Month: October 2011

The Woman Who Knew Too Much

Stephanie Zvan11 Comments

Last week, Vanity Fair posted a profile of Elizabeth Warren that is a must-read. If you’re not a fan already, perhaps this little glimpse of evidence-based politics will help:

It was in 1979 that Warren had her Damascene conversion—the experience that would lead her to become the nation’s top authority on the economic pressures facing the American middle class, and trigger her passionate advocacy. In 1978, Congress had passed a law that made it easier for companies and individuals to declare bankruptcy. Warren decided to investigate the reasons why Americans were ending up in bankruptcy court. “I set out to prove they were all a bunch of cheaters,” she said in a 2007 interview. “I was going to expose these people who were taking advantage of the rest of us.” What she found, after conducting with two colleagues one of the most rigorous bankruptcy studies ever, shook her deeply. The vast majority of those in bankruptcy courts, she discovered, were from hardworking middle-class families, people who lost jobs or had “family breakups” or illnesses that wiped out their savings. “It changed my vision,” she said.

From then on, Warren would focus her research on the economic forces bearing down on the American middle class.

Really, though, most of the power of the piece comes from seeing the reactions to Warren in Washington. Continue reading “The Woman Who Knew Too Much” →

The Woman Who Knew Too Much
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Just a Punk Hippy Freak

Stephanie Zvan78 Comments

Greg posted a picture from the Occupy demonstrations this morning that made him angry, and he’s been roundly criticized in the comments for getting angry over it.

Not Me

It’s a coincidence that I reposted “Taking It Downhill” this morning, but if you read that post, you may have a sense of why this sign pissed me off too. In case it doesn’t, I’ll spell it out.

Continue reading “Just a Punk Hippy Freak” →

Just a Punk Hippy Freak

Taking It Downhill

Stephanie Zvan16 Comments

This post is about accommodationism, but all the backlash to the Occupy Wall Street movement has had me thinking about it again for a few days. It was originally published here, but I reprint it in honor of Mr. 53%.

As biodork (love that handle) pointed out in the comments on my last post, the complaints about “New Atheists” being too…too are hardly any newer than the behavior of confrontational atheists.

In 1969 it was the flamboyant cross-dressers and the in-your-face gays and lesbians who changed the GBLT civil rights movement forever. 40 years later (omg – 40 years???), we’re seeing opinion letters from straight-laced gays and lesbians (pun not intended when it flew from my fingers, but now I’m totally keeping it) who complain about these same people being over the top in the Pride parades with their short leather shorts, glittery, colorful costumes and their loud, effervescent personas.

In her talk at the U of MN Greta Christina touched on the mainstreaming of an identity like being gay or being an atheist. At first the leaders are courageous, spectacular, FABULOUS!, and willing to take fire from the haters. As time goes on more and more “regular joes” who just want to live their lives without making their identity the center of everything will rise up.

When this happens, I think there is a feedback loop that starts to encourage the quieting of these original noisy upstarts by the community that they originally fostered. “Shhh…we don’t need that anymore. They noticed, now be quiet.”

There are many more parallels than this, of course. There are those “radical” feminists who keep insisting on raising a stink because there are plenty of things still broken. They make it so tough for women who have to keep defending themselves from the title in order to go make their comfortable lives a little bit more comfortable. There are those socialists who persist in demanding that poor people be treated like people. It’s so annoying that they won’t just disappear for a bit so the label won’t be applied to those people who want a better tax break on their kids’ educational expenses.

All these pesky crusaders, who just won’t shut up, who won’t just go with the flow for a bit so things can get done, so the people with the keys to the kingdom will give us just a little bit more. Ugh! What is to be done with people so rude, so demanding, so mean?!?

Continue reading “Taking It Downhill” →

Taking It Downhill

Writing Fiction with Science: Pedophilia

Stephanie Zvan17 Comments

When you listen to slush readers, editors, and agents talk about what they don’t want to find in their mailbox, you hear about hackneyed ideas, bland openings, purple crayons, and death threats. You also hear, “Don’t send me a sympathetic story about a rapist or a pedophile. Ugh.”

When Henry Gee asked me to submit a story to Nature Futures, I decided to break that rule. Why? Well, first off, I’m not much good with rules. Also, I felt this particular rule was malformed. What it really meant was, “Don’t make me read something that makes me feel I should tell the cops about you.”

One of my pet peeves is the conflation of pedophilia and child rape. Paying attention to abuses of authority, as I do, I have this peeve triggered a lot. The phrase “pedophile priest” makes me grit my teeth.

