Only TWO Speakers Left - Don't Miss!!!!!!

4/11 - Dr. Pete Gathje of Emmanuel House and Memphis Theological Seminary where he is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics. His degrees are a B.A., St. John’s University; M.T.S., Candler School of Theology at Emory University; and a Ph.D., Emory University. He is the co-editor of Doing Right and Being Good: Catholic and Protestant Readings in Christian Ethics; and editor of A Work of Hospitality: An Open Door Reader, 1982-2001; and the author of Christ Comes in a Stranger's Guise: A History of the Open Door Community and Sharing the Bread of Life: Hospitality and Resistance at the Open Door Community. Dr. Gathje will speak about the causes of and solutions for homelessness and the homeless in Memphis and some creative ways that some are serving this population.

4/18 - Tom Jones of Smart City Consulting will speak with us about City/County Consolidation. Mr. Jones' knowledge of Memphis gives special depth to his analysis of public policy and public affairs work. Formerly employed as a newspaper reporter and as a senior adviser in local government, he understands the dynamics and complexity of the city in a way that distinguishes Smart City Consulting's work. He recently handled projects for City of Memphis and Shelby County Governments and also leads the firm's work with Hyde Family Foundations, Partners In Public Education, Memphis Tourism Foundation, Memphis Tomorrow, and various elected officials. He has performed a broad range of public policy development, particularly in the creation of breakthrough strategies that converge at the intersection of public policy, public relations, and public engagement. Tom also writes a monthly column, City Journal, for Memphis Magazine and the influential blog, Smart City Memphis, recognized by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change as one of the "most engaging blogs" of 2007.

CLASS TUESDAY 4/8

will be canceled - IF, and only IF, we WIN.

GO TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cotton Pickin' Racialicious!

Let's talk about this on Thursday!

Do we have a problem talking about race? WHO is allowed to speak about race? What is the difference between "forgiving" and "forgetting?" Should we (who's 'we'?) do either?

Think about fallacies as you listen to and read the linked blog post. If you're not familiar with the context, then see what else you can find out. Come prepared to argue (that is, if we can get over our problem of talking about race).

What does 'cotton pickin'' mean to you?

For Tuesday!

Read this article by Stacy Sullivan. She's getting sued for it!

A Path to Language

A PATH TO LANGUAGE
by Christine Keneally
from Powell's.com

At a cheap pine table in a dingy dining room, we drank cask wine and showed off. H. was smart-flighty. It was a bit late in the day to be that into Kate Bush, but she was pretty enough to pull it off. R. was a medical student who gave rather surprising shoulder rubs. It was one of our first nights in a Melbourne University student house and we were getting to know each other with enormous animation.

R. dazzled us with his newly acquired catalog of human illness. Then he started talking about aphasia, and a grey hand opened inside me. "What do you mean you 'don't have language'? You mean, you can't talk?" I asked. "No," he said. "It's not that you can't talk, you don't have language at all. It's gone." They continued to chat and flirt as if nothing had happened, and I sat back in my pine chair, shocked and depressed.

Are you still you if you don't have language? Are you even human? Having spent most of my life inside a book, I doubted it. The same year I met R., I took Linguistics 101. The department was newly helmed by two brilliant field linguists, and though I dragged myself through most university courses, linguistics assignments were adventures I looked forward to. Every student felt the same way. Each week, we were presented with a fragment of language — it was an alien transmission or a mysterious document with foreign words and clauses, and sometimes translations. We had to crack the meaning, characterize the structure, and guess at missing pieces.

Linguistics taught me that language is a lens into the human mind and into human history, that language lives inside your mind, but also that it inhabits your body. I learned how to read spectrograms, which for a non-science student was an indescribable thrill. I watched vowels create bursts of energy at different bands of pitch, and I saw how consonants are always utterly silent. For my final thesis, I took an hour-long train journey from Melbourne and met with two very proud, devout, and generous Christians. They invited me into their home and prayed in front of me (and for me). When they spoke in tongues, I taped it.

Glossolalia sounds like singing, but it behaves like jazz. Groups of syllables recur again and again, and as they do, they're riffed on. A single sound or a syllable is swapped or dropped; elements from different phrases contain and mirror one another; rhyme, assonance, and alliteration are threaded throughout. It's not as complicated as language, and its nature is to be highly organized. It made me realize that the point of having language is not just to tell stories but to create pure structure, in this case by compulsively shaping and reshaping air with the tongue and mouth. Where does this all come from? I asked a lecturer how language began. "No one knows," she said. "And no one asks the question because there's no way to answer it."

The study of language evolution was formally banned by the Linguistics Society of Paris over a hundred years earlier. The ban was never lifted, and over time it mutated into an uncomfortable taboo. Yet not long after I asked about it, a growing group of men and women began to defy the informal edict against language evolution and wrestle with its many mysteries. The young field of evolutionary linguistics was pretty confused, and a few years back, having begun to write a book about it, I was, too. The biggest problem, naturally, was language.

The writing process went this like this: I read books and journal articles. I attended conferences. I traveled to Oxford, Rome, Leipzig, Boston, Atlanta, Canberra, and I spoke to researchers. Then I'd write it up. For months, sometimes years, I would sail along using an important expression or phrase, building chapters and sections around a key word, until one day, it would deliver to me one of its lesser but inevitable meanings. Suddenly, my thesis was corrupted by a casual implication or a logical connection that should never have been there. I'd have to rip tracks from the book and start all over again.

