Bit o' Nifty

Whiteboard

2008-12-19T13:13:20Z

That clawing noise is Kitty going at the den door. Inside the den is Emily, no doubt anxiously pacing. They want to kill each other, and whenever we forget that basic fact of life, we risk injury. Lie on a bean bag between them and soon you'll be the site of a vicious cat fight. Both my daughter and I have long scratches. If we didn't wear glasses -- but I shudder and push the thought aside.

The hole in the wall is still there. Usually a small whiteboard leans against the wall, covering the hole so I don't have to look at it, but today it's staring back at me. As abysses go, it's not much, but how large does an abyss have to be? At the hardware store you can buy meshing to cover a hole in drywall, but then you'd have to paint it, and the new lavender paint would stand out from the faded lavender of the wall, and you'd have to repaint that wall. And then that wall wouldn't match the other lavender walls in the dining room, so you'd have to repaint them. And then the rest of the house, last painted several years ago, would look shabby in comparison and you'd have a major project on your hands. And, after repainting the whole house, you wouldn't want to hang the same damn art, so you'd have to befriend starving artists, and we know where that leads. And then there's furniture. No. Better to keep the hole. I'm used to it. Someday I may stuff a cat into it. That'll be the extent of my titivating.

Steal Away

2008-11-23T17:20:18Z

A bit late, but here it is, a picture of Zoe in her Halloween costume. This time she's a rogue, or as she prefers, a thief. She's 10 now, in middle school; last week she went to her first dance. The time steals aways -- a cliche, of course, but nonetheless true.

Her policy is to never "double," her terminology for trick-or-treating as a character or creature she's trick-or-treated as before. (She'd have no truck with Gertrude Stein, that's certain.) How different she is than I was in my trick-or-treating days. I never had such concerns. I got a mask and a pillowcase, often acquired minutes before I dashed out the door. Some years I got two masks, just in case I hit a house giving out particularly fine loot.

We left the neighborhood this year. We'd been invited to a Halloween party by one of my colleagues, and when darkness settled, Zoe and a gang of colorfully costumed kids ran pell mell from door to door. We adults strolled up the center of the streets and the kids zigzagged in front of us, plundering houses on both sides. There were a few scraps and bruises, a bit of skin left on asphalt, but no major injuries. Zoe's candy bag was too small, so after a time I started cramming candy into my pockets, and even removed my tricorne to use as an impromptu candy carrier.

Not Tonight

2008-10-26T01:12:17Z

Sometimes the white space resists. You do the dishes, take an extra shower, buy flowers ... and nothing doing. To get even this far required reservoirs of charm.

Nifty, No?

2008-10-19T14:20:25Z

Woo woo. The software behind Bit o' Nifty has been updated, which fact accounts for the different appearance of this blog, the restoration of Commenting, and the loss of all the old links. Sometimes to move forward you gotta jettison the past, or some such platitude.

After I get some instruction from the site admin -- AJ, who makes me feel like Shaw's Jack Tanner in my ignorance of how these things work -- , I'll monkey around with the look of the site, and maybe even get in ~~one of those whatever-the-hell-you-call-them link sections~~ a blog roll.

Update: Good lord! While I was writing this entry, AJ restored all the old links. So much for a fresh start. ... I really do feel like Jack Tanner.

Why I Don't Like Cats

2008-10-16T00:14:28Z

Yellow - Red - Blue - and Green

2008-10-15T01:21:17Z

Sunday Morning

2008-10-12T10:28:23Z

Early Sunday morning. The child is still asleep, and even the cats are recumbent, building energy for another day of stalking each other. The coffee machine gently burbles, and my tongue glides across freshly minted teeth. My students hate Gertrude Stein, but she is right, it's repetition, repetition, repetition with slight variation. The child will be a day older, the cats more scarred, the coffee machine older, the teeth more worn out. When the child, the cats, and I act and react today, it will be with one more day of experience, one less day to experience. One day closer to completed understanding, one day less to complete understanding. A winding up and a winding down. One more and one less Sunday morning.

