More UCSD Woes

A UCSD student named Jeff commented on my earlier post UCSD and Art. He said:

As a current UCSD student, I’m far less concerned with what a small minority of the students in the Literature deparment are doing as I am with what the administrators are doing.

He also passed long three links to examples of his concern here, here, and here.

I can see why he’s worried — from the facts reported in these stories, UCSD’s chancellor (Marye Anne Fox) appears to be very highly compensated (earning almost $700K in taxpayer’s money last year, making the big assumption that all compensation has now been disclosed) and very distracted by the obligations incurred by sitting on the Boards of ten corporations. She also earned about $340K in compensation from those Board positions; this is nearly as much as her (nominal) UCSD chancellor’s salary of $360K.

A little googling led me to Ms. Fox’s Board memberships. These aren’t little lightweight kinds of companies that one could imagine her just being a kind of token Board member — the organizations she’s a Board member of include SRI International, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and RedHat, for example. I’ve read somewhere that the average Board member spends 200 hours per year preparing for and attending Board meetings. Having been a Board member of a public corporation myself, I can attest to the investment of time required; if anything, that 200 hours seems too little to me. Ten companies? That would be 2000 hours per year, which is what most people would consider a full time job. When does Ms. Fox find the time to do her job at UCSD? Or is she short-changing all those shareholders at the companies she’s supposedly helping to manage? Any way you look at this picture, it’s disturbing.

On top of the preceding attention-deficit disorder, to be so highly cash-compensated is like salt being rubbed into the taxpayer’s wound. And as a taxpayer, I think Jeff is right — this is even more of a concern than what I described in my original post…

Sheesh!

UCSD and Art

From the UCSD Literature department comes this email (tip of the hat to Bob C., one of my readers, who forwarded this email to me):

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:40:53 -0800 ( PST)

From: “UCSD Literature Dept.” <ucsd-flyers-relay@ucsd.edu>

To: “UCSD Flyers” <ucsd-flyers-dist@ucsd.edu>

Subject: Dept. of Lit - Sex Workers' Art Show This Thursday

Errors-To: ucsd-flyers-errors@ucsd.edu

Sender: ucsd-flyers-relay@ucsd.edu

Department of Literature and the T.M.I. Queer and Feminist

Performance Show

Sex Workers' Art Show

Thursday, February 16, 2006

7:30 PM

UCSD Price Center Theater

admission: $7 - $25, sliding scale

(no one turned away for lack of funds)

The Sex Workers' Art Show Tour is coming to San Diego!!! The show is an eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses!

The wildly successful cabaret-style show is hitting the road again, bringing audiences a blend of spoken word, music, burlesque, and multimedia performance art; as well as a visual art display that travels with the show. The artwork and performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitution and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry.

This year’s incredible lineup of performers includes acclaimed Whitney Biennial artist and burlesque performer Julie Atlas Muz; iconic queer writer and author of The Chelsea Whistle Michelle Tea; hip-hop poet Juba Kalamka; foremother of the prostitutes' rights movement Scarlot Harlot; artistic director of the only existing Black burlesque troupe Harlem Shake, Simone de la Getto; filmmaker and performance artist Bridget Irish; writer and feminist smut purveyor Tralala Farsi Sentiamo; and tour founder and ringmaster Annie Oakley. Visual artists include infamous camgirl and artist Ana Voog and activist and filmmaker Teresa Dulce.

The show includes people from all areas of the sex industry: strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, internet models, etc. It smashes traditional stereotypes and moves beyond positive and negative into a fuller articulation of the complicated ways sex workers experience their jobs and their lives. The Sex Workers' Art Show entertains, arouses, and amazes while simultaneously offering scathing and insightful commentary on notions of class, gender, labor, and sexuality!

For more information or to schedule interviews, please visit www.sexworkersartshow.com, or email Annie Oakley at annie@sexworkersartshow.com.

Sponsored by T.M.I. Queer and Feminist Performance Show and UCSD Dept of Literature

Annie Oakley doesn’t need a gun. She’s armed with fierce creativity, political passion, big brains and exquisite sexiness. As the Sex Workers' Art Show’s director, Oakley leads a brilliant crew who serves up whore culture at its most delicious and satisfying.