It only occurred to me towards the end that using language to investigate and explain how language began was like, well, it wasn't like anything. It was a unique and recursive nightmare. I often had the sensation, while merely thinking about this, that my brain was physically straining.

Some of the smartest people around are trying to reconstruct the trajectory of language through time, and the field abounds with wondrous and confronting ideas. A handful of researchers think language is like a virus that infects the minds of humans. It's not a parasite, it's a symbiote — and this makes a deep, personal sense to me. Your brain shapes itself around language, and language also changes to suit you.

So how did it evolve? Language grew unsteadily, but it was strung upon a smooth, unbroken line.

The platforms of language were built over thousands of millennia and we share many of these with very different animals. What we would today recognize as language gathered itself for many tens of thousands of years. Its progress was not continuous — a miniscule step would be taken, then nothing would happen, then another step, maybe a lurch, then nothing again.

As meaning and mental structure clotted together, it did so in the morphing minds of species evolving from one into another. Along our lineage, cold-blooded creatures begat warm-blooded animals, mammals generated primates, and primates tossed us up. Yet all of this tumult and stasis and creeping change has raged around an oblivious line of mothers and their babies.

Piece by piece, through a process of genetic mutation and cultural legacy, they talked and gestured language into existence. No genetic change has ever been too great to break the chain, so when the babies became mothers themselves and had babies of their own, their babies also grew up and passed the legacy on. Eventually one of those mothers had me. Not long ago, I had a baby, too.

As I wrote this book, I watched as my toddler son learned English as a foreign language, or rather, learned language as a foreign language. I knew what language evolution was supposed to look like from the outside, but what does it feel like? At least in this case, as my two-year-old said when I asked what he was doing with a stray toy in a café, "I am making pleasure."

Audio of Josh Prager's Book - The Echoing Green

Click HERE to listen to an excerpt from Joshua Prager's book.

And Excerpt from Stacy Sullivan's Book

AN ARMY MADE OF SCRATCH an excerpt from Be Not Afraid for You Have Sons In America by Stacy Sullivan

It was not the most efficient way to build an army — hand delivering walkie-talkies, flying halfway around the world with a few thousand dollars in cash to buy some AK-47s, while at the same time running a roofing business and battling Bajram Curri’s thugs — but somehow it worked. With Florin’s efforts, and those of the Homeland Calling Fund’s European fund-raisers, the Kosovo Liberation Army continued to function. In spite of the increased Serb border patrols, a communication network bought at Radio Shack, and a limited arms supply interrupted by fellow Albanians in both official and unofficial capacities, the weapons smuggling convoys continued to penetrate into Kosovo. Night after night, the KLA grew bigger as Albanians across Kosovo took up arms and declared themselves loyal to the rebel force.

Before long, uniformed KLA soldiers were visible in the outskirts of most towns and across the province, building bunkers and setting up roadblocks. They didn’t look very elegant. The men were dressed in a mishmash of camouflage that reflected the countries that had significant Albanian communities. Their guns were mostly AK-47s and hunting rifles. Their bunkers were made out of tree branches, rocks, tablecloths and whatever else they could find rummaging through their houses. They made roadblocks out of old tractors, trucks, farm tools, tires, bales of hay and bulldozers. But they were the most welcome presence on the ground that Kosovo Albanians had ever seen.

Suddenly what had always seemed impossible now seemed possible. The Albanians outnumbered the Serbs nine to one and virtually every one them was supporting the KLA. Their fear of the police seemed to diminish by the day. The guerrillas seemed to grow bolder and bolder in challenging the police. Soon, they were moving to within a few hundred yards of sandbagged police checkpoints and firing regularly on police convoys. They dug trenches on ridge tops and manned them with machine guns overlooking Serb positions. In one village, they even sent a note to the police station daring the officers to come and get them. By the end of April, the attacks and counterattacks had grown so frequent that the rap-rap-rap of automatic weapons was constant in the countryside. Kosovo was at war.

---

As the KLA and the Serb police and military faced off against one another, the international press corps descended on Kosovo to cover the conflict. At first view, the vagabond KLA, with its motley uniforms, silly roadblocks, pathetic hunting rifles and sheer determination, seemed to be engaged in a heroic struggle. Against all odds, it had risen up from nowhere to battle a far better-armed force.
The KLA did its dirty work at night, in small groups, out of view of the media. For many weeks, the guerrillas picked off a policeman here and there. Soon however, the emboldened guerrillas started intimidating and threatening local Serbs. Rumors also spread that they were kidnapping Serbs and holding them prisoner. But the press didn’t see any of this.

The Serb troops, by contrast, did their dirty work in plain view. With their faces painted black, police and military convoys began driving through Albanian villages with their assault weapons pointed out of their windows, spreading terror among the population. When they went in to attack a village, they set up checkpoints to keep the press out, but inevitably, when they were finished with their operation they left behind traces of their crimes. Once it was the mutilated corpses of two Albanian cattle herders in the Bistrica River. Another time it was the headless corpse of an old man who was probably too weak to flee with the rest of his family. Such horrors ensured that the KLA stayed well ahead on the public relations front.

