We don't call vets with PTSD who freak out at the sound of a loud noise 'thin-skinned

The post the other day on the UAF First Amendment case has garnered a number of thoughtful comments.  I changed my initial assessment of the case when the faculty advisor of the newspaper wrote to say that the student who had been named in the piece not only gave permission to use her name, she insisted it be used. 

There were 16 comments up earlier today and I've just added a couple of long responses.

But I'm still disturbed by the lack of understanding of the epidemic of violence against women in Alaska and the dismissal of women who might be harmed by the newspaper's piece as 'thin-skinned.'  We don't call vets with PTSD who freak out at the sound of a loud noise 'thin-skinned.'  And women who have suffered long term sexual abuse shouldn't be considered 'thin-skinned'  if the kind of explicit sexual naming and shaming that was published in the student paper seriously disturbs them. 

I'm also disturbed by how our adversarial system pushes this into a win/lose debate.  In order for either side to win, it seems they must demean and diminish the other side.  The University should vigorously defend the First Amendment, but they should also, just as vigorously reach out to support those who are harmed by people's exercise of free speech.  In this case, the women likely to be hurt are people who have been traumatized in their lives by sexual harassment.  They've come to campus to escape that and find themselves trivialized and demeaned once again, this time not by a drunk abuser in a back room, but by the very university they thought would offer them a safe place to study. 

I wasn't on the Fairbanks campus while this was happening last year so I don't know for sure what the Chancellor and other university officials did to reach out to students who were hurt by all this.  The faculty member who filed the complaint emailed me and said that her department and a few others had many students come to them, but she was not aware of any official actions of the higher level officials to reach out to vulnerable students. 


But the stats from the CNN report cited in that first report tell us what anyone paying attention at all for the last 20 years should have known:   this problem is huge - about one in three Alaskan women have been raped or sexually assaulted according to one study.  Men, do your girlfriends, wives, daughters, or mothers have to be one of those statistics before you to do something to help end this epidemic of violence against women? 

Capitalism v. Democracy: Why The Free Market Needs Government To Work

I didn't study economics, but I've always scratched my head over what seemed to me glaring contradictions in capitalism.  Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom (which I've pointed out on here before) identified three gaps in the market that led to three legitimate  roles for government.  Friedman actually had four, but he grouped two and three together as one.  I'll treat them separately.

1.  Rule-maker and umpire - The market works only if the rules are fair and people fulfill follow them.  A business cannot function if it pays for supplies that are never delivered.    Our homes and our lives lose significant valued if someone can  build a noisy, stinky factory right on the property line.   Without a government to create rules - not just zoning laws, but rules for establishing a currency, for safety, for prohibitions against slavery and against fraud - and to enforce and adjudicate those rules, we have nothing but a free-for-all, where no one is secure. 

2.  Externalities - Friedman called these neighborhood effects back then: the costs that society as a whole, not the company that creates them, bears.  Costs such as pollution, resource depletion, social disruption, health care, loss of life, etc. that result from production (ie, the water use in fracking, water and air pollution in most manufacturing, habitat destruction to build factories); from sales and distribution (pollution caused by transportation of people and goods); and consumptions of products (injury, illness, and death from smoking, from automobile crashes, from gunshots).  Because these costs aren't captured in the price of the product, the efficiency that is supposed to be the hallmark of the market doesn't work.  Goods are sold for less than their actual cost and society as a whole, in effect, subsidizes the business.

3.  Natural Monopolies - These are often infrastructure and utilities, where the cost of multiple systems (such as sewers, electric lines, bridges) is so high that competition is not efficient.

4. Paternalistic Role - Taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves.  Friedman's example was 'madmen and children."  He's not comfortable with saying that government should step in, but he acknowledges that there are people who cannot take responsibility for themselves.




But there are lots of issues with the market system that Friedman doesn't mention in that classic book.  I was always confused, for example, when capitalism was equated to democracy (or freedom in Friedman's book title) and communism was declared undemocratic.  It seemed to me that communism and capitalism were economic systems and should be compared to other economic systems, not political systems.   Communism isn't inherently undemocratic.  Israeli kibbutzim seemed to be both communistic and extremely democratic.

