Notes to Self February 27, 2007

I think for now this forum will just serve my needs as a place to catalog and hold onto news and features that I’ve come across that interest me. I’m having a problem doing the same with those items that arrise in print media- a rather large stack of newspapers has begun to accumulate under my desk, and if you’ve seen the cubicle I’m living in, you’ll know that I don’t have the space to accumulate anything. Not dishes, not shoes, not dust, not books… well, at least not as many books as I bought last semester, anyway.

All of that to say I want to read more about this later.

I’m such a packrat.

Another Repeat. February 27, 2007

I heard a piece about this development via my NPR podcast a few days ago. I didn’t think that the classical music world was large enough for this kind of fraud to be pulled off. For her to steal the recordings, they must have already been publicly available. How did no one catch this before?

Joyce Hatto? Probably not. The article is here.

Refried Economics February 27, 2007

This is the second time in about 30 minutes that I’ve come across a reference to something as a “signaling” device (apparently an economics term that I should read up on).

An excerpt which made me laugh out loud:

“You can go to college to get civilized (in the sense that your thoughts about your triumphs and losses at the age of 55 will be colored and deepened by an encounter with Horace or Yeats at the age of 19). Or you can go there to get qualified (in the sense that Salomon Brothers will snap you up, once it sees your B.A. in economics from M.I.T.). Most often, parents must think they are paying for the latter product. Great though Yeats may be, 40-some-odd thousand seems a steep price to pay for his acquaintance. The timeless questions that college provokes — like “What the hell are you going to do with a degree in English?” — must get shouted across dinner tables with increasing vehemence as college costs rise inexorably.”

Full article here.

This article has the feel of my favorite kind of journalistic writing- with the last paragraph and sentence really tying everything together.

Disgusted. February 27, 2007

From the New York Times Sunday:

“When a psychology professor at DePauw University here surveyed students, they described one sorority as a group of “daddy’s little princesses” and another as “offbeat hippies.” The sisters of Delta Zeta were seen as “socially awkward.”

Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.”

While it certainly isn’t the most pressing issue raised by the article, I wonder in what context the psychology professor conducted a survey with questions like that and how the responses were made public.

Full article here.

There was also a response in The Economist blog here.

The comments left at The Economist blog are particularly scathing and/or absurd.

more thoughts to be added later. February 21, 2007

So, sadly, it was the white girls who learned global thinking most belatedly. In the most recent and powerful version of chapter two, the daughters of great men have thought about the name “woman”. When the women of the great men’s lands rallied together against their body-defined fate, too often they assumed that the name “woman” had universal application. Women were everywhere and everywhere downtrodden; so surely their concerns were those of all women. The power of this universal claim certainly added strength to the white girls’ claims. The broad sweep got plenty of other white girls on side; who wouldn’t want to be a part of a global movement? And for some people, good things happened. But the others who were different kinds of women were rarely these people, and soon the fighting started.

from Tales of dark-skinned women: Race, gender, and global culture by Gargi Bhattacharyya (pages 40-41)

This past week my topic for Phi. of Feminism was “Indian Feminist Movements”. I was expecting… well, stories of backwards thinking men running a country, women being oppressed, abused, ignored- without recourse to political representation or legal action. Certainly, historically, at least isolated examples could be found for most, if not all societies. As India threw off British colonial rule less than a century ago- well, it doesn’t matter what I was expecting. Paula is quite insistent that I look at post-colonial theory before this term is finished, so all of my prejudices and misconceptions about oppressed peoples will soon (hopefully) be torn down. I can’t say that everything I read confirmed that India is “enlightened” (by Western standards), or that they were fifty years ago. Some of it was truly horrifying: dowry-deaths and sati, for example. Women being examined and put on exhibitions under prying Western eyes (one such example- Saartjie Baartman, or the Hottentot Venus).

Forgetful. February 20, 2007

I make these to-do lists, and then forget to check them. Pi Chi interview questions are due today, and I have been intermittently forgetting and remembering that for the past few days. Finally, it’s late enough that I have to act on this most recent “holy shit!” moment.

The questions:

Why did you seek this position, and what qualities do you possess that will make you a good Pi Chi?

What do you think a Recruitment Counselor’s role is during Recruitment

What would you tell a prospective member about benefits of being Greek? Why go through recruitment?

How would you handle a situation where a woman in your group wanted to drop out of recruitment?

Will you have a problem disaffilliating? Terms-

Along the lines of disaffiliation, you will be responsible for watching out for violations of recruitment rules, as you are expected to turn in any infractions you see. Will you have a problem doing this, expecially if it is your own chapter?

How would you counsel someone who is torn between two sororities?

What kinds of things do you plan to do with your recruitment groups to make them feel comfortable?

It’s fairly obvious what the “correct” answers are for some of these. So the real questions revolve around whether or not it is permissible to lie, or filter the truth, in an attempt to get this position. I honestly think I’d be good at it- of course, I’m working on the assumption that the best Pi Chi would be one who would say to a girl “Listen, Greek life isn’t everything. Maybe you want to be in a sorority, maybe you’re just here because your roommate dragged you. This doesn’t have to be the defining moment of your collegiate career. Feel free to drop out. Feel free to turn down a bid. Your life will go on. There are girls in sororities who regret joining. If you think you’ll regret it, if you can’t afford it, if all of this seems fake- don’t do it. Run for SGA. Write for The Cluster. Start your own organization. There are times when I love my sorority and times when I wonder if I would’ve been better off as an independent. Some of my best friends aren’t greek. I’ll answer your questions about time commitment and financial issues and philanthropy and social life, but I won’t tell you that this is the be all and end all of the next four years of your life, because it’s not. This is just one of the many choices that are going to shape the rest of your life. It’s possible that no one has told you this yet, but the truth is you will be accountable for every one of them. Go do your homework.” Maybe that isn’t exactly what I’d say- except the last part. All freshmen (sophomores, juniors, and seniors) constantly need to be told to do their homework.

“write”. as though it were that simple. February 20, 2007

found this saved on my computer- i’ve no idea how long ago it was written. 

for some reason, i think of writing- journaling- as a means by which to discover hidden facets of myself. certainly, a way to order thoughts and keep track of a line of reasoning, which is absolutely necessary when one has a tendency to contradict what was said two minutes before, as i do. i enjoy reading other people’s journals, but i don’t think that it is because we have similar goals for our literary endeavors. and if i really consider keeping a journal, or writing a blog, a useful tool, then i would probably invest more time in its application. clearly, i do not often turn to the blank pages or expectant keyboard when i’m trying to work out a problem. what i see in other people’s blogs… it’s the picture that their words, reasoning (and lack thereof), and worries paint. not to say that i think one’s whole self, or even a considerable portion of