As the rebels staged their nighttime guerrilla raids and Serb forces retaliated by attacking the villages that harbored them, the death toll slowly crept up, and each death was commemorated with much ceremony. Thousands upon thousands of Albanians attended the funeral of each slain civilian and fighter, and inevitably the funerals turned into KLA rallies. After each one, the Albanians left with more resolve to fight. The populace seemed undeterred by death. Each Albanian who died became a martyr for Kosovo, and scores of willing new fighters were born. Families talked about the need to sacrifice their sons to the cause. They knew that the Serbs had overwhelming military power, but over and over they repeated that they were on the side of right and had more motivated fighters. They might have to fight a war of attrition, but they had tens of thousands of willing fighters at home and in the diaspora, and eventually they would triumph.

For the Serbs, it was different. Thousands of them turned out to commemorate the death of their slain policemen as well, but while those gatherings no doubt cemented the Serbs’ bitterness and hatred of the Albanians, they did not breed a resolve to fight. Most of the army and police fighting in Kosovo were not from there; they had been sent there to fight from elsewhere in Serbia and they resented it. They felt for the two hundred thousand Serbs who lived in Kosovo, but that didn’t mean they were willing to risk their lives for them. When Serb troops moved in and attacked a village, they did not dare try to hold it, because that made them too vulnerable to Albanian attacks. Spooked by how quickly the KLA grew, they were increasingly confining themselves to the cities or hiding behind sandbagged bunkers on the province’s main roads.

Soon, counterinsurgency experts were saying that Milosevic had vastly miscalculated in Kosovo. In order for the Serbs to squash the guerrilla movement, they would need to outnumber the KLA by a ratio of ten to one. The Serbs had nowhere near those numbers and they probably never would. Even if Milosevic increased the number of troops in the province, the rebels could still call on tens of thousands of potential fighters living in the diaspora. Indeed, many were already coming. On any given day the rusted hulk of a ferry from Koman was packed full of Kosovo Albanians returning to their homeland from abroad, many of whom spoke better German or French than they did Albanian.

Although the Albanian government continued to insist that it was doing everything it could to crack down on the gunrunning, many government and army officials began aiding the KLA. They began providing them army vehicles and armed escorts to move their weapons north. They also opened up several military facilities to the KLA and allowed several Albanian army officers to provide training and assistance.

At long last, all of the ingredients for a successful guerrilla insurgency were now in place. The KLA had overwhelming popular support; a steady supply of money, arms and fighters; and a safe haven across the border in Albania, where the guerrillas could receive training.

LAST CHANCE: RCWS

RIVER CITY WRITERS SERIES CONCLUDES ITS SPRING LINEUP WITH:

Christine Kenneally, Joshua Prager and Stacy Sullivan. These three are journalists and authors of nonfiction books.

Christine Kenneally is a freelance journalist and author who has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Discover, Slate and Salon, as well as other publications. Her book, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, was published by Viking in 2007. The paperback is due in May 2008. Before freelancing, she received a Ph.D. in linguistics from Cambridge University and a B.A. (Hons) in English and Linguistics from Melbourne University. She was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and she now lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Joshua Prager grew up in New Jersey and studied music theory at Columbia College. He is a senior special writer at the Wall Street Journal and lives in New York City. The New York Times Book Review had this to say about Prager's book The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World (Vintage, 2008):

The title of Joshua Prager's winning new book comes from Blake, its theme of suspicion and guilt from Hawthorne, its method from Woodward and Bernstein. A baseball whodunit on an epic scale, it offers a heretofore secret view of the game's most memorable moment, a view that challenges verities about fair play, right conduct and lasting fame.... 'The Echoing Green' is a revelation and a page turner, a group character study unequaled in baseball writing since Roger Kahn's 'Boys of Summer' some three decades ago.


Stacy Sullivan is the author of Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America: How a Brooklyn Roofer Helped Lure the US into the Kosovo War, which tells the story of how a Kosovar émigré spearheaded a multi-millions dollar fundraising effort from his Brooklyn roofing company and launched a guerrilla army in the Balkans. She covered the war in Bosnia for Newsweek magazine, and her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, New York Magazine, Men’s Journal as well as the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. She is now an advisor on counter-terrorism for Human Rights Watch, the largest US-based human rights organization.

Reception and Reading: March 27 @ 6 PM and 7 PM, respectively, Galloway Mansion, 1822 Overton Park Avenue (Click HERE for directions from The UofM)
Interview: March 28 @ 10:30 AM, 456 Patterson

Floyd Skloot - River City Writers Series Tonight!

Floyd Skloot, father of UofM faculty member Rebecca Skloot, will read from his work and speak as part of the River City Writers Series this evening at The Jay Etkin Gallery. The reading will be a wonderful event — a mix of poetry, nonfiction and fiction, with discussions of how the three genres overlap and relate in his work, and what it’s like to be a family of writers who often write about each other.

Floyd Skloot is a nonfiction writer, poet and novelist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Poetry, American Scholar, Georgia Review, Sewanee Review and many others. He contributes book reviews regularly to the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, New York Times Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle and others. He has written 15 books, including the memoirs "In the Shadow of Memory" and "A World of Light"; the poetry collections "The Evening Light," "Approximately Paradise" and "The End of Dreams," and most recently the novel "Patient 002." His awards include the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction; the Independent Publishers Book Award in Creative Nonfiction; Oregon Book Awards in both Creative Nonfiction and Poetry; two Pushcart Prizes, and others. He's twice appeared in "The Best American Essays" and "The Best American Science Writing," and once in "The Best Spiritual Writing," "The Best Food Writing" and "The Art of the Essay." He has three books forthcoming in 2008 -- "Selected Poems: 1970-2005" from Tupelo Press, "The Snow's Music" from Louisiana State University Press and "The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life" from University of Nebraska Press. In May, 2006 he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Franklin and Marshall College, his alma mater. For more information: www.floydskloot.com

Reception and Reading: March 17 @ 6 PM and 7 PM, respectively, Jay Etkin Gallery, 409 South Main Street. Click HERE for directions from UofM.
(Complimentary snacks and beverages)

Think Globally - ACT Locally Speaker Series

The 1020 Project is producing a speaker series which will focus on the topic "Think Globally, Act Locally." To this end we will bring in local activists and educators to speak about issues that we normally think of only in a global context, but that have impact and import in our local community. Please join us for this exciting opportunity to engage with these civic leaders to learn about how we can change the world, by changing our community.