-Annie Sprinkle, Phd

The Sex Workers' Art Show is not simply a display of those in the sex industry… but an active force in articulating, shaping, and contesting the meaning of the identity sex worker in the public sphere.

-Theatre Journal

What in the world is the University of California, San Diego (USCD) thinking? With all the serious subjects in the world that they could address, they choose this?

One could easily question the taste or propriety of this event, but never mind those. What frosts me is the notion that taxpayer dollars are being used to promote (and subsidize, I’d wager) this show, in the name of studying “literature”. Do you believe our tax dollars should be used to educate students on a “…wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitution and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry."? Do you believe our students need such an education — our would they be more likely to educate their teachers?

Lest you think this is a hoax, you can read all about this on UCSD’s web site. And you can also read all about the show itself on their web site.

I’ll just add this to the (long) list of reasons to worry about this country’s educational system. While our students study the finer points of the physics of tassle-twirling, other students will be studying mathematics, non-tassle-twirling physics, and perhaps even Steinbeck or Hemingway. That would be the students in those countries who will compete with us for economic leadership in the future. Who knows — maybe the U.S. can take over leadership in the sex industry? Come to think of it, that might be a significant economic sector!

Cartoons Revisited

A couple of weeks ago, I published the twelve controversial Danish cartoons that the Muslim world is still raging about. That post has received more comments than any other post I’ve ever made on this blog.

Some of the comments come from people who appear to be Muslims, such as this one from “Mohammed":

MR Dwayne, I am a Muslim, and i’m proud of my religion, by the way a fondamenta Muslim, by i am not willing to kill a ant not even a person is very similar to me, why should i kill, you have to understand that the meanning of ISLAM in english is PEACE, islam is for peace not for Killing, wake up and find out that the invisible enemy for mankind is everywhere, and they are making mass by the name of Islam, Killing people by the name of Islam, terrorizing by the name of Islam, making conflict between Christians and Muslims, by the name of Islam, they are killing our religion mentally not physically, physically they can’t do anything, if you are talking about physically, just have a look what happening nowadays in the world, do you want to know that who is that invisible enemy to the mankind???? do not just point your finger to the Muslims, we are not happy what happening to the world right now,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,That invisible enemy is afraid by our power now, they afraid by our knowledge, they are afraid by our media, they are afraid by our independence,,,,,,,,,, Shame on Israel=Invisible enemy of mankind

And others are clearly from non-Muslims, like this one from “Aerrys":

I’m completely sickened by this nonsense. I consider myself to be a fair minded liberal who believes in everyone’s right to believe as they see fit. I’m now in a position where I’m swaying toward the conservative side if only to preserve a way of life that allows for rational, lucid thought. We can no longer tolerate this idea of “one true religion” from any of you. You are all damaged and filled with vanity and pride. I’ve always said in passing “I don’t care what anyone believes in so long as they don’t use those beliefs to justify killing me” or “whatever you believe in that says you don’t get to kill me is fine by me”. But ALL of you who think they found the “one true religion/god that everyone should conform too” need to go burn in the hells of your own design. Your rights to live, inhabit the earth, govern your affairs, and secure happiness do not supersede mine or anyone else’s. You are not here to tell me what to believe. There is no god on your side that is against me. You are all corrupt. Join is in this century or perish.

Check out the whole collection — they make interesting, and sobering, reading.

And thanks to all my commenters…

A Valentine

Last night, a good friend emailed us a Valentine’s day “card” that included a slide show she knew we’d like. The pictures at right are some of my favorites…

Of course, as usual, click on the small picture for a bigger view…

New Jersey

For fellow New Jersey people and for those who make fun of it -check this out!!!!

If you’ve ever lived in Jersey…you’ll appreciate this!!! If you live somewhere else, you might find it interesting.

New Jersey is a peninsula.

Highlands, New Jersey has the highest elevation along the entire eastern seaboard, from Maine to Florida.

New Jersey is the only state where all of its counties are classified as metropolitan areas.

New Jersey has more race horses than Kentucky.

New Jersey has more Cubans in Union City (1 sq mi.) than Havana, Cuba.

New Jersey has the densest system of highways and railroads in the US.

New Jersey has the highest cost of living.

New Jersey has the highest cost of auto insurance.

New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the nation.

New Jersey has the most diners in the world and is sometimes referred to as the “Diner Capital of the World."