A Fourteenth Way of Looking at a Blackbird

2008-10-04T13:09:40Z

After watching the Biden/Palin debate, I got online to see what the media were reporting because, you know, what we think matters far less than the narrative the media promulgates. But I got sidetracked by a cool little program at Wordle. You paste a bunch of words into a field and out pops a "word cloud," such as the one I posted using Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Naturally people had pasted in the words of Biden and Palin to see what each emphasized, and the results were interesting, and I suppose if you have a mind to, you can search and find those word clouds, or you can make your own, because this post isn't about the vice presidential debate.

Wordle takes the words you paste in and sizes them according to their frequency. It turns out that Biden's most-used words were "John McCain." Palin has great love for "also." (Common words such as "the" and "an" are deleted.) And not surprisingly, Stevens' favorite word in his blackbird poem is "blackbird," with "blackbirds" a bit further down the list.

You can cheat, too. Instead of using actual sentences, you can simply type in random words, repeating the ones you want larger. But that gives me moral qualms; it's the behavior of a cad, a rogue, of someone you nod at as you pat your wallet.

Crazy Richard IV

2008-10-01T22:26:19Z

In 1983, my friend Jerry Boulware started up Street Level News, a small newspaper in Denton, Texas. I wrote some articles and editorials and helped, sometimes, with laying it out, but it was Jerry's baby. Printed on news stock, it was a pony tab with 16 to 24 pages and featured articles on local bands, politics, and community events.

The Street Level News cover shown here is my favorite. The vantage point is the porch of the big white house on Fry Street where I lived in the late '80s; shown are Jim's Diner and Secondhand Rose. And shuffling on the sidewalk is Richard Earnhart. Joseph Kent, the artist, captured him perfectly -- the slouch, the shuffle, the beard and glasses. Anyone familiar with Richard instantly recognized him in the illustration.

Jim's Diner is gone, the Secondhand Rose is gone -- both went out of business years ago. But now the very buildings are gone, razed by a developer wanting to get some franchises in. Richard, of course, died in 2001.

***

After learning from Joe Messerl (see previous entry) that Richard won the National Spelling Bee in 1942, I did a little online research. It's difficult researching a name like "Richard Earnhart" because it's not that uncommon. However, with the information from Joe, I found numerous mentions of Earnhart's performance at the spelling bee. Here's a brief article from the June 6, 1942, edition of Time.

For winning the national grade-school spelling bee in Washington last week, eleven-year-old Richard Earnhart of El Paso, Tex. got $500 and a two-day trip to New York City. There he had his first brush with the metropolitan press, came off winner, hands down, over a flabbergasted World-Telegram reporter.

Richard had won his championship, over 25 other young spell-wells from as many cities, by romping through sacrilegious after his closest rival had stumbled on acquiesced. The reporter thought Richard might be interested to know that one paper, publishing this fact, had misspelled sacrilegious in its own headline. But Richard just smiled, "like a man who had been there before."

"Yes," he said. "They spelled it with an i, I take it." Other quotes from Champ Richard:

On his trip to Washington: "The space we took up in the hotel might better have been released to people who needed it more for national defense."

On learning Spanish in El Paso schools: "They don't teach us very much. We're really a bunch of parrots. ... I have a hunch the way they're doing it is not very good. . . . Speaking of school, it may surprise you to know that it comes from a Greek word meaning, of all things, leisure."

Ah, said the reporter, a little weakly, then Richard was interested in the derivation of words? "Yes," said Richard, "Etymology, it's called." Certainly, he enjoyed reading the dictionary: "It changes the subject often."

Was he enjoying Manhattan? "Yes, this is swell. But I would kinda like to get back to normal life sometimes."