Our first speaker will be Andrew Couch of the MidSouth Clean Water Coalition. He will discuss the value of renewable energy and the effectiveness of energy efficiency by taking the class through the history of modern energy consumption through today.

Do you support the arts on YouTube?

On Paragraphing

On Paragraphs

What is a paragraph?

A paragraph is a collection of related sentences dealing with a single topic. Learning to write good paragraphs will help you as a writer stay on track during your drafting and revision stages. Good paragraphing also greatly assists your readers in following a piece of writing. You can have fantastic ideas, but if those ideas aren't presented in an organized fashion, you will lose your readers (and fail to achieve your goals in writing).

The Basic Rule: Keep One Idea to One Paragraph

The basic rule of thumb with paragraphing is to keep one idea to one paragraph. If you begin to transition into a new idea, it belongs in a new paragraph. There are some simple ways to tell if you are on the same topic or a new one. You can have one idea and several bits of supporting evidence within a single paragraph. You can also have several points in a single paragraph as long as they relate to the overall topic of the paragraph. If the single points start to get long, then perhaps elaborating on each of them and placing them in their own paragraphs is the route to go.

Elements of a Paragraph

To be as effective as possible, a paragraph should contain each of the following: Unity, Coherence, A Topic Sentence, and Adequate Development. As you will see, all of these traits overlap. Using and adapting them to your individual purposes will help you construct effective paragraphs.

Unity

The entire paragraph should concern itself with a single focus. If it begins with a one focus or major point of discussion, it should not end with another or wander within different ideas.

Coherence

Coherence is the trait that makes the paragraph easily understandable to a reader. You can help create coherence in your paragraphs by creating logical bridges and verbal bridges.

Logical bridges

• The same idea of a topic is carried over from sentence to sentence
• Successive sentences can be constructed in parallel form

Verbal bridges

• Key words can be repeated in several sentences
• Synonymous words can be repeated in several sentences
• Pronouns can refer to nouns in previous sentences
• Transition words can be used to link ideas from different sentences

A topic sentence

A topic sentence is a sentence that indicates in a general way what idea or thesis the paragraph is going to deal with. Although not all paragraphs have clear-cut topic sentences, and despite the fact that topic sentences can occur anywhere in the paragraph (as the first sentence, the last sentence, or somewhere in the middle), an easy way to make sure your reader understands the topic of the paragraph is to put your topic sentence near the beginning of the paragraph. (This is a good general rule for less experienced writers, although it is not the only way to do it). Regardless of whether you include an explicit topic sentence or not, you should be able to easily summarize what the paragraph is about.

Adequate development

The topic (which is introduced by the topic sentence) should be discussed fully and adequately. Again, this varies from paragraph to paragraph, depending on the author's purpose, but writers should beware of paragraphs that only have two or three sentences. It's a pretty good bet that the paragraph is not fully developed if it is that short.

Some methods to make sure your paragraph is well-developed:

• Use examples and illustrations
• Cite data (facts, statistics, evidence, details, and others)
• Examine testimony (what other people say such as quotes and paraphrases)
• Use an anecdote or story
• Define terms in the paragraph
• Compare and contrast
• Evaluate causes and reasons
• Examine effects and consequences
• Analyze the topic
• Describe the topic
• Offer a chronology of an event (time segments)

How do I know when to start a new paragraph?

You should start a new paragraph when:

• When you begin a new idea or point. New ideas should always start in new paragraphs. If you have an extended idea that spans multiple paragraphs, each new point within that idea should have its own paragraph.
• To contrast information or ideas. Separate paragraphs can serve to contrast sides in a debate, different points in an argument, or any other difference.
• When your readers need a pause. Breaks in paragraphs function as a short "break" for your readers—adding these in will help your writing more readable. You would create a break if the paragraph becomes too long or the material is complex.
• When you are ending your introduction or starting your conclusion. Your introductory and concluding material should always be in a new paragraph. Many introductions and conclusions have multiple paragraphs depending on their content, length, and the writer's purpose.

Transitions and Signposts

Two very important elements of paragraphing are signposts and transitions. Signposts are internal aids to assist readers; they usually consist of several sentences or a paragraph outlining what the article has covered and where the article will be going.

Transitions are usually one or several sentences that "transition" from one idea to the next. Transitions can be used at the end of most paragraphs to help the paragraphs flow one into the next.

This information is from HERE.

Writing Prompt

Write a short scene in which one character reduces another to uncontrollable sobs without touching him or speaking.

Writing Prompt

Robert Frost said, "We come to college to get over our littlemindedness." Discuss in relation to your own experiences.

So, How 'Bout An Article From Glamour? - Comment On This

Your race, your looks

Real women on why biased beauty standards are still around—and how you can work to change them in your everyday life.

Share your thoughts on this story here.

