I was listening to President Bush's press conference today. As an informed citizen, I've always thought it critically important to keep myself up to date on current events, administration policy, etc. In the past few years I've generally avoided listening to him whenever possible, mostly because I end up yelling at the radio. Also, since the administration has been something of a broken record for several years now, I guess I haven't felt it necessary to listen to Bush's misguided, unreflective pronouncements. The president's use of language (dripping, as it is with ideologically-charged words designed to key into emotions but otherwise utterly lacking in substance) seems to me the ultimate catachrestic endeavor. Of course, his choice of words is made to elicit fear amongst voters: fear of change, fear of taking responsibility for our past choices, fear of attack from vague, ill-defined threats.
His urgings to "stay the course" over the past several years have started to fall out of favor in the public. It's about time. The phrase has never made much sense to me, since it implies that self-reflection about the Bush Administration's Iraq policy is off-limits, anti-patriotic, and somehow a bad thing. "Staying the course" also carries with it a host of problems, since it also implies that we Americans supposedly accept the assumptions that Bush does: that it was correct to attack Iraq, that finding/destroying alleged weapons of mass-destruction was the reason to attack Iraq, that it is sound policy to plunge a country into civil war in the name of "taking the fight to the terrorists" (i.e. the terrorists that didn't exist in Iraq before we invaded their country).
It is comforting to see Americans beginning to wake up from their long slumber and recognize that the Bush Administration's "stay the course" policy--along with most of its undergirding assumptions--is a dangerous one. They have an opportunity on November 7th to send a message to the Bush Administration that it has clearly failed the course.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Convergence or Coincidence?
It's not often that my usually divergent interests move the opposite direction: toward convergence. This seemed to change, at least in a small way, yesterday, when Arizona State University announced that they are completely switching over their email communications infrastructure so it is hosted by Google. This is a relatively new area of growth for Google, and one I think is pretty cool, especially for schools and non-profits. Here's the info:
http://asu.edu/news/stories/200610/20061010_asugmail.htm
I've never been to ASU's campus, and I don't work on Google Apps for Your Domain, so why would I say these things are convergent? At first glance, I admit it is a bit of a stretch! But, it's not so far-fetched a connection when one considers how far-flung my interests have been over the past few years. I work for Imagining America, a consortium of higher-educational institutions. Arizona State University has been one of the earliest consortium members to join up. I've been very impressed with their commitment to public scholarship and community involvement for several years now.
The connection: I've worked with both ASU and Google. Not very strong connection, huh? Ok, I admit it's a tangential connection at best. That other part of my life, the working at Google part, doesn't involve public scholarship, and I don't think anyone at Google has ever heard of Imagining America. Consider this though: Google does want to use its philanthropy arm to do public good, and this makes me think that more substantive convergence might be possible! What a great potential avenue for philanthropy to take: offering non-profits basic applications like email, chat, calendar, and basic web-site hosting so that non-profits can work on the things they need to without having to worry so much about IT infrastructure. This could really revolutionize the way that non-profits work.
http://asu.edu/news/stories/200610/20061010_asugmail.htm
I've never been to ASU's campus, and I don't work on Google Apps for Your Domain, so why would I say these things are convergent? At first glance, I admit it is a bit of a stretch! But, it's not so far-fetched a connection when one considers how far-flung my interests have been over the past few years. I work for Imagining America, a consortium of higher-educational institutions. Arizona State University has been one of the earliest consortium members to join up. I've been very impressed with their commitment to public scholarship and community involvement for several years now.
The connection: I've worked with both ASU and Google. Not very strong connection, huh? Ok, I admit it's a tangential connection at best. That other part of my life, the working at Google part, doesn't involve public scholarship, and I don't think anyone at Google has ever heard of Imagining America. Consider this though: Google does want to use its philanthropy arm to do public good, and this makes me think that more substantive convergence might be possible! What a great potential avenue for philanthropy to take: offering non-profits basic applications like email, chat, calendar, and basic web-site hosting so that non-profits can work on the things they need to without having to worry so much about IT infrastructure. This could really revolutionize the way that non-profits work.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Imagining America National Conference
The following entry has been sitting as a draft, not posted, for the last four months. I just wanted to get it out there since I love Imagining America and I've been so proud of the work they've been doing.
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I recently attended the 6th Annual Imagining America national conference and was incredibly impressed with the engagement, commitment, and vision of the attendees. This was an "un-academic" academic conference in that the attendees were almost exclusively from higher education circles. I've attended my share of academic conferences and never cared much for them. They tend to feel a little dry, a little sterile, and sometimes even a little alienating. The IA national conference, on the other hand, was filled with people who want to change the world through education and change higher education by bringing the world to the ivory tower. I've worked for Imagining America as their webmaster and tech guru for several years now, and this was my first time at their national conference. I'm glad I went.
