27 September 03
The World Lost a Great Mind Yesterday
Edward Said died at the age of 67 after living for years with leukemia. He spoke eloquently not only for Palestinians but for justice throughout the world. A scholar at Columbia University for many years, his book Orientalism (1978) is credited with starting the post-colonial studies movement.
Whenever I saw him through my work at Harvard University Press he was debonair, brilliant, a little intimidating, and always intensely thoughtful. The Arab world has just lost its most articulate mouthpiece.
26 September 03
A Vision Of Lucre
Last week Pica attended the Chancellor’s Fall Conference, a day-and-a-half shindig where UC Davis faculty and staff discussed the just released campus strategic plan, a document entitled The UC Davis Vision. This document is filled with platitudes about how the campus will “ensure that [it] maintains and develops high-caliber courses, curricula and academic programs” and will “invest in targeted areas of established and emerging excellence and distinction.” This is the sort of document that university administrators feel the need to produce every few years, and one wishes they would merely dust off the previous edition from the archives in the basement rather than go to great effort to rewrite the thing anew.
Absent from the plan is much discussion of how the university plans to achieve this grand vision in the face of a massive budget crunch, let alone avoid the internecine fighting that accompanies such. There lies however, off in the bucolic northwest corner of Yolo County, a possible solution to the university’s woes. This valley is home to the Cache Creek casino, a fantastically successful enterprise a few years old run by and for the benefit of the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians. (In California gambling casinos are only allowed under tribal auspices.) Many Cache Creek Valley residents are not very fond of the casino for bringing lots of traffic to their formerly quiet valley, but given tribal sovereignty there is little they can do.
But here an opportunity beckons. What if the Rumsey Band were to partner with the university to move the casino to campus? All parties would benefit. The casino would be in a much more accessible location, being right off the interstate running from the Bay Area to Sacramento. Both the Rumsey Band and the university would share in the profits, and the university would be ensured of a stable and growing funding source. Cache Creek would get their quiet valley back, and there would be many new part-time jobs for the students. (Who wouldn’t rather be a croupier instead of delivering for Woodstock’s Pizza?) Indeed, whole new university programs could spring into existence—what about a hotel administration department? (Cornell has one, why not UC Davis?) And seeing as how the Mondavi Center is built on a Native American gravesite, placing the casino nearby is not that geographically inappropriate.
Looking a few miles and years down the road, there are other prime opportunities for public-private partnerships. There’s a proposal afoot to build a $250 million racetrack and entertainment complex entitled Dixon Downs, to be located about 7 miles down the highway from UCD. Think of the funding that could come the university’s way with a little bit of creative outreach! Plenty of opportunity for the veterinary school at the very least.
Serving the entertainment industry—the new function of the university in the 21st century! Sounds like it would make a good proposal for Governor Arnold.
25 September 03
They’re BAAACK…
Today was the first day of classes at UC Davis. There were thousands (about 30,000, to be concrete) people wandering around these 5,000 acres, many of them a) completely lost b) on bicycles they hadn’t ridden since grade school c) talking on cellphones d) oblivious of the hazards they posed. Sometimes they just fall over for no apparent reason and get up again.
It’s at times like these when Davis and campus are best avoided if possible. Unfortunately it’s not really possible; we both work on campus. Going somewhere for lunch or dinner just got a lot harder. So did getting from A to B.
Our drive to the Coop this evening was a slalom run through kamikaze eighteen-year-olds. We almost entertained driving miles out of our way to get home via the freeway in order to spare ourselves the dangers.
For all this, I’m still happy to see the students back. They’re young and hopeful (at least some of them). They’re our future, even if they’re not sure about this. I just wish they’d learn elementary bicycle safety…
A baseball footnote: the Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles tonight to clinch a spot in the playoffs. I’m ecstatic. Which is very dangerous for a Red Sox fan.
23 September 03
The Joy of Taking a Shower
The hardest part about having an extremity in a cast, splint, or boot is not being able to get really clean. I’ll spare you the gory details of what that translates into but you can probably imagine. Anyway, from sponge baths where I got water all over the floor to sitting in the shower with my left leg in two tightly tied garbage bags, protruding while I perched on a commode in the shower and got even MORE water all over the floor, I have moved on to the ideal solution: take a shower elsewhere.
The PT’s place is a fully functioning gym complete with three showers, one of which, since it’s new, is handicapped accessible. This means I can hop over, grab the rail, hope I don’t slip, sit on the handy seat, wash merrily between my toes, and hop back out again. I think I’m the only person who ever takes a shower in there. At least now I don’t have to go to the hairdresser to get my hair washed, though I must say I miss the chatter of the three Latina hairdressers who, try all they might, never manage to say more than one sentence in English before lapsing into laments about this child or that relative. The handicapped shower in the PT’s place is very silent and unsociable by comparison. But I just BASKED in it this afternoon.
I’ll have to go get my hair trimmed soon to find out the latest on whose quinceaera party is next, is all.
22 September 03
When Carnosaurs Ruled The Roadways
This weekend I read Keith Bradsher’s recent book High and Mighty: SUVs—The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way. It’s a sordid tale, and not one for those who have low tolerance for accounts of raw greed. A favorite quote:
Who has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.No, that’s not a cynic talking—that’s the auto industry’s own market researchers and executives.
