On February 10 I went up to Los Angeles to observe the Project Chanology protests against the Church of Scientology. My photos are up on Flickr.

I try to keep up with the sociology-related blogs, even though far too many of them are gratingly self-indulgent enclaves. Having thereby come across Shamus Khan’s post describing an anonymous student complaint, I feel compelled to constructively dissent from the majority of responses. I won’t claim vast amounts of teaching skill or experience – just a different perspective from years standing up in front of different students.

This note is tame. It’s very, very tame. If adolescent dismissals of the discipline, and you generally, are the worst student criticisms you ever receive, then count yourself fortunate (or unfortunate, depending) to have lived such a sheltered career.

Support from well-wishers is fine, but it can quickly degenerate into unproductive enabling and groupthink. This is a mundane, trivial teaching event. The more you let it, or your colleagues’ overreactions, occupy your thoughts, the more the note’s author wins.

Turn it over to the chair? You know your chair. If half-hearted student gripes fall closer to “problems the chair considers important enough to take on”, or “opportunities to bond and build morale with new colleagues”, and not “everyday troubles a faculty member worthy of tenure ought to be able to handle without supervision”, then by all means.

Turn it over to campus security? Oy. Does your campus have a teaching resources center for faculty? The staff there would likely have experience with student correspondence, from whiny to threatening, and would likely know the campus policies and guidelines regarding referrals to the police. They might also be a good source of support and some dispassionate advice.

Finally, just because the group hug dynamic going on here profoundly unsettles me… what about the student’s underlying point? This student walked away from your class with the impression that sociology is a useless discipline that studies trivial matters. Mistaken? Absolutely. Considering your teaching style and choices of illustrative examples, though, is this a mistake that half-attentive students in your class could understandably make? Is this perhaps indicative that some students, especially those who don’t even remotely share your research interests, could benefit from applications of more relevance to what they prioritize?

Even the most vicious, biting student comment can sometimes have a kernel of insight, and we’re here to try to reach the angry ones, too. Some of your colleagues, in their fervor, seem to be losing sight of that this week.

I made it through NaBloPoMo. Whew. Thank you, Leah, for bringing this post-every-day thing to my attention at exactly the right time.

To my immense amusement, the PR flacks are as nervous as ever, almost nobody seems to have cared enough about the Alan Dershowitz speech at UCI to blog about it, and I’ve gotten a hefty number of hits from people searching for Ron Paul’s pet conspiracy theories.

Huzzah.

Here’s a bit of ye liveliest Awfulness, inspired by “The Second Coming” by Protocol 5 of somethingawful.com and, of course, horribly mangling H. P. Lovecraft’s “Nyarlathotep”.

Ron Paul

Ron Paul… the crawling candidate… I am the last… I will tell the audient void…

I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous ideological ineptitude; an ineptitude widespread and all-embracing, such an ineptitude as may be imagined only in the most terrible wankery of the night. I recall that the voters went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous stupidity was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the parties swept chill currents that made voters shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the nation had passed from the control of known markets or forces to that of markets or forces which were unknown.

And it was then that Ron Paul came out of Texas. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a gnome. The libertarians knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the slackness of thirty-two districts, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Ron Paul, sallow, slender, and sinister, always renting strange puppets of tubes and socks and combining them into web sites yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences of economy and conspiracy and gave exhibitions of ignorance which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Ron Paul, and shuddered. And where Ron Paul went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nausea. Never before had the screams of nausea been such a public problem; now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours, that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges, and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

I remember when Ron Paul came to my city, the great, the old, the terrible city of unnumbered crimes. My student had told me of him, and of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations, and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost inanities. My student said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings; and what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Ron Paul dared prophesy, and in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which showed only in the eyes. And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Ron Paul looked on sights which others saw not.

It was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Ron Paul; through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room. And shadowed on a screen, I saw camouflaged forms amidst ruins, and pudgy evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against big government; against the waves of taxation from ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling gold standard. Then the slides played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst supporters more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about poseurs and political economy, Ron Paul drove us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud that I was not amused; that I never could be amused; and others screamed with me for solace. We swore to one another that the city was exactly the same, and still alive; and when the projector lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again, and laughed at the queer faces we made.