I've always been inspired by many things about Imagining America, but meeting people running humanities centers, creating structures for their campuses that contribute to a lively and rich campus cultural life. IA members are especially engaged in reaching out to the various communities within which the university/college is based. I have found that universities focus on such specialized knowledges and address such specific academic communities that I sometimes wonder how they can make any sustainable claim to universal knowledge.
It makes me very happy to see organizations like Imagining America--and all the individuals and organizations who are part of it--there to remind us that it is so critically important to support the humanities and the cultural work of empathy and understanding that they do.
Go Imagining America!
To learn more about IA, visit their web site at: http://www.ia.umich.edu.
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I recently attended the 6th Annual Imagining America national conference and was incredibly impressed with the engagement, commitment, and vision of the attendees. This was an "un-academic" academic conference in that the attendees were almost exclusively from higher education circles. I've attended my share of academic conferences and never cared much for them. They tend to feel a little dry, a little sterile, and sometimes even a little alienating. The IA national conference, on the other hand, was filled with people who want to change the world through education and change higher education by bringing the world to the ivory tower. I've worked for Imagining America as their webmaster and tech guru for several years now, and this was my first time at their national conference. I'm glad I went.
I've always been inspired by many things about Imagining America, but meeting people running humanities centers, creating structures for their campuses that contribute to a lively and rich campus cultural life. IA members are especially engaged in reaching out to the various communities within which the university/college is based. I have found that universities focus on such specialized knowledges and address such specific academic communities that I sometimes wonder how they can make any sustainable claim to universal knowledge.
It makes me very happy to see organizations like Imagining America--and all the individuals and organizations who are part of it--there to remind us that it is so critically important to support the humanities and the cultural work of empathy and understanding that they do.
Go Imagining America!
To learn more about IA, visit their web site at: http://www.ia.umich.edu.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Iraq Coalition Casualties Soon to Surpass September 11th Fatalities
President Bush has made the argument on numerous occasions that America has been made safer as a result of his decision to attack Iraq. I'd like to refute this assertion by pointing to a sobering statistic: the total number of casualties in the US-led coalition will soon surpass the number of fatalities as a result of the September 11th terrorist attack, probably in the next twenty-four hour period. (1) Here's a count of the two numbers side by side:
Number of fatalities as a result of the September 11th attacks: 2,973 (2)
Number of coalition forces who died as a result of President Bush's decision to attack Iraq: 2969 (3)
I do think it is important to draw attention to this sad statistic. The immense loss of life is just heartbreaking as I think of the families who lost soldiers in Iraq. Sadly, the moment is imminent when it will no longer be inaccurate to say that President Bush's war in Iraq has taken more American lives than even the terrorists' most horrific attack.
This simple comparison fills me with an unshakeable anger. President Bush is poised to beat the terrorists at their own game: he's taken more lives than them. Mission Accomplished.
I think it is right to hold President Bush to task for this, for it was his decision that has cost the lives of so many American and coalition soldiers. When will we begin to hold him and his administration accountable for this?
1 - Bush's justifications for the war have been fairly consistent, and are regularly mentioned in speeches and press briefings. The number of casualties suffered by coalition forces pales in comparison to the number of Iraqi civilians who have perished since the US-led attack. An exact number is hard to determine, but is in the tens of thousands.
2 - The September 11th figure is drawn from Wikipedia, which has a well documented and footnoted entry on the events that transpired. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks)
3 - The coalition figure comes from the following site, http://www.icasualties.org/oif/, which gathers its information directly from the US Department of Defense, Centcom, MNF, and the British Ministry of Defense.
Number of fatalities as a result of the September 11th attacks: 2,973 (2)
Number of coalition forces who died as a result of President Bush's decision to attack Iraq: 2969 (3)
I do think it is important to draw attention to this sad statistic. The immense loss of life is just heartbreaking as I think of the families who lost soldiers in Iraq. Sadly, the moment is imminent when it will no longer be inaccurate to say that President Bush's war in Iraq has taken more American lives than even the terrorists' most horrific attack.
This simple comparison fills me with an unshakeable anger. President Bush is poised to beat the terrorists at their own game: he's taken more lives than them. Mission Accomplished.
I think it is right to hold President Bush to task for this, for it was his decision that has cost the lives of so many American and coalition soldiers. When will we begin to hold him and his administration accountable for this?
1 - Bush's justifications for the war have been fairly consistent, and are regularly mentioned in speeches and press briefings. The number of casualties suffered by coalition forces pales in comparison to the number of Iraqi civilians who have perished since the US-led attack. An exact number is hard to determine, but is in the tens of thousands.
2 - The September 11th figure is drawn from Wikipedia, which has a well documented and footnoted entry on the events that transpired. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks)
3 - The coalition figure comes from the following site, http://www.icasualties.org/oif/, which gathers its information directly from the US Department of Defense, Centcom, MNF, and the British Ministry of Defense.
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