The 11-year-old Richard was correct about "school." Here's the etymology:

"place of instruction," O.E. scol, from L. schola, from Gk. skhole "school, lecture, discussion," also "leisure, spare time," originally "a holding back, a keeping clear," from skhein "to get" + -ole by analogy with bole "a throw," stole "outfit," etc. The original notion is "leisure," which passed to "otiose discussion," then "place for such." The PIE base is *segh- "to hold, hold in one's power, to have" (see scheme). The L. word was widely borrowed, cf. O.Fr. escole, Fr. école, Sp. escuela, It. scuola, O.H.G. scuola, Ger. Schule, Swed. skola, Gael. sgiol, Welsh ysgol, Rus. shkola. Replaced O.E. larhus "lore house." Meaning "students attending a school" is attested from c.1300; sense of "school building" is first recorded c.1590. Sense of "people united by a general similarity of principles and methods" is from 1612; hence school of thought (1864). The verb is attested from 1573. School of hard knocks "rough experience in life" is recorded from 1912 (in George Ade); to tell tales out of school "betray damaging secrets" is from 1546. Schoolmarm is attested from 1831, U.S. colloquial; used figuratively for "patronizingly and priggishly instructing" from 1887.

***

I've created a Crazy Richard category and added to it all Nifty entries mentioning Richard Earnhart.

Richard III

2008-09-25T02:16:47Z

Joe Messerli emailed me today with this information about Richard Earnhart, whom I and friends knew in Denton, TX, as Crazy Richard. Here's what he has to say:

Richard Earnhart ([Henrietta M.] King High School Class of 48 [,Kingsville, TX]) was a genius. He won the National Spelling Bee in 1942 at the age of 11. Authority on Esperanto. Memorized large chunks of the encyclopedia and dictionary. Remembered thousands of jokes. Died in the Fall of 2001 in Denton, Texas .

I was paired with Richard in a boxing match (with gloves) in a high school phys-ed class. The teacher probably thought he'd put a couple of activity-challenged geeks together. Richard, however, having read a book on boxing (probably the night before), beat the hell out of me.

During that encounter I recall having been very aware of his big, bobbing head and my strange reluctance to throw a punch at it. Richard, on the other hand, showed no mercy, and repeatedly pummeled my poor head.

Did I mention he was about 9 inches taller than me?

Recently I sent this story to a classmate at that school, and her reply was: "Joe . . . I felt extreme sadness for him during our time in HS, and even more so now. We don’t understand those persons with rare gifts." I agreed with her that he was a person with "rare gifts." And that I guess I didn't understand him and should have been more sensitive to his needs, especially when he was clobbering me.

Richard has left a strange legacy on the internet (aside from the listings involving the Spelling Bee and Esperanto). Your chronicles of his last years and desperate days in Denton, Texas are fascinating.

Like your writing. Dare I suggest a Crazy Richard book?

After reading this, written by someone who knew him in grade school, I didn't have the heart to title this post Crazy Richard III, so Richard III will have to do. For more information on Richard Earnhart on Nifty, check out the Denton, TX, category. By the way, here's a list of National Spelling Bee winners from Wikipedia.

Southern Grotesque

2008-09-23T20:48:05Z

A bit depressed today. Students said an assigned short story was hard to read because it consisted of big blocks of words. The story -- "Good Country People" -- doesn't contain particularly long paragraphs. What does one say? I was embarrassed for them. I stood before the class, speechless.

Mutter

2008-09-22T02:35:42Z

Good grief. So there I am, lying in bed, smoking a cig, re-reading a Flannery O'Connor story I hadn't read in years, and suddenly I come across this: "Malebranche was right; we are not are own light." I mutter, find my glasses, lumber out of bed, bark a shin on an open drawer, and mutter louder. I must have awakened my daughter in the next room because she asks, "Why are you getting up?"

Feeling as grouchy as Hulga, I tell her I have to research something.

"Why?" she asks.

"Do you want to know the good reason or the real reason?"

"Both," she says, suddenly at her bedroom door.