Capitalism doesn't seem any more a guarantee of democracy than communism.  Capitalism thrived on slavery.  I don't think I thought about this connection between economics and freedom until people like Tom Hayden, in the 1970's, were talking about economic democracy,. Without economic equality, they said, you couldn't have democracy, because wealth could buy elections and politicians and then get laws that favored their interests.   Not only could money buy politicians, it could also buy voters, or at least, buy sophisticated marketing to sway voters.

More recently and specifically, as I watched salaries of corporate executives go up and up and up, I figured the only way to end the growing disparity in income and wealth was to put progressive taxes back on income with high earners taxed significantly.  They had been in the past, and when those taxes got cut severely, it seemed that they raised their salaries indecently on the hopes of amassing as much of a fortune as possible before new taxes were imposed.

Except, somehow, the Republicans have been able to block such taxes - not that the Democrats were asking for very much.

And now there's a French economist, Thomas Piketty’s  who has put all those ideas (and more) into a book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.  As I say frequently here, we are prone to believe what we want to believe.  And judging from the review of this book by Thomas B. Edsall in the New York Times, this book says what I believe to be true.

. . . He contends that capitalism’s inherent dynamic propels powerful forces that threaten democratic societies.

Capitalism, according to Piketty, confronts both modern and modernizing countries with a dilemma: entrepreneurs become increasingly dominant over those who own only their own labor. In Piketty’s view, while emerging economies can defeat this logic in the near term, in the long run, “when pay setters set their own pay, there’s no limit,” unless “confiscatory tax rates” are imposed.

There's a graph showing 'pure rate of return to capital (after tax and capital losses)' and the growth rate of the world output. There's only a short period in the the 20th Century where the return on capital got lower and economic growth rose, and inequality decreased.



[Video from Harvard University Press Website]


Did I grow up in a golden period that was just a temporary blip and now the power of wealth, liberated from strict government regulations, works to accumulate more and more wealth for fewer and fewer people?  Piketty seems to think so.

Edsall's review tells us that conservatives won't like the book and some liberals think his predictions are too harsh, that less than a world wide progressive income tax can stop the trend to economic inequity.   But one scholar Edsall cites, "Branko Milanovic, an economist in the World Bank’s research department" is effusive:

“I am hesitant to call Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the 21st Century one of the best books in economics written in the past several decades. Not that I do not believe it is, but I am careful because of the inflation of positive book reviews and because contemporaries are often poor judges of what may ultimately prove to be influential. With these two caveats, let me state that we are in the presence of one of the watershed books in economic thinking.”

The NY Times article only quoted Milanvic's first paragraph.  A little further into the paper, he talks about Piketty's earlier work and the influence it has already had on economics and every day language.

The prominence of the work of Piketty and his associates has also been helped by the revived interest in inequality which coincided with the onset of the Great Recession and the realization that in the United States incomes around the median have been stagnant in real terms for almost 40 years while the top 1%, or even more narrowly top 0.1 %, have dramatically increased their share of total income . The confluence of the rise in the political importance of inequality, best exemplified in the Occupy movement and the 99% vs. 1% slogan, had its empirical basis in the work done principally by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (2003) . Their famous graphs of the income shares of US top decile, top 1% and top 0.1% , showing that at the turn of the 21st century rich’s income shares approached the extremely high values from the roaring twenties, are now found all over the Internet and in many magazines and newspapers. But their origin goes back to Piketty’s 2001 book on top incomes in France.

The new book is nearly 700 pages.  The English translation doesn't come out until April, and I don't read French.  So I can only repeat what a few others have said about the book.  But what they describe him to be saying makes perfect sense to me.  It's not that the market doesn't make significant positive contributions to humanity.  It's just that blind faith in the market to solve all human problems has become part of the patriotic mantra of the right, and these market zealots fail to acknowledge that capitalism isn't perfect or that there is any legitimate role for government.  

I'm hopeful this book is as good as the reviewer and Milanovic think. But I hope the predictions of increasing inequality do not pan out.  And I think there is reason to believe they won't.  Not because he's wrong about the dynamics of capitalism, but

1.  Predictions about social behavior can often change that behavior.  As people become aware of their behavior, even collective behavior, they can change it.