“Almost every black woman has had a ‘hair moment,’” said Farai Chideya, who went on to share hers with a roomful of women at Glamour’s Women, Race and Beauty panel last November. It was when a higher-up once commented that her braids made her look unprofessional. Judging from the heads nodding, most of the women in the diverse audience had heard something similar—or worse—about their looks. And it hurt.

The roundtable, which featured brilliant women of every ethnicity, was a high point in Glamour’s year, but it was triggered by a low point. Last summer, a former staffer made an unauthorized presentation to a group of female attorneys in which she commented that, in her view, Afros were “a Don’t” for work. Glamour management found out about her remark two months later and was floored. (Click here for our response.) We shared the outrage of hundreds of you who wrote in to voice disagreement. The idea that a woman cannot be herself and still get ahead at work runs contrary to Glamour’s message of empowerment.

Your letters made one thing clear: Many women of color still feel judged according to racially biased beauty norms in their careers and sometimes even in personal relationships. It’s not just about hair and it’s not just about African American women, as you’ll see from the variety of testimonials on these pages. At a time when women of all shapes, sizes, colors and manner of hairstyles are increasingly seen in magazines and on TV and movie screens—and when Toni Morrison, the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, proudly wears her dreads—multicultural beauty acceptance hasn’t pervaded our lives as much as we’d like to think. Those same dreads could cost you a promotion in some offices, noted some letter writers; one reader said reactions to her natural hair at work “made it seem like I’d entered a meeting in jeans and a T-shirt.” But going with straightened hair isn’t simple either, said panelist Lisa Price, founder of Carol’s Daughter beauty products: An African American woman who wants to experiment with extensions may be seen as a sellout. Fear of saying the wrong thing stops most people from making the next crucial step—talking openly about these beauty standards. So Glamour brought together a group of journalists, academics and businesswomen to take that step. Listen in on their discussion:

FARAI CHIDEYA Host, News & Notes, NPR: When I was a young reporter, I was told that my braids made me look unprofessional, so I took them out. Have any of you been faced with this kind of situation?

JAMI FLOYD Anchor, Jami Floyd: Best Defense, In Session: I grew up in New York City, which you would think is a diverse place, but I was called all kinds of names related to race, like Brillo-head. My mother’s white, and she didn’t know how to do my hair, so I had something that I always call white-mama hair—believe me, it was something you had to overcome! But my parents pressed upon me that “In this world, you are a black woman,” so I was political about my hair and would not straighten it. Then there came a point when I wanted to do television, and I didn’t think the Afro was going to play, so I made a very difficult choice—to straighten my hair.

DAISY HERNANDEZ Managing editor, ColorLines magazine: When I worked in a corporate office, I “self-regulated”: I knew what the unspoken rules were, so I wore my hair back because I wanted to thrive. But Jami, can you [wear your hair natural] now? Do you get to a certain level of success when you can bust out?

FLOYD: Oprah busts out occasionally, but she’s Oprah. I certainly could try it if I were willing to not advance further. I think television is one of the last real bastions of the white beauty standard, but still in many industries the workers can be replaced by someone who’s willing to play the game or who looks like the person in charge. And this is a problem for all women, not just women of color. The way we present ourselves, the choices we have to make every day that men don’t have to think about. Why? Because they are the CEOs in most cases, they are the network executives, the partners in law firms. It’s about who’s in charge.

VANESSA BUSH Executive editor, Essence: But Jami, at what point do you say, “Why should I?” When I was working at mainstream companies and decided to wear my hair natural, I knew there were probably going to be people who would say things that I thought were inappropriate, but I was willing to take the hit. I can’t control how people perceive me, but I certainly am not going to change my beauty standards to suit someone else’s narrow viewpoint.

FLOYD: Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. I’ve got two kids who are in school, and you get to a point where you have practical decisions to make. I have a message I want to get out there, so I’m going to make this particular compromise and be very careful not to lose a sense of who I am.

VENUS OPAL REESE Assistant professor of aesthetic studies, the University of Texas at Dallas: What I’m hearing from Jami is something that I heard Denzel Washington say: Sometimes you have to do what you got to do so you can do what you want to do. So sometimes making progress is about timing. Right now, Jami, in your industry you’re paying a cost so you can do what you want.

MALLY RONCAL Celebrity makeup artist and creator of Mally Beauty makeup: Yes, sometimes you have to adapt a little because you’ve got to pay the bills. But not to the point where you change your natural beauty just to fit in. I work with celebrity clients at video shoots and on album covers, and I’ve had execs say, “Can we just soften the ethnicity a little bit?” They don’t know that they’re dealing with the wrong girl. I say, “Hell no!”

CHIDEYA: I’m thinking about that India.Arie song “I Am Not My Hair.” But sometimes you really are.

FLOYD: Even now, often hair is the way we are differentiated in this culture. To me the decision to straighten your hair is deeply political. When I have my Afro and walk down the street, there’s no doubt that I’m black. With this [straightened] hair, if I talk about being black on air, viewers write and say, “You’re black?!” I feel [straightening your hair] is giving up a sense of your identity. Let’s be honest: It’s an effort to look Anglo-Saxon.

BUSH: Actually, for a lot of African American women, hair is like an accessory; it’s like changing shoes. At Essence we celebrate all types of women—women with straight hair and natural hair, those who have a little meat on their bones and those who are a size 2—because often we don’t get validation outside of our own space. I mean, it was just this year [that Don Imus said] we’re nappy-headed hos and on and on. What does that have to do with who your authentic self is?