"The good reason is that I was reading a story and came across a reference I'm hazy about. I need to look it up so I can understand it."

"What's the real reason?"

"If I don't look it up, a student will ask me about it."

She laughs and laughs. She falls on the ground, laughing. Brat.

Anyway, if you're curious, you can follow the obligatory link.

Body Talk

2008-09-21T22:29:43Z

I've got a stack of papers to grade, which fact makes house cleaning, internet surfing, and blogging more appealing. After scrubbing the grout around my bathtub, I got online, posted a few comments, and then stumbled across an article extolling the importance of body language. According to those who write about such things, words account for only 7 percent of face-to-face communication.

So if you're trying to explain the difference between Realism and Naturalism in American literature, you need to focus more on body language than on the lecture you painstakingly wrote. But how do you explain determinism with gestures? Or local color with eyebrows? If I semaphore like an Edwardian orator, will the differences between James and Twain be clearer?

Of course, those who study body language aren't concerned, necessarily, with the messages of words and phrases -- the messages they care about deal with confidence, and rapport, and openness, and selling yourself. Those are the important messages.

I swear -- if I wore a tie, I'd hang myself with it.

APA Finally Bans Psychologists from Assisting in Torture

2008-09-21T16:27:07Z

The American Psychological Association recently voted to ban psychologists from participating in interrogations that occur "in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights."

Here's the resolution the APA passed:

PETITION RESOLUTION

We the undersigned APA members in good standing, pursuant to article IV.5 of the APA bylaws, do hereby petition that the following motion be submitted to APA members for their approval or disapproval, by referendum, with all urgency:

Whereas torture is an abhorrent practice in every way contrary to the APA's stated mission of advancing psychology as a science, as a profession, and as a means of promoting human welfare.

Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Mental Health and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture have determined that treatment equivalent to torture has been taking place at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. [1]

Whereas this torture took place in the context of interrogations under the direction and supervision of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs) that included psychologists. [2, 3]

Whereas the Council of Europe has determined that persons held in CIA black sites are subject to interrogation techniques that are also equivalent to torture [4], and because psychologists helped develop abusive interrogation techniques used at these sites. [3, 5]

Whereas the International Committee of the Red Cross determined in 2003 that the conditions in the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay are themselves tantamount to torture [6], and therefore by their presence psychologists are playing a role in maintaining these conditions.

Be it resolved that psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights[7].

Footnotes

[1] United Nations Commission on Human Rights. (2006). Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_02_06_un_guantanamo.pdf The full title of the 'Special Rapporteur on Mental Health' is the 'Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health'.

[2] Miles, S. (2007). Medical ethics and the interrogation of Guantanamo 063. The American Journal of Bioethics, 7(4), 5. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://ajobonline.com/journal/j_articles.php?aid=1140

[3] Office of the Inspector General, Department of Defense: Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/abuse.pdf

[4] Council of Europe Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (2007). Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http//assembly.coe.int//Main.asp?link=http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc07/edoc 11302.htm

[5] Eban, K. (2007). Rorschach and Awe. Vanity Fair. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://www. vanityfair.com/ politics/features/2007/07/torture200707

[6] Lewis, N. A. (2004, November 30). Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo. Retrieved March 4, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/politics/30gitmo.html? oref=login&adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1101831750-

[7] It is understood that military clinical psychologists would still be available to provide treatment for military personnel.

This action apparently was not widely reported in the mainstream media; I stumbled across this important news at Boing Boing. Cory Doctorow of that website says the resolution passed by a slim margin, but I have been unable to find the actual numbers. The participation of U.S. psychologists in developing and overseeing techniques for the torture of alleged terrorists has been a blot on the profession for years; I'm glad the APA has finally condemned the practice, but dismayed the vote was apparently close.