2.  Unexpected events can intervene.  Just as Piketty cites the Great Depression and two World Wars of the 20t Century as interrupting the trend toward greater inequity, I would argue that other unexpected events can interfere in the future.  I hope these don't have to be wars or depressions.

3.  I do believe that there is a push toward balance in most things.  Systems theory talks about equilibrium.  As things go too far out of economic balance, people will find ways to bring things back.  Unfortunately, it may include serious violence if those in power resist any sort of balancing.  While we may have had severe imbalance in the past, now that we have seen the possibility of more political and economic equality, it will be harder to take it away.  Only through a minimal standard of living, can this be prevented.  But the systems in place now to destroy labor and the gains of labor - secure jobs, decent wages, pensions - will eventually lead to a backlash if not moderated.

But, from the hints I got from the reviews, Piketty would say that the wealth will be able to control people's thinking through control of media.  If  the recent rejection of net neutrality in court decisions continues, this period of unprecedented dissemination of ideas, could end.

But why should we bother ourselves with such gloomy topics when the Winter Olympics are on?  

For those who might want to bother, here's a link to lectures Piketty has given recently in English mostly, as well as French. 

Out North's Waking Up From Its Coma

Last summer, Out North shut down.  There'd been rumors of problems, grants not extended, etc.  I didn't write about it at that time because I didn't know much and because it was too painful.  Out North has offered Anchorage a door to another world that isn't often seen here - a world of art and theater and performance that pushes limits and makes audience members reassess what they believe.  For me, that's one of the criteria for great art.


We'd heard rumors that that Out North might be coming out of its coma, and last night it was official.  There's a new board and new enthusiasm, and maybe soon new money.




Coming out of a coma is a good metaphor and it was echoed in the movie that showed after, The Wisdom Tree.

Earth Null School

I know that kids looking at these maps would have lots of questions.  This old kid certainly does.  And that is a teachable moment.  What are the moving lines? (When you go to the originals, the wind currents are moving)

Screenshot from Earth Null School

I started running my cursor over things until I found the magic button - the word 'earth' in the lower left.  I cut it out in the screenshot above because I hadn't discovered it yet.  Here it is in another view.

Screenshot from Earth Null School

And when you click on 'earth' you get this panel of controls.

Screenshot from Earth Null School  Need to click earth to get this view

And the residuals of my Chinese are good enough that I know the link on the lower right is to a Japanese version.  

Go have a look.  Play with it yourself.  Watch the wind currents flow.  The water currents don't move quickly enough to see.  At least I didn't see them moving.  The middle image is "Projection CE"  and when I tried to look that up, I kept getting civil engineering.  But when I got the URL it says conic equidistant.  ArcGis defines this as:

"This conic projection can be based on one or two standard parallels. As its name implies, all circular parallels are spaced evenly along the meridians. This is true whether one or two parallels are used as the standards."

If you want to know more go to the ArcGis link.  

My friend B knows how to distract me by sending links like this. 

[UPDATE Feb. 24, 2014 -  Retired aviation technology professor Bill Butler commented here and sent me a longer email which is now a follow up guest post here.  It goes into more detail on Mercator maps and Lambert's maps.]

Bragaw Extension Opposition Meeting at 5:15pm Tonight At AK Regional Hospital

February 7, 2014, 5:15 to 7 p.m.
Alaska Regional Hospital's First Floor
IVY Room #1

AGENDA
   5:15 to 5:45 p.m. will be an open discussion.
   5:45 to 6:20 p.m. UMed Neighbor Representatives.
   6:20 to 6:45 p.m. Group discussion

A group of folks who haven't given up yet in fighting the road through the UAA campus that was budgeted in the last moments of the legislature last year, are meeting to continue that fight.  Here's an email I got about it:

A meeting concluded this last week.  It was a group of tired community members. For many it had been more than a decade of meetings held by professional planning engineers.  The fiscal responsibilities for the professional’s project meetings with the public were required.  They were designing a road that would cost millions.   The people who have followed the ongoing attempts to put a road through work in this Center, or are students, patients, residents, and a large number of sport enthusiasts, walkers or bikers.
   A large percentage of the new road users would be going to Southern Anchorage or the highway south. This type of traffic would add a new population of travelers through Anchorage’s richest enterprises.
   The number one employer (health) in the state is found most in this district,
and the largest university (education), plus a burgeoning support industry.
   The folks at the meeting were those who knew the tough impacts the damaging
project would cast on a wealth of unique resources in this one special place.
   As one member put it, "We must be working to build world-class health and
education campuses." Followed by, "How are we doing?" That question drove thegroup to a commitment of action.