FLOYD: I agree that for black women our sense of ourselves is not always consistent with the way other people see us. Yes, today my daughter is more likely to see someone who looks like her in magazines and that’s great. But we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking those changes have occurred in every industry. They haven’t happened in television news, in entertainment or in law firms; although in law now you can push the envelope a little bit. With each generation, that envelope gets pushed, but we haven’t yet gotten to a place, in corporate America at least, where [how you wear your hair] can be simply a style choice.

REESE: I’d like us to consider how we see things. When it comes to race, we’re looking from the past. When people see me with my natural hair, they don’t see Dr. Venus Opal Reese who has four degrees, they see an historical idea of what natural hair means. And that’s what it meant in the 1970s and 1960s; it equaled black nationalism and was linked to the Black Panther Party. It was considered militant. That doesn’t mean it’s true now, but that’s how it’s linked.

BARBARA TREPAGNIER Professor of sociology, Texas State University at San Marcos: That’s something I think most of the women in my study [for her book Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide] wouldn’t know. How could they? It’s not talked about; we’re scared to death of racial controversy. In my study I found that whether you are racist is about how aware you are of the concerns that people of other races have. So we need to stop wondering, “Am I racist? Oh, God, no, I couldn’t be!” and ask how aware we are.

CHIDEYA: And African Americans have to admit, pressure to look a certain way comes from our community, too. I was at a black journalists convention and I had my hair blown out. People looked at me like I was a sellout.

LISA PRICE Founder, Carol’s Daughter beauty products: I can relate! When I straightened my hair, people would say, “Why did you get rid of your curls?” They assume that since you’re successful, you straighten your hair to look like everyone else. I don’t do it anymore; it’s too much to explain. Among African American women there’s always discussion on whether straightening or weaving means you’re trying to be white. The beauty of our hair is that we can have a sharp cut one year and ‘locks the next. Embrace that and have fun.

RONCAL: But you have to be comfortable with yourself before it can be about having fun. With my makeup line I work with everyday women, and obviously I give them tricks to enhance their own beauty. But I get a lot of Asian girls saying, “My eyes are too slanty. How do I make them look rounder?” And African American women asking, “How can I make my nose or lips look smaller?” I tell them, “We all deserve to feel as beautiful as we are. But I don’t want to hear you say, ‘I want to look more like a white girl.’”

CHIDEYA: Let’s take questions from the audience.

AUDIENCE MEMBER VERONICA CHAMBERS, novelist and journalist: We need to address that this is also about how we treat each other, and how we teach other people to treat us. Sometimes in my interactions with other black people I don’t feel beautiful at all. I have dreads. I once went out on a few dates with a black man who one night at dinner said, “Do you have a picture of yourself with straight hair?” When I asked why he wanted to know, he replied, “This is really going well. I’d like to know what my options are.” That never happened to me on a date with a white guy and not with the white person I married, who makes me feel very beautiful all the time.

CHIDEYA: So, panelists, how do you deal with the negativity when it comes from inside your own community?

REESE: Most of the more than 200 women I interviewed for my play Split Ends [about the history of black women’s hair] said that most of the hurt they received was from other black people. We have a history of not being valued that we still impose on each other. I don’t want to sound cavalier, but nobody’s got a whip over our backs. Why are we waiting for someone outside of us to dictate when it’s OK to be who we are?

RONCAL: I’ve found that it pays to be who I am. For example, I love lashes and heels and big hair, so when I got my first big job, I showed up with my “thing” going on. At the end of the shoot the hairdresser said, “This thing you’re doing”—and he gives me the full-body hand scan—“nobody’s ever going to take you seriously as an artist.” I went home and cried. For my next job, I wore a ponytail and no makeup, but I didn’t feel like me. So the next day I went extra big with my hair! We had so much fun the photographer asked me to work with him on his first big gig. So you’ve got to feel like you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lisa, is having more women of color in the beauty business who will use more diverse images how we get to the next level of understanding?

PRICE: Yes, we have to set the tone. But there’s more impact when Olay hires Angela Bassett and runs those commercials not just during the BET Awards. We also need to use situations to educate. In 2006 Brad Pitt said in Esquire that he got Carol’s Daughter products for Zahara, because it made it so much easier for white people to deal with black-person hair. A lot of African Americans were offended because he said “black-person” hair, but I wasn’t. First, the business side of me was like, “Brad Pitt gave us a shout-out!” But also, I’d received letters from customers in the same situation who didn’t know what to do. We have to get to the point where we can have an open dialogue—never mind the “right” choice of words. Share the difference between a two-strand twist and a braid, or a press-and-curl and a wrap style. There are so many different ways that we wear our hair that other people don’t understand.

TREPAGNIER: It’s also important for white women to have close friendships with women of color. Those that do better understand race and racism, because they get their friends’ concerns. Close friends share those things.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Celebrities of color, like Beyoncé, usually have long [straight] hair, and girls focus on that. How can we support teenagers who are not confident because they idolize stars that don’t look like them?

FLOYD: I’ve done lots of pieces on self-esteem and hair. There’s a desire at that age to conform, but if the encouragement to be yourself is there from loved ones, you’ll find that later, that true self will come out.

HERNANDEZ: [Insecurity and rebellion] is a stage that all teenagers go through. When I was a teenager, I had blue contact lenses, I dyed my hair blond, but I also had people guiding me. Think of yourself as a model for girls. Your self-confidence says something to them. Even this discussion says to young women that they have choices. We all have to remember our own importance in one another’s eyes.