Continue reading “Writing Fiction with Science: Pedophilia” →

Writing Fiction with Science: Pedophilia

Saturday Storytime: The Hero and the Princess

Stephanie Zvan3 Comments

Sherwood Smith writes mostly fantasy, for both young adults and readers who would prefer not to be considered young. While many of these are set in classical fantasy worlds, the stories are not always what you would expect from those worlds.

Both children looked weary, Tam thought, as he sipped again from his tankard.

He looked up, met the mother’s gaze.  She, too, looked weary. Both weary and tense. “Where you from?” he asked.

Her smile was a mere thinning of the lips, a quick glimpse of self-mockery.  “We make our home wherever we happen to find ourselves.”  So saying she laid her fork and knife neatly across her plate, piled it atop her children’s, and then pulled from her own tote-bag some sewing.

The door opened then, bringing a gust of chill air.  Nelath and the two children all looked that way, quick as startled birds.  The newcomer, an old man, shuffled in and addressed the innkeeper in a low voice.

Curious, Tam strained to hear, but only a couple of words carried: “Horse,” “foal.”

Nelath dropped her gaze to her sewing, and she started a hem with fast and neat stitches.  She was even faster than his own mother had been, Tam realized, her stitches marvelously fine.

Her children, unbidden, bent dark, curly heads back to their tasks.

“You’re waiting for someone,” Tam said, putting together the clues at last.

Keep reading.

Saturday Storytime: The Hero and the Princess

Canadian Residential Schools–Survivors Speak

Stephanie Zvan1 Comment

After expressing concerns over press releases related to the digging up of what may be mass graves on the grounds of a former Canadian residential school, I was accused of trying to keep information about the genocide of Canadian First Nations people, and the complicity of the Catholic and Anglican churches in Canada, hidden. Quite the opposite. I am, in fact, pissed off that this is being handled in such a way that these exhumations won’t receive any press.

In particular, I’m pissed off that a bunch of white people are spending a bunch of time talking about how one white guy has suffered for the survivors’ cause instead of everybody putting the survivors’ experience front and center. So, instead of listening to more of that, I decided to wade through it all and find some resources that put the survivors’ voices first.

Where Are the Children

In the Blackboard area, you’ll find a history of the schools that includes statements from survivors. Some sections here contain multiple pages, which is fairly subtle in the design. Don’t miss them.

In the Projector area, you can watch/hear recordings of survivors themselves.

Our Stories… Our Strength

This project has been collecting the stories of survivors. At this point, only a very tiny sample is available here.

CBC Digital Archives–A Lost Heritage: Canada’s Residential Schools

The CBC has a number of historical television and radio clips on this topic. In “For survivors, the hurt comes back,” survivors discuss their experiences and their reaction to the apologies. In “Remembering the bad old days in the residential school,” three classmates talk about their time in school.

There are videos on this topic on YouTube as well, featuring both Canadian and U.S. survivors of the schools. This survivor is from Canada.

Libraries and Archives Canada has a bibliography that includes numerous first-person accounts of the schools. One of these, Indian School Days by Basil Johnston, is available in Google Books, as well as for purchase. Mary Lawrence’s book, My People, Myself, is available for purchase, as is Mary Fortier’s Behind Closed Doors, A Survivor’s Story of the Boarding School Syndrome. Celia Haig-Brown is not native, but her book Resistance and Renewal, Surviving the Indian Residential School collects first-person stories. It is available for purchase or on Google Books.

Canadian Residential Schools–Survivors Speak

Atheists Talk: David Eller on Religious Violence

Stephanie Zvan

David Eller is a cultural anthropologist who has spent considerable time on the topics of violence and religion. In his recent book, Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence: Religious Violence Across Culture and History, he explores the intersection of the two. He examines the various types of religious violence and the interaction between the cultural and religious factors that contribute to that violence. He looks at how religion can shape a culture in ways that make violence more likely, or less. Please join us as we discuss this fascinating–and ever timely–topic.

Links of interest:
Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence: Religious Violence Across Culture and History
David Eller on Atheists Talk in 2009 , discussing Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of A Freethinker

Listen to AM 950 KTNF on Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.

Atheists Talk: David Eller on Religious Violence

From the Neighborhood

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

While I’m busy arguing with some guy who thinks I can’t possibly not use the same insults he would, and another who thinks only one white guy can handle the problems of Canada’s First Nations, have some tasty blogging from my neighbors who have a bit more time.

Dana was at GeekGirlCon on a panel about skepticism, and she’s bringing back the goodies for the rest of us.

