think - as I almost did before Bush choose Alito but after he quickly reneged on Miers (how embarrassing for them both) - that he might actually act in the interest of fairness and balance rather than in the interest of placating big business and the conservative belt that comprise the ruling class.

Oops, did that sound too marxist, "ruling class"? I didn't mean it to. A girl's gotta be careful these days.

I'm teaching my students about propaganda because, well, I can, and I'm showing a number of films and documentaries about the Cold War, the Red Scare, and the fear of nuclear attack. We were watching a PBS series about the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, and I saw something I'd never seen before: a president apologize. Imagine that! We watched news footage of Kennedy saying: "Errors only become mistakes when you refuse to acknowledge them and learn from them. We've made a grave error that I don't want to become a mistake." After I turned the lights on, my "remedial" students, most of whom grew up in the "ghetto" and who frequently say overwhelmingly "conservative" things,
made their own connections between Kennedy apologizing and W refusing. We had some good discussion that included varying perspectives and feelings on the matter, but we seemed to agree on this: it's impossible never to be wrong when you have that much responsibility, and admitting mistakes takes more strength than violently striking out instead. These are supposed to be the slow kids whose government education failed them; how come they get it?

Thinking about Dr. King recently too, in our class - since you can't study this stuff without also studying Civil Rights - I frequently wonder what things would be like now if King, and Kennedy, for that matter (both of them), hadn't been assassinated. Quite an odd coincidence, don't you think? Three men who pushed more for peace and non-violence? A president who stood up to his "advisors", publicly said "I am human, too", and did everything possible to keep us away from war? His brother, who would eventually have held really high office, if not the highest one day? A man who had the allegiance and loyalty of nearly half the country, and would most likely have run for and won political office himself one day?

But no: we get LBJ, we get Reagan, we get the Bush dynasty. I hope this isn't setting me up for a lifetime of fear.

Aside from the sometimes depressing content of several of my classes, my new jobby job is going so well. Last week, one of my bosses said something so respectful that I wandered around, confused. What's this feeling?, I thought - this new, strange feeling of...security? Why hello, new emotion!
Nice to meet you!

I hope things at the other place I used to work get better. I'm still there teaching away for the Women's Studies Department (because I loooove them) - sadly, one of the only departments that seems to have a grip on how to balance financial concerns and educational aims - without sacrificing students or faculty to do so. A friend of mine who is working on his PhD in something fancy and complicated having to do with DNA or something has said as much about the school: "I wouldn't be surprised if the shit hits the fan, and they threaten our accreditation." He said this to me over coffee last year, and still things haven't changed: his department is still in shambles, over-employing PTL and adjunct faculty, stalling at launching a search for more full time, tenure-track faculty, and misappropriating funds. I'll put it this way: the school has so much potential to be great, because the students are good, for the most part, and dedicated, as is the faculty. We need a big fire hose, though, to blast the current admin. away and start over. Might happen - I hope so.

Oh, you can welcome me to the year 2002: I got an MP3 player for x-mas - not an ipod, because I'm just that stubborn - but a nice one regardless. The computer I have at home that my brother built for me a while back (poor franken-binky) is so old that it can't understand what to do with the MP3 player when I plug it in, so I've worked out a way to get songs and put them on the player at school. Hooray, new computer at school! My new job gave me a new computer, and my old office at the other school still has my new-er-ish computer in it, and I have loads of downtime I can use to play around with all the stuff.

I find it is changing the way I think about or listen to music, in a way: I went to a party at an art gallery this weekend in Jersey City, and I kept asking the guy spinning (yes, there was a dance floor, it was an awesome party) what this song and that song was. I wrote them all down knowing I could get just this or that song now, which I haven't done since back when Napster was violating all sorts of intellectual property and copyright and I could get it all for free (shhh).

Speaking of songs and stuff I like a lot lately, Nicole and I are going to see Matisyahu next month, wanna come? Let me know, G. It's a Tuesday night, so if you don't have grad class (like Steve), "conscientious objections" (Thomas won't listen to any Reggae that isn't Roots Reggae that talks about stickin' it to the man), or work (like Julie), then come along! Yay! I'm off now to Torros to have lunch with Jen, cause we have Wednesdays off this semester. Meh-heh!

xoxo