Writing Prompt . . . per your request

“The failure of public schools is not ruining society. The failure of society has ruined the public schools.”


Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007 by The IUP Writing Center.

And Another Reading

Mike Petrik wants to be the kind of person who tips his hat
to dogs as he drives by, and the dogs look up and smile at
him. His spirit animal is the Osprey. He figures that about says it all.

Corey Clairday is from the second most boringly named town in Arkansas: Jonesboro. In those rare moments when he's not diligently cranking out stories he can usually be found either playing Street Fighter II on his Super Nintendo or watching Star Trek religiously. Incidentally he hopes to one day become the next Buddha. On a more serious note, his favorite type of beer is Root Beer. And the most boringly named town is Smithville.

Another Reading!

Reading at Rhodes College
The Departments of Psychology and English
&
The Women’s Studies Program
present
Laura Flynn

Reading from her memoir, Swallow the Ocean
Thursday February 21, 7:00 pm
Tuthill Performance Hall
Hassell Hall - Rhodes College

Laura Flynn was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She is the author of Swallow the Ocean (Counterpoint Press)––a memoir of growing up in the face of her mother’s catastrophic mental illness.

She received her BA from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, where she served as the inaugural fellow in the Scribe for Human Rights Project, jointly sponsored by the Human Rights and the Creative Writing Programs at the University of Minnesota. She has been an activist and human rights advocate all her adult life. She lived in Haiti from 1994-2000 and remains deeply involved in the struggle for democracy and human dignity in that country. She is the editor of Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Common Courage Press, 2000.

She currently teaches editing at the University of Minnesota, and lives in Minneapolis with her husband, poet Mike Rollin.

Read the article below for Thursday

Go here: www.rbs0.com/propaganda.pdf

Once again Smart City is, well, smart.

From their 2/11/08 post:

Welcome to Memphis: the motto for Bass Pro Shops says it all

"Welcome Hunters, Fishermen, and Other Liars."

Rebecca Skloot

Please join Rebecca Skloot on February 18th when she will help kick off the Pink Palace's special Genetics Lecture Series and DNA exhibit with a talk and reading from her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is forthcoming from Crown/Random House. Skloot is an award winning freelance writer who contributes regularly to the New York Times Magazine, and others. She teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Memphis, where she directs the River City Writers Series. For more information about her book, visit www.rebeccaskloot.com and click on the "upcoming book" page.

What: “HeLa: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: How One Woman's Cells Changed Medicine and Launched the Field of Molecular Genetics”
When: February 18, 2008. Please join Rebecca for a reception at 6:30pm, followed by talk and reading at 7pm
Where: The Pink Palace, 3050 Central Avenue, Memphis.

For more information: wwww.memphismuseums.org and www.rebeccaskloot.com

Propaganda

It may seem strange to suggest that the study of propaganda has relevance to contemporary politics. After all, when most people think about propaganda, they think of the enormous campaigns that were waged by Hitler and Stalin in the 1930s. Since nothing comparable is being disseminated in our society today, many believe that propaganda is no longer an issue.

But propaganda can be as blatant as a swastika or as subtle as a joke. Its persuasive techniques are regularly applied by politicians, advertisers, journalists, radio personalities, and others who are interested in influencing human behavior. Propagandistic messages can be used to accomplish positive social ends, as in campaigns to reduce drunk driving, but they are also used to win elections and to sell malt liquor.

As Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson point out, "every day we are bombarded with one persuasive communication after another. These appeals persuade not through the give-and-take of argument and debate, but through the manipulation of symbols and of our most basic human emotions. For better or worse, ours is an age of propaganda." (Pratkanis and Aronson, 1991)

With the growth of communication tools like the Internet, the flow of persuasive messages has been dramatically accelerated. For the first time ever, citizens around the world are participating in uncensored conversations about their collective future. This is a wonderful development, but there is a cost.

The information revolution has led to information overload, and people are confronted with hundreds of messages each day. Although few studies have looked at this topic, it seems fair to suggest that many people respond to this pressure by processing messages more quickly and, when possible, by taking mental short-cuts.

Propagandists love short-cuts -- particularly those which short-circuit rational thought. They encourage this by agitating emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity of language, and by bending the rules of logic. As history shows, they can be quite successful.

Propaganda analysis exposes the tricks that propagandists use and suggests ways of resisting the short-cuts that they promote. This web-site discusses various propaganda techniques, provides contemporary examples of their use, and proposes strategies of mental self-defense.

Propaganda analysis is an antidote to the excesses of the Information Age.

Photo Essay on Homelesness. . .

Check this out~

Too Much Work?

Dear sweet ladies and gentlemen,

I'm reading and hearing that you guys are suffering. Suffering under this undue burden that I've placed on your shoulders. Tell me more.

Here's the deal: this ain't easy, this college thing. AND, it's worth something. It's got to be worth something, which means it costs something. What we're learning here together is how to make meaning, how to develop our thoughts, our ideas, into something meaningful. Don't take this lightly. So, if you're willing to do the work, let me tell you, it will be worth it. And you'll feel good about yourselves.

Now, get back to work.

Graduate Reading Series

The University of Memphis Kicks Off Its Spring Graduate Reading Series with Dianne Malone and Torie Sanford-Finch THIS Thursday at Otherlands Coffee Bar at 6:30 (sharp!).