Tonight, at the end of the citizen comments. There will be a UMed community paneldiscussion. Professors, doctors, Community Council officers and other neighbors will outline the hazardous impacts. Key also, asking how such investment in one small group’s unexplained desire, could have ignored the actual words of so many citizens!

I've agreed to be on the panel because I think this is an important call.  Gotta run and prepare.  

Turban Outfitters - He Saw What Others Didn't

I couldn't resist this one. 

From Metro UK:

Mr Singh, a councillor for Drake Ward in Plymouth, said he was on a shopping trip in Exeter when he had ‘one of those eureka moments’ while standing outside the store.
‘It was the first Sunday where I had nothing in the diary so I said to my wife, let’s got to Exeter for a chill out day. We went by train and while we were there I thought I’d get some shoes.
‘I went into the store, asked for a pen and some paper and started to draw the T out,’ he told the Plymouth Herald.
‘People were chuckling as they walked past. One guy realised what we were doing and said it was just amazing.’

Blog Invasion - Trying To Figure Out What's Going On

Yesterday I had, according to Sitemeter,  744 hits. (Google Analytics says 1,192 which is about normal for them).   Sitemeter had been showing around 225 to 300 individual hits a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. Here's what the last seven days look like.  There were already 33 hits in the first half hour after midnight today. 

That's a pretty noticeable spike.    Below is today at 12:30pm.  I already have more hits than all of yesterday.  (Yellow are discrete visits, orange are page views)

Normally, when I get a spike like this, it's because I've put up a post that gets a lot of hits from links on other blogrolls, or some high profile website(s) has linked to a post.   That's not the case here.

A lot of the hits were coming from Bulgaria, Romania, Venezuela, Poland, and Spain, but also Greece and Turkey.  They were going mostly to posts that haven't been looked at in months.  There would be spurts of three or four hits on the same  few post in a ten minutes, sometimes within two minutes, then it would be on to other posts.  

There are old posts that get hits everyday.  Usually ones I never expected would become so popular over time - Alaskan Seemantham, How to Grow Tamarind Seeds, Fruit fly or Fungus Gnat? for example.  But yesterday people were hitting posts that just haven't been visited very often since they were originally posted, and many would seem to have limited appeal to Bulgarians or Poles. 

What's going on?  I don't know, but I thought I'd post this in case others are experiencing things like this.  Or if someone knows what's happening.

• Has google changed its algorithm?
• Is my blog being taken over by hackers?  
• Has sitemeter started reporting differently?

One particular post will suddenly get hits.  Then it fades away and another post gets the action.  Posts that have lain there unviewed for months.  Why is this happening?  Why these little clusters for a short period on one post and then a new one on another post.  It's like bees coming to one flower and sucking out the nectar and then moving on to another.

Does this have anything to do with another puzzling sitemeter reading?  The user, Feb. 2, was identified as Carlson and Partners in New York.  But the time was Alaska time rather than Eastern time and the eight pages on my blog it went to were the same pages I had gone to at about the exact same time.  Did Sitemeter mix up my search and their info?  Or had they invaded my computer and somehow followed me?  They're an advertising firm, but there's not much available about them today.  The company's founder, from what I can tell, Sandra Carlson, was closely connected with Ralph Lauren and had that account until she died in a car crash in 2003.  After that, I can't find anything. Not even a company website. 

I noticed once before that an advertising agency, Edelman, that had Anglo-American as a client, had visited a Pebble Mine related post..  And I've read that Edelman monitors the internet for their clients and even post comments.  I got a comment on that post not long after the Edelman hit that sounded suspiciously like a company flack hit job.


Here's the kind of thing I'm seeing:

http://whatdoino-ste...to-tok-in-13000.html
Greece  1:45
Turkey   1:45
Indonesia 1:46 

Here's what things looked like between 2:02pm (Alaska time) and 2:32pm yesterday.  I've left out eight hits that looked normal (I could see search terms or the links that got them here and they were all US or Canadian time zones.)  I do get various foreign hits every day, but these patterns are strange. (I also added in a couple before 2:02 that went to the same pages.)