Bradsher sees little relief from the scourge, and worries about what will happen when the current crop of SUVs starts to age and have mechanical problems, and show up on the used market to be purchased by less capable drivers such as youths and drunks.
Some good SUV links today: Philip Greenspun wonders how SUVs can remain fashionable when only unfashionable people (e.g.. middle-aged suburban parents) drive them. On a geekier note, he also considers Java to be the SUV of programming tools.
Kos meanwhile finds it a bit ironic that Arnold Schwarzenegger is campaigning on a platform of clean air, water, and the environment when he drives a Hummer. Actually, it’s worse than Kos realized: he owns six Hummers, and as Bradsher recounts, Schwarzenegger was the person most responsible for the commercial introduction of the formerly military-only vehicle.
Finally, a look at the SUV of the future, at the classic SUV poseur site.
21 September 03
Waffles and Crosswords
Today was really lazy—gearing up for the week. We used to make pancakes on Sundays, before the Achilles incident. Today we actually took ourselves out to breakfast to Cafe Bernardo, where we had waffles (with pecan butter), spilled tea, and read the paper. We also managed a quick trip next door to Newsbeat, where I was able finally to browse all kinds of magazines I’ve been missing. I feel as though I’m emerging a bit from my cave.
A few weeks ago a friend brought over a book of Sunday crossword puzzles, “slightly easier than the New York Times.” She had suffered an injury herself a few years before and knew it was hard to concentrate on reading for hours at a stretch. I must confess to a new and sort of shameful addiction here. They’re easy enough almost to finish each one, and there are so many blank ones left I don’t feel pressure to finish anyway. Some of them are better than others; there are multiple authors. I’m definitely getting a sense of the personalities of the different authors by now.
14 September 03
Go Forth Into The Land North Of Putah Creek
We went on two outings today north into Yolo County today, both of them auspicious.
The first was going on a bicycle ride together! Given that we’re both still members of the walking wounded, it was a joyous thing to be out and about on bicycles again. This was something of a dry run for Pica cycling to work this week: we cycled into campus to pick up the Sunday newspaper. Pica led on her trike Lila and I followed on my hybrid named Red Dragon. It was neither a long or speedy trip (four miles round trip) but it’s great to be doing things by bike again.
The second was travelling to Woodland to attend an interfaith Celebration of Abraham. This was put on jointly by members of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities in the Davis and Woodland area. The celebration, which featured prayers, music and readings about Abraham from all three faiths, was held in the gym of the Holy Rosary Community Center up in Woodland. It was a packed event, with perhaps 400 people in attendence, from both Davis and Woodland. The event was introducted by Randy Ros, an attorney from Lodi who has been instrumental in organizing the gatherings, first in Lodi and then in several other towns in the Central Valley. We closed out the ceremony by washing hands and breaking bread together. It’s wonderful to live where there are enough interested people to make such a gathering possible, and I hope that this marks the start of a long tradition of interfaith celebrations, rather than just a one-time event.
13 September 03
Scrutinizing White Privilege
For the past two days I was participating in a diversity workshop run by the campus. Though it was not specifically about race, this culture is organized very much along racial lines, a racial hierarchy that includes class and other elements. Race was therefore an important topic over the two days.
The thing I learned most forcefully: that there will always be more to learn.
Owning up to, and acknowledging, the privileges that are mine because of my skin color is painful. I can rent or buy a house, I can expect to drive anywhere without being stopped by the police, I can shop in the market without being followed, I will be innocent until proven guilty: these things I take for granted; I don’t even notice them. My brothers and sisters of color do not experience life like this. They fear for their children’s safety on a constant basis. They experience much more subtle racism than perhaps their parents did, but they experience it all the time. Every day. The stories I heard made my skin crawl.
Another thing I learned is that there is not much impetus for the dominant culture—i.e. the culture that looks like me—to change. We have it too good. Any requests for a reconsideration of our position on the part of people of color are likely to be met with incomprehension, incredulity, or ridicule. “We’re bending over backwards,” the standard line runs. “We’re doing what we can. But we can only do so much…”
I believe we can do more, we whites who are tired of the way things are. We can encourage those around us to look at these things in a new way. It involves a lot, mostly the acknowledgement that the privilege we have is unearned and undeserved. That the fear we have, collectively, is mostly fear of the unknown, and the unknown can be learned about. It’s an opportunity we have. I believe our world can be richer for it. And I believe the consequences of not doing this will be disastrous.
30 August 03
Getting Moving Again
Yesterday was my first visit to the physical therapist’s since my injury. The doctor was a little worried I was getting started too early, but I assured him I’d be in good hands—this guy was recommended to me by a colleague who had had a similar injury who just raved about him.
It was exhilarating: not only was I told I was putting about 2 pounds on my foot (as opposed to the 20 or 30 the doctor said I could: how can you measure this kind of thing?), but I was able to produce some measurable flexing, which gave him a baseline from which to proceed. After about an hour he said okay, let’s get you on the stationary bike—right leg only.
It’s been a few weeks now since I did anything physical that caused me to sweat, but heavens it felt good! I’m really looking forward to this now. He’s going to work on strengthening the rest of my body so I’m better able to compensate for the left achilles, and upper body strength is a priority too. I am all fired up, ready to take this on, grateful my sister-in-law urged me to push for early PT intervention.
27 August 03
Sunset With Cam Walker
A homage to Coup de Vent. Pica watches the sunset from her reclining chair in front of the house.