New Jersey is home to the original Mystery Pork Parts Club (no, not Spam): Taylor Ham or Pork Roll.

Home to the less mysterious but the best Italian hot dogs and Italian sausage w/peppers and onions.

North Jersey has the most shopping malls in one area in the world, with seven major ! shopping malls in a 25 square mile radius.

New Jersey is home to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Passaic River was the site of the first submarine ride by inventor John P. Holland.

The first Blimpies Sub Base (sandwich shops) was in Hoboken

New Jersey has 50+ resort cities & towns; some of the nation’s most famous: Asbury Park, Wildwood, Atlantic City, Seaside Heights, Long Branch, Cape May.

New Jersey has the most stringent testing along our coastline for water quality control than any other seaboard state in the entire country.

New Jersey is a leading technology & industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation when you include pharmaceuticals.

Jersey tomatoes are known the world over as being the best you can buy.

New Jersey is the world leader in blueberry and cranberry

production (and here you thought Massachusetts?)

Here’s to New Jersey - the toast of the country! In 1642, the first brewery in America, opened in Hoboken.

New Jersey rocks! The famous Les Paul invented the first solid body electric guitar in Mahwah, in 1940.

New Jersey is a major seaport state with the largest seaport in the US, located in Elizabeth. Nearly 80 percent of what our nation imports comes through Elizabeth Seaport first.

New Jersey is home to one of the nation’s busiest airports (in Newark), Liberty International.

George Washington slept here. Several important Revolutionary War battles were fought on New Jersey soil, led by General George Washington.

The light bulb, phonograph (record player), and motion picture projector, were invented by Thomas Edison in his Menlo Park, NJ, laboratory.

We also boast the first town ever lit by incandescent bulbs.

The first seaplane was built in Keyport, NJ.

The first airmail (to Chicago) was started from Keyport, NJ.

The first phonograph records were made in Camden, NJ.

The game Monopoly, played all over the world, named the streets on its playing board after the actual streets in Atlantic City.

And, Atlantic City has the longest boardwalk in the world,

Not to mention salt water taffy,

New Jersey has the largest petroleum containment area outside of the Middle East countries.

The first Indian reservation was in New Jersey, in the Watchung Mountains.

New Jersey has the tallest water-tower in the world. (Union, NJ!!!)

New Jersey had the first medical center, in Jersey City.

The Pulaski SkyWay, from Jersey City to Newark, was the first skyway highway.

NJ built the first tunnel under a river, the Hudson (Holland Tunnel).

The first baseball game was played in Hoboken, NJ, which is also the birthplace of Frank Sinatra.

The first intercollegiate football game was played in New Brunswick in 1889 (Rutgers College played Princeton). Rutgers won.

The first drive-in movie theater was opened in Camden, NJ, (but they’re all gone now!).

New Jersey is home to both of “NEW YORK’S” pro football teams!

The first radio station and broadcast was in Paterson, NJ. (WPAT)

The first FM radio broadcast was made from Alpine, NJ, by Maj. Thomas Armstrong. (The tower he built can be seen on the “Palisades” over looking the Hudson River)

All New Jersey natives: Sal Martorano, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Jason Alexander, Queen Latifah, Susan Sarandon, Connie Francis, Shaq, Judy Blume, Aaron Burr, Joan Robertson, Ken Kross, Dionne Warwick, Sarah Vaughn, Budd Abbott, Lou

Costello, Alan Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Marilynn McCoo, Flip Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, Whitney Houston, Eddie Money, Linda McElroy, Eileen Donnelly, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Walt Whitman,

Jerry Lewis, Tom Cruise, Joyce Kilmer, Bruce Willis, Caesar Romero, Lauryn Hill, Ice-T, Nick Adams, Nathan Lane, Sandra Dee, Danny DeVito, Richard Conti, Joe Pesci, Joe Piscopo, Robert Blake, John Forsythe, Meryl Streep, Loretta Swit, Norman Lloyd, Paul Simon, Jerry

Herman, Gorden McCrae, Kevin Spacey, John Travolta, Phyllis Newman, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Eva Marie Saint, Elisabeth Shue, Zebulon Pike, James Fennimore Cooper, Admiral Wm.Halsey,Jr., Dave Thomas (Wendy’s), William Carlos Williams, Ray Liotta, Robert Wuhl, Bob Reyers, Paul Robeson, Ernie Kovacs, Joseph Macchia, “Uncle Floyd,” Kelly Ripa, and, of course, Francis Albert Sinatra.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know you’re from Jersey when . You don’t think of fruit when people mention “The Oranges."