I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon, for when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious involuntary marching formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared not think of them. Once we looked at the message boards and found the threads fallow and displaced by spam, with scarce a line of quote to show where the discourse had run. And again we saw an email list, lone, commentless, unmoderated, and almost unsubscribed. When we gazed around the election, we could not find the third party by the river, and noticed that the silhouette of the second party was ragged at the top. Then we split up into narrow columns, each of which seemed drawn in a different direction. One disappeared in a narrow chamber to the left, leaving only the echo of a raving foam. Another filed down a screed-choked primary entrance, howling with a laughter that was mad. My own column was sucked toward the undecided country, and presently I felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn; for as we stalked out on the press tour, we beheld around us the hellish teleprompters of evil debates. Trackless, inexplicable debates, swept asunder in one direction only, where lay a gulf all the lamer for its gibbering pundits. The column seemed very thin indeed as it plodded dreamily into the gulf. I lingered behind, for the black rift in democracy was frightful, and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished; but my power to linger was slight. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I half-floated between the titanic stages, quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable.

Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only the markets that were can tell. A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead nations with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the nations vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctifled temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate markets the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is
Ron Paul.

I attended. It was dull. Most of my photographs came out blurry. The photos are from me; the video clips are from around the Internet.

UCI police were well-represented. Alan Dershowitz was wrapping up his talk elsewhere in the building, though, so who knows how much security Pipes alone would have attracted.

The head of the UCI College Republicans, the head of the UCI Objectivist Club (Eric Brunner), and Reut Cohen each gave separate preambles. Cohen was introduced as working for the David Project. Another Young Republican then led the attendees (some of them) in the Pledge of Allegiance, “under god” and all.

It’s difficult to make out in this video clip, but students from the Muslim Student Union arrived wearing duct tape over their mouths. On the duct tape gags were written phrases such as “no censorship” and “free speech”. Soon after Pipes started speaking, they stood up, held up signs facing the lectern, and filed out of the room. Since the signs weren’t facing the audience, it was near-impossible to make out any of the slogans.

This cleared out about half of the room. Starting at -0:25 in the clip, notice the unaffiliated undergrads rushing in to grub better seats. Go go Anteater decorum.

The MSU released a statement and a video statement.

This clip is remarkable only for the dueling inanity.

Pipes talked only for about 35 minutes. Chancellor Drake and one of UCI’s communications officials (I think) dropped in for a few minutes, partway through. Pipes then took about 45 minutes in Q&A giving inane answers to mostly-inane student questions. Several students, including Brunner (twice) if I recall correctly, and one of his friends (who slapped him a congratulatory five after one attempt), tried vainly to get Pipes to agree with them that all of Islam, not just militant Islamism, is the enemy.

See also assorted juvenilia from Chuck DeVore and divers hands.

More throughout the day if I run across anything interesting.

Here’s more for the crank file. Ron Paul evidently subscribes to conspiracy theories about a “North American Union”. Dennis Kucinich, you’re not impressing me with your judgment.

In this clip Ron Paul responds to a question from Phyllis Schlafly, another promulgator of North American Union silliness.

On a related note, see also Ron Paul’s embrace of crank ideologue medical enthusiasts.

.

Addendum Nov 29 – Compare to Ron Paul’s discussion of the “North American Union” during last night’s YouTube debate.

Addendum Dec 08 – Ron Paul’s conspiracy credulity has made Newsweek.

By way of a circuitous path of internet browsing*, I happened across a tidbit of information that’s in plain sight on Wikipedia. Ron Paul is a member of a certain conservative advocacy group – the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He has been since 1966.

The AAPS has published quite a bit of the pseudoscientific crazy, including some bizarre claims regarding immigrants and leprosy. Andrew Schlafly, a son of Phyllis Schlafly, is (at least as lately as September this year) the group’s General Counsel. Ron Paul evidently shares the same opposition to mandatory vaccination and suspicion of vaccination in general as the AAPS, the house of Schlafly, and the Schlaflys’ “Conservapedia”.

That’s looking like some mad doktor territory to me. Plus, unless this is a fantastic joke, his followers want to rent him a blimp. Cue the maniacal laughter.

_
* This all started when Conrad sent me the blimp link. Ow. Ow.

I’m of mixed feelings about There Goes the Science Bit…, the stab at consumer product debunking from the UK’s Voice of Young Science. On the one hand, it’s always nice to see institutional support for challenges to advertising and PR. American professional associations interested in promoting public intellectualism could also take a page from this group’s advice regarding the media. It’s a good start.*

On the other hand, the endeavor has a rushed, Michael Moore, low-hanging fruit feel to it. What they did was mostly just… call customer service and ask questions. (”Aha! I’ve vexed and confounded the receptionist! Suck it, Philip Morris!”) Yes, the poor bastard on the other end of the line is probably just an $8 an hour phone operator reading from a 2-page handout. Yes, anything with “herbal”, “homeopathic”, or “energy field” in the name or description is going to be useless crap. Flawless victory.

More proactive, public critiques will surely follow, one hopes. Being ready and able to call bullshit when asked is most excellent. Vigorously challenging marketers who dress up their products in speculative or concocted science claims would be better still.