DiAnne Malone wants hair just like Star Wars' Princess Leia. She truly believes that the secret to writing good creative nonfiction is wrapped up in those spirals and braids somewhere. Otherwise, she spends Friday nights watching 4400 reruns and VeggieTale videos with her family of boys: Myals 7, Quincy 3, and Big Poppa, Isaac 37.


Torie Sanford-Finch is a native Memphian. As an undergrad she chose computer engineering, despite years of study and involvement in performing arts. Five majors later, she found happiness as a photography student. The habit of turning projects into journalistic pieces led her to make a final change. She earned her BA in English from the University of Memphis. Torie is a photographer and currently working on a short story collection despite living with three guys and a dog. (Larry, 30; Khalil, 12; Truth, 6 and Happy 1).

Writing Prompt

“Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.”

~George Santayana

It’s not uncommon, in our society, to (at least occasionally) quit listening to opposing viewpoints - no matter who’s view it is - in defense of our own views. What seems to be quite uncommon (at times) is to take a moment to attempt understanding of the other viewpoint, before we stop listening or start defending. In your blog, consider today’s quote. Do you find yourself contradicting others (whether they are older or younger than you) prior to endeavoring to understand the viewpoint? Do you think this is a defensive move on your part or what do you suppose causes this reaction in your own life?

In matters of politics & religion, this contradiction prior to the endeavor to understand seem to be quite rampant. We tend to shut down when the other viewpoint is espoused, instead of really listening and endeavoring to understand before espousing our own views. With this being a political “season," I would like you to think about a recent political event, speech, debate, etc, where you had an opposing view to the candidate - and, instead of endeavoring to understand his or her position, you “tuned out”. In your blog, write about it. Was this a “classic” issue or is it something that stems from more recent world events? What is your viewpoint? What was the candidates? Is his or her viewpoint one that, in light of today’s quote, you should have explored further to endeavor to understand his or her views?

My Daily Journal Writing Prompts is © 2005-2007 Dee Phipps.
All Rights Reserved.

Water Issues In the News!

Memphis water: pulling the plug

By Staff Reports

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Considering how much Memphis and DeSoto County depend on each other, Mississippi's lawsuit accusing Memphis of stealing its water seems counterproductive.

Without Memphis, some of Mississippi's fastest growing neighborhoods would still be rural, undeveloped and unpopulated.

Memphis provides the critical mass of consumers and capital that creates jobs throughout the area. It has the cultural amenities that anyone who dwells in a metropolis expects to enjoy.

DeSoto County gives Memphians an option, among others, for a nice place to build a new home, start a new business or find a school they like for the kids.

That's not to say there isn't a legal basis for the three-year-old lawsuit, which is reaching the trial stage next week in federal court in Oxford. It could, in fact, break new ground in the field of water litigation. There seems little doubt that wells operated by Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division have caused ground water to be pulled northward across the state line.

If Mississippi can produce evidence of harm, the state might have a case. Memphis could end up shelling out a billion dollars in damages and switching to the Mississippi River for its water source, which could entail treatment costs of $20 million annually.

No matter how the lawsuit comes out, though, it should create more awareness of the fact that water is a finite resource, even in Memphis, where it has been taken for granted for so long.

When it comes to water, this is one lucky city. As The Commercial Appeal's Tom Charlier pointed out in Sunday's editions, the city has been tapping the pure, plentiful supplies of the Memphis Sand since 1887.

The aquifer is not immune from pollution, but for generations it has given Memphians some of the best-tasting, cheapest water in the nation. It is responsible for much of the city's growth and prosperity.

While water issues are getting more and more difficult -- and litigious -- elsewhere in the Southeast, the Bluff City has been skating through the current drought with relatively little worry.

To assume the permanence of a plentiful and cheap water supply in Memphis, no matter what happens in federal court in Oxford, however, would be shortsighted and irresponsible.

Memphians, like everyone else, should become aware of how landscaping and irrigation can be adapted to a shrinking and more costly water supply.

They should invest in technological advances in their homes and businesses to reduce water consumption and be aware of how their consumption habits can affect the region in the future.

And once the dust has cleared, some thought should be given to how communities that depend on each other for so much can share their water.

Perhaps they could even get together on a plan to eliminate pollution from runoff that ends up in the streams, rivers and lakes throughout the area, even the Memphis Sand itself.

It would surely be less costly and more productive than going to court over who owns the water.

Percival Everett's Coming To Town - remember you're required to go to at least 2 of these events . . .

Percival Everett is the author of 20 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children's story that spoofs counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old. The Washington Post called Everett one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists, and The Boston Globe says, he's literature's NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next. Everett's writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award and the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also received the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, and the New American Writing Award. He has served as a judge for, among others, the National Book Awards and PEN/Faulkner Awards and is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, where he teaches creative writing, American studies and critical theory.

Reception and reading: February 4 at 6pm (followed by book signing), Fogelman Executive Center, University of Memphis, 330 Innovation Drive
Author Interview: 10:30 AM, Feb 5, University of Memphis, Patterson Hall, Room 456

And by poetry, I mean words, all words . . .

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

~ John Keating in Dead Poet's Society

What will YOUR verse be?

Tuesday Recap - Part Deux

. . . and don't forget to start reading the Memphis Blogs too. Posting comments on those sites will also count toward your "comment" requirement! And it will most definitely be a great starting point for entering into the Big Conversation with people who are already thinking and writing about things we'll be thinking and writing about in this class.