You know that it’s called Great Adventure, not Six Flags.

A good, quick breakfast is a hard roll with butter.

You’ve known the way to Seaside Heights since you were seven.

You’ve eaten at a diner, when you were stoned, or drunk, at 3 A.M.

You know that the state isn’t one big oil refinery.

At least three people in your family still love Bruce Springsteen, and you know the town Jon Bon Jovi is from.

You know what a “jug handle” is.

You know that WaWa is a convenience store.

You know that the state isn’t all farmland.

You know that there are no “beaches” in New Jersey — there’s the shore — and you don’t go “to the shore,” you go “down the shore.” And when you are there, you’re not “at the shore"; you are “down the shore."

You know how to properly negotiate a circle.

You know that this is the only “New” state that doesn’t require “New” to identify it (try . . . Mexico . . York Hampshire — doesn’t work, does it?).

You know that a “White Castle” is the name of BOTH a fast food chain AND a fast food sandwich.

You consider putting mayo on a corned beef sandwich a sacrilege

You don’t think “What exit?” is very funny.

You know that people from the 609 area code are “a little different."

Yes they are!

You know that no respectable New Jerseyan goes to Princeton — that’s for out-of-staters.

The Jets-Giants game has started fights at your school or localbar.

You live within 20 minutes of at least three different malls.

You refer to all highways and interstates by their numbers.

Every year you have at least one kid in your class named Tony.

You know the location of every clip shown in the Sopranos opening

credits.

You’ve gotten on the wrong highway trying to get out of the mall.

You know that people from North Jersey go to Seaside Heights, and people from Central Jersey go to Belmar, and people from South Jersey go to Wildwood. It can be no other way. (The Schimmenti’s go to Long Beach Island)

You weren’t raised in New Jersey — you were raised in either North Jersey, Central Jersey or South Jersey.

You don’t consider Newark or Camden to actually be part of the state.

You remember the stores Korvette’s, Two Guys, Rickel’s, Channel,

Bamberger’s and Orbach’s.

You also remember Palisades Amusement Park.

You’ve had a boardwalk cheese steak and vinegar fries.

You start planning for Memorial Day weekend in February.

And finally You’ve NEVER, NEVER pumped your own gas.

Political Ponder

One of my readers emailed me yesterday, taking me to task for contributing to the general level of political hostility and polarization by my repeated use of the word “liberal", usually in a derogatory fashion, or even as a kind of cuss word. I replied that for a certain category of liberal — personified by the likes of Teddy Kennedy, Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, etc. — his description was exactly how I felt, and in those cases for me the word “liberal” really is a cuss word. I further said that I had no interest in a debate with the likes of them — my interest lies in stamping them out.

But my reader got me to thinking about exactly why I make this distinction between individual politicians. I can fit any of the politicians I know much about into a strict dichotomy: those with whom I think it’s useful (and it would be fun!) to have a debate, and those with whom I think all debate is useless and we should instead concentrate on getting them out of office. Note the absence of a category for politicians with whom no debate is needed — there’s no politician I know who is in complete agreement with my own views, including politicians I admire (President Bush, Rudy Guiliani, Zell Miller, Newt Gingrich, etc.).

In thinking about how I categorize politicians into one of these two buckets, I can identify two key factors.

One of them is easy to describe: it’s whether the politician is motivated more by ideology than by personal gain or power. Everybody is motivated to some extent by what benefits themselves, and I have no quarrel whatsoever with that. But my read of some politicians (i.e., McCain, Daschle, Teddy Kennedy, Kerry, DeLay, Pelosi) is that they are completely willing to set aside whatever ideological beliefs they have (if they even have any — I wonder about a lot of these folks) to further their drive for power or other personal gain. That’s another way of saying they put their personal interests ahead of the nation’s interests — which I call unpatriotic. Yes, that’s right, I’m calling every one of these people unpatriotic.