Traffic Court

2008-09-15T21:37:50Z

The other day I read appeals from students, staff, and faculty who'd been given parking tickets. Theoretically, the tickets could have been for other offenses, but the 10 or 12 appeals we adjudicated were for parking. The appeals committee is constituted anew every month, and consists of one faculty member, one staff member, and one student. When I read the email requesting volunteers, I immediately replied. It sounded interesting and, besides, it seemed like an easy way to get some "service" credit.

As we waited for the student, the staff member joked that she liked appeals duty because she got to be a hanging judge. She had nothing but contempt for people who couldn't follow the rules. Apparently she had performed this duty many times. I didn't mention the dozens of parking tickets and library fines I've acquired over the years. Finally, the student popped his head into the room and said he couldn't serve; he had something or other that he couldn't skip. So a security officer was dispatched to the game room to find a student volunteer, and one soon arrived. Older than most students, perhaps older than me, she had served on the committee before, and like the staff member found contemptible people who couldn't follow the rules.

I commented that if we were simply going to deny all appeals because, technically, rules had been broken, then the appeals committee had no use.

I asked the women from security who sat with us about guidelines. She said there weren't any; everything was up to us. I said that's true of juries too, but judges don't often reveal that fact. She was professional, answered our questions, and carefully avoided making judgmental comments about the appeals we read.

Each of us was given a copy of each appeal. Included with each plea was a copy of the ticket and a form with two checkboxes labeled "uphold" or "deny." Majority ruled. I never saw what the other committee members checked, but I made no effort to hide my decisions, sliding the paperwork unfolded across the table to the security staff member.

However, I believe that only one appeal was granted. A faculty member, who had the required permit to park in staff parking, had to take her child to the emergency room, and in the confusion, finally arrived at work in her husband's car, which did not have the proper permit hanging from the rearview mirror. That was an easy one for me; she had a permit, had the right to park in staff parking, but because of extenuating circumstances, did not have the permit in the car she used. No problem and I voted to uphold her appeal. The others did too, I think.

Another case involved an adjunct. She had arrived on campus on a Saturday morning to volunteer for some function. She did not have a permit to park in staff parking and got a ticket. After getting the ticket, she applied for a permit and got one. Adjuncts on our campus can obtain staff permits. I reasoned that as an adjunct she had a right to park where she did, and though she did not have the proper permit, she was entitled to one, and what's more, she went ahead and got one. Easy for me; I checked the box to let her off the hook. The committee had the right to discuss cases, so I explained why I wanted her appeal to succeed. The other two committee members disagreed with me, saying she had not followed the rules. I was dismayed, and said something about no good deed going unpunished. I'm certain she lost, which in this case accomplished nothing, in my opinion, but to confirm whatever views the adjunct may have about the inflexibility of the system. Before becoming full-time faculty, I was an adjunct for years, and know that adjuncts are essentially volunteering their time to teach. So thanks for your service, Ms. Adjunct, and by the way, pay this fine for coming in on the weekend to help out.

I asked many questions about the various parking areas, and walked around the room so that I could peer out the windows to see them. I argued for several of the appeals, but didn't provoke much discussion. I was just one of three, and the other two didn't need to debate with me.

The rest of the cases were easy to deny. Students couldn't find a parking place, so they parked where there were no spaces, or in staff parking, or whatnot. Even to me that's not an excuse, and would never bother to appeal in such circumstances. One student claimed she had photographic proof that the outlines of a parking space were misleading. She was to present her case in person, but she didn't show up. In my opinion, we had no choice but to deny her appeal.

All in all, the experience was worthwhile, and I have some tips to those who want to appeal a ticket, at least at a college. Spend some time writing your appeal, provide a plausible argument, and for god's sake, employ standard grammar. You have to sell it. The faculty member did the best job -- she wrote a respectful appeal and told a compelling narrative.

At any rate, the odds seem to be against those appealing. I believe that of the 10 or 12 appeals we read, only one succeeded. I'm a little dismayed that the two "hanging judges" are so often on the committee, but I plan to serve as often as I can. There's nothing wrong with a little heart.