_
* (Despite the suspicious preponderance of rather attractive young men and women. Look at the photos in the PDFs. It’s like a hard science reality show in there. Yowza.)

I really enjoyed this comic from Cectic. It nicely captures the Lovecraftian vibe that often seems to underlie creationists’ desperate flailings. By way of Pharyngula.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

- “The Call of Cthulhu”, H. P. Lovecraft

Hypothesis: There are two types of people.

1. Some people read a poem like “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace” and think it’s a beautiful vision of the future of humanity.
2. Other people, like me, recognize that the utopia described in this poem looks an awful lot like anarcho-primitivist civilization-suicide and are thoroughly creeped out.

We’ll make great pets? No, thanks. Enjoy your reservation. The rest of us will be busy getting on with things.

Point and snicker time again. This brilliant image represents the UC Irvine College Republicans on both MySpace and Facebook.

What can I possibly say? The red, white, and black theme? The Gothic font? The grainy black-and-white stills of der Führer?

C’mon.

Now you may be thinking, “Gott in Himmel! The UCI junior GOP must be an enclave of neo-Nazism! Nobody could be that fucking clueless! Not even in Orange County!” Well, sorry to disappoint, folks, but it seems that people in Orange County really can be that fucking clueless.

Need I call attention to the irony that the UC Irvine College Republicans are co-hosting a speaking event with a Hillel- sponsored Israel-advocacy group, given that Hillel has voiced concern that Jews might not feel safe on the UCI campus?

Yes, I think I do.

See also: “California Über Alles”.

The Randies, the David Project (more on them momentarily), and UCI College Republicans are bringing Daniel Pipes to campus next week.

The David Project is a project of the Israel on Campus Coalition, which in turn is a PR effort designed to promote positive perceptions of the Israeli government on US college campuses.

On the Israel on Campus Coalition:

The group was put together by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, which is funding several student programs and has invested a quarter of a million dollars to fund this project.

It hired Wayne Firestone, former director of the Israel office of the Anti-Defamation League, as its director.

Based in Washington, the Israel on Campus Coalition will act as an information-sharing and planning agency for more than 20 Jewish organizations on campus, and a central clearinghouse for students and professionals.

Pro-Israel professionals from the elite consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, offered pro-bono services to assess the key lessons learned from the activities of the past year and the top priorities of each organization for the coming year.

In a document the company submitted to the Israel on Campus Coalition, it stated that the primary goal for this year should be to “take back the campus” by influencing public opinion through lectures, the Internet and coalitions.

It says that to affect public opinion on the campuses, the message should be to “make the case for Israel proactively: Don’t sound defensive about Israel, or argue about specific facts — instead, reframe the debate to emphasize Israel’s long history of democracy, peace and resistance to terror.”

• Pomerance, Rachel. 2002. “Jewish Groups Coordinate Efforts to Help Students ‘Take Back Campus’”. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 28.

On the David Project:

The ICC has a single “affiliate member”: the David Project. The David Project is led by Charles Jacobs, who is a co-founder of CAMERA, the pro-Israel media watchdog group; the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, which calls itself “America’s leading human rights group dedicated to abolishing modern day slavery worldwide”; and, along with Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol, among others, a member of the board of advisers of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The ICC’s website lists a number of “regional ICCs” that receive “strategic advice and guidance” from the Washington headquarters. The regional ICC representative in New York is none other than Rachel Fish, the director of the David Project’s New York office. Jacobs was tight-lipped in a recent interview: He refused to provide details about his financial backers, referring only to unnamed “individuals and foundations”; and he declined to elaborate on the extent to which the David Project receives tactical advice from professional pro-Israel lobbyists and operatives allied with the ICC.

• Sherman, Scott. 2005. “The Mideast Comes to Columbia”. The Nation, April 4.

I, along with a boatload of other people, received this very important email today. In order to preserve the formatting, and because it’s just too darn long for a blog post, I’ve uploaded it onto a separate page. Enjoy, and spread the disease.

11 – 21 – 07

Dear American, and Foreign People Too:

I am Eddie C. Blueswallow, and I am a full-blooded Sioux. And I understand that tomorrow is the Harvest Celebration Day (what you Americans call Thanksgiving Day). But, to be thankful is to also be notified of what some in your government are doing behind your backs now, and apparently for about 100 years. I don’t want to ruin your holidays, but you all won’t have many left if these wicken people in the American’s government are allowed to continue their secret crimes protected by secret oaths. It may take you each about a week to thoroughly review and watch and read the information on these links. But, for your, and your families’ sakes, please do.

New slogans have appeared on the University Center bridge.