Skepticism 101: In Which I Say What Skepticism Is, and Shoot a Video

Being a skeptic isn’t something you are so much as do. Because, you see, skepticism is a tool. It’s a way of detecting bullshit. It’s a set of methods applied to assess the truth of a claim. It saves you from falling for Nigerian princes and people who claim there’s a curse upon you which can only be lifted by silly rituals and the application of generous funds to the fortune teller.

And that’s what we tried to impress upon the audience at GeekGirlCon: skepticism is a tool, or rather a tool kit. I’ll show you mine.

Continue reading “From the Neighborhood” →

From the Neighborhood

Evil Enough Already

Stephanie Zvan99 Comments

One of the progressive activists I follow on Twitter posted a link last night.

In a story that is almost too horrific to believe, what looks to be a childrens’ mass burial ground has been discovered around the Mohawk Institute Indian residential school near Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State continues:

“According to Rev. Kevin Annett, Secretary of the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (www.itccs.org), the Mohawk Institute was “set up by the Anglican Church of England in 1832 to imprison and destroy generations of Mohawk children. This very first Indian [First Nations] residential school in Canada lasted until 1970, and, like in most residential schools, more than half of the children imprisoned there never returned. Many of them are buried all around the school.”

Continue reading “Evil Enough Already” →

Evil Enough Already

The Gross, The Cool, and the Squishy

Stephanie Zvan

Another Donors Choose project has been fully funded, just under the wire, with the help of my readers. From the teacher:

Thank you so much for your donations. This is my very first project on Donors Choose.

I cannot wait to start using these magazines to use current events in our Reading and ELA classes. Most of my students know the latest pop stars or the current sports phenom. With these magazines we will be able to increase their literacy skills while we expand each students knowledge of what is going on in the world.

Thank you again for your support.

With gratitude,
Mr. L

Thank you from me as well.

Now, time to get a few more of these funded.

From Kipp Delta Collegiate High School in Helena, AR:

Delta Wishes

Everyone knows that they have eyes to see and a central processing center for sight and other daily activities. With the sheep brain and eye, each student will be able to get an inside view of how some of the main aspects of the body work. In turn, their understandings of life processes and their curiosities will both be brought to higher levels, developing young scientists every step of the way.

Funding this project will help squash some of the misconceptions young minds pick up from their environment. It will also develop a yearning to know and seek further knowledge. The more students from rural communities learn, the more they can take home to their families to share. In turn, knowledge can push a rural community such as ours to take better care of itself, the people, and the environment.

Amount remaining to be funded: $616

From Coleman Middle School in Greenville, MS:

Making Science Come Alive! (Dissection)

Our worm dissection was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable lessons of last year. The day was not just memorable for me but also for my students; as evidenced by their squeals of delight and their rave reviews in their end of year evaluations. The dissection was almost unanimously named as my students’ favorite activity. I want to give my students another chance to experience hands on science through a frog dissection!

Additionally, with a class set of reusable dissection kits, my students will be able to perform several dissections during their middle school science careers. The dissection kits can be used by all 850 students at our school, grades 6th – 8th. Dissections are a wonderful way to get students excited about science because it is an intriguing way for students to explore organisms on their own; much more engaging than a picture in a textbook!

To see every single one of my kids get the chance to have their hands on their own dissection kit and their own earthworm was such a special experience last May. With enough frogs for each student wishing to make a dissection, they will again be able to explore for themselves the inside of an organism, something they have been begging for since that amazing May day!

Amount remaining to be funded: $342

From Pineywoods Community Academy in Lufkin, TX:

Scientists Need Supplies to Become Sleuths

I am most excited about going over living organisms with these tools, especially the dual microscopes. This past school year, the public school I taught at was lucky enough to go on a field trip to the university plant center.

The staff at the plant center had several buckets of pond water from the ponds in the park. The students were able to scoop out the water, along with some organisms, and observe them using the dual microscopes. They were so excited!! They had a sheet with pictures and names of the organisms they were observing, and they were sharing with each other what they were seeing and why they thought it was a certain organism. I LOVED seeing them like that. This is why I teach. I want to give my kids at this new school the same opportunity.

If I can get them to question, analyze, and justify their thinking then I am helping their lives become better. Giving them opportunities to deepen this kind of thinking is priceless.

Help these dying-to-be-scientists, really become just that— SCIENTISTS. Help them have experiences where they can actually measure something, observe a living organisms straight out of its habitat, and foster analytical thinking. Experiences they will never forget… making you … never forgotten.

Amount remaining to be funded: $528

You heard the teacher. There’s nothing for building a long-lasting interest in the natural world like getting to discover hidden bits of it. Let’s get these kids the tools they need.

The Gross, The Cool, and the Squishy