From 2:02pm  to 2:32 pm

http://whatdoino-ste...g-so-well-these.html\
Venezuela 2:02  200.8.58.216
(There had been one from a Polish computer at 1:51, one from Chile at 1:53, one from Spain at 1:53;)

 http://whatdoino-ste...14/01/1972-book.html
Venezuela 2:06  190.79.100.245
Venezuela  2:10pm
Romania  2:11pm

 http://whatdoino-ste...g-so-well-these.html
Thai  2:06pm


http://whatdoino-ste...w-year-of-horse.html
Greek language 2:02pm 
????  - 2:07  11 hour time difference

http://whatdoino-ste...rday-films-benz.html
Mexico 2:07pm
UK (Brighton) 2:10pm
(There'd been one from Brazil at 1:55, and a French language one at 1:58)

http://whatdoino-ste...3_07_01_archive.html
Italy 2:08


http://whatdoino-ste...errymandered_15.html
Italy 2:08
Italy 2:10
Romania 2:13
(there had been one from Spain at 1:47pm and Venezuela at 1:48  201.243.123.246 ^?)

http://whatdoino-ste...lks-race-at-uaa.html
Turkey 2:13pm
Brazil  2:22 


http://whatdoino-ste...cidental-racist.html
???  2:18  11 hour time difference

 http://whatdoino-ste...eeting-victoria.html
Venezuela 2:13pm  201.209.4.13
Venezuela 2:26   190.79.8.59 ^?

 http://whatdoino-ste...gs-at-off-chain.html
Bangkok  2:18
Says USA, but the computer language is Russian and there's an 11 hour time difference 2:25   
(There had been one from Spain at 1:51pm)

 http://whatdoino-ste...o-start-and-end.html
Serbia 2:23 
Tunisia 2:32

http://whatdoino-ste...n-back-we-go-to.html
????  2:12   9 hour time difference
Macedonia 2:29 
(There'd been a Spanish language (es 41) at 1:54pm)
  I did check the IP addresses of some from Venezuela and as you can see they don't match, though two are really close.

Am I just being paranoid?  Is it just a mistake at Sitemeter?  Should I just be happy that suddenly my blog was discovered?  Or is someone messing with my blog?  

So, anyone have any ideas what's going on?  As I post this at 3:22pm I already have 962 hits today.  
 

Violence Against Women In Alaska - CNN Special Report - UAF's Campus Newspaper

[I'm not sure how to write this post.  It's about outrageous postings about women and rape, how the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)'s student newspaper handled them, and how the University itself handled it all.  And the underlying lack of concern about violence against women in Alaska. I decided, last night, after looking around for more information, that I had too many questions to post this story yet.  

But then this morning a friend emailed me a link to a CNN report on Alaska's off-the-chart rates of violence toward women.   It seemed I had to post something.  I have too many unpublished posts sitting, waiting to be 'good enough' to post.  This is too important to be ignored.  I don't have any answers, but I have some of the questions.   So, I'm basically just giving you an overview and throwing it out for others to think about.  This is stuff happening in our state, in our cities and towns, every day while most of us look away.  I have to post this, rather than look away.]

[UPDATE 2/7/14:  A comment from Robyne [see below] who identifies herself as the student newspaper advisor says that the student wanted her name in the newspaper.  If that's the case, it changes my key issue here, but not all the contextual issues.  She also says that the article helped to raise the issues for discussion on campus.]

A Facebook post last night sent me to a blog by Fairbanks faculty member Sine Anahita lamenting the university's tolerance of 'slut-shaming' in the student newspaper.  She cites a report that exonerates the newspaper and finds no sexual harassment [is protected]:

"University of Alaska Fairbanks has determined that sexual harassment of women in the student newspaper and online is constitutionally protected. The university’s general counsel’s office, the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity (D&EO), and an outside attorney hired by the university to review my Title IX complaint all agreed that the Sun-Star exercised its right to free speech when it published two articles that sexually harass women. Read details about this issue here: http://wp.me/p3HWTd-1w"

In another post she focused on a story in the UAF Sun Star that used screenshots from a