The other factor is a little squishier. It has to do with the basis for someone’s ideology, or perhaps the seriousness of their ideology. Some politicians can readily articulate why they believe what they believe, using facts that can be independently verified or arguments with supporting logic. Examples of these folks would include Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, Newt Gingrich, Zell Miller, and President Bush. Some politicians can also be characterized as have a constancy of position, or at least of the reasons they choose positions. In other words, observers can look at the history of their actions and see a coherent theme. These are politicians I can respect, and whom I welcome into our political arena, even if their ideology doesn’t happen to agree with my own. I enjoy a political debate with these folks or their like-minded supporters. The flip side of this is are the politicians for whom ideology is an article of faith (by which I mean unsupported by facts or logic, just something you have to believe in), a matter of political convenience, or even completely absent (in which case factor one completely dominates their behavior).

Of course neither of these factors is completely black-and-white; there are many colors to all of this. But one can (and I do!) make a judgment about any individual politician on these factors. When I judge a politician to be (a) motivated mostly by aspirations to personal power and/or personal gain, and (b) taking actions based on an unarticulated, unsupported, or absent ideology, then I put that politican in the category of those with whom all debate is fruitless, and all we can do is to get them out of office before they hurt us too badly.

Back to my reader’s email (and my reply)… I told my reader that I considered politicians in the aforementioned category to be the second most consequential threat to the future of America (right after radical Islamic fundamentalism). For whatever reasons (there’s a lot of debate to be had on that point!), most — but certainly not all — of the politicians that fall into this dangerous category are self-identified liberal Democrats. So it’s easy to fall into the habit of using “liberal” as the cuss word to associate this enemy (and that is most definitely how I think of them). This is quite unfair, I freely admit, to those liberals who are not in this category (e.g., Lieberman, Miller, etc.) — and it unfairly excludes those non-liberals who are in this category (e.g., McCain, DeLay, etc.). I’d welcome any suggestions for a better, more descriptive label to apply to them.

But at least now you know what’s going through my mind you hear (or read) me say “liberal” with a sneer and some spittle…

Cheney's Coverup

My apologies to the Wall Street Journal, from whose pages I lifted this gem. With this piece of satire they have captured my feelings about the Cheney shooting incident perfectly. Somehow I suspect they will forgive my copyright transgression…

Cheney’s Coverup

The press corps is outraged that the White House waited 20 hours or so to disclose that Vice President Dick Cheney had shot a hunting companion, and we can see why. Don’t these Bush people understand that the coverup is worse than the crime?

In the name of media solidarity, and in the interest of restraining the Imperial Presidency, we have put together the following coverup timeline with crucial questions that deserve to be answered:

• 5:30 p.m., Saturday (all times Central Standard Time). Mr. Cheney sprays Harry Whittington with birdshot, and the Secret Service immediately informs local police. Who is Harry Whittington and whom does he lobby for? Does he know Scooter Libby?

• 6:30 p.m. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card informs President Bush that there’s been a hunting accident involving the Vice President’s party. Did Mr. Bush ask followup questions? Was he intellectually curious?

• 7 p.m. Karl Rove tells Mr. Bush that it is Mr. Cheney who did the shooting. Why was this detail withheld for a full 30 minutes from the President? Who else did Mr. Rove talk to about this in the interim? Was Valerie Plame ever mentioned?

• 5 a.m., Sunday. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan learns that Mr. Cheney is the shooter. He also fails to alert the media. Did he rush to write talking points or fall back to sleep?

• 11 a.m. Katharine Armstrong, owner of the ranch where the shooting took place, blows the story sky-high by giving the news to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. According to Ms. Armstrong, Mr. Cheney told her to do what she thought made sense. Has Ms. Armstrong ever worked for Halliburton?

• 11:27 a.m., Monday. Mr. McClellan finally holds a press conference and gets grilled. One reporter actually asks (and we’re not making this one up), “Would this be much more serious if the man had died?"

• 1:30 p.m. The Texas paper posts the story on its Web site, after calling the Veep’s office for confirmation. Everyone involved confirms more or less everything, or so the official line goes. Their agreement is very suspicious.

For the record, Mr. McClellan replied, “Of course it would.” We hope the 78-year-old Mr. Whittington recovers promptly after his heart attack yesterday. As for the Beltway press corps, it has once again earned the esteem in which it is held by the American public.

You just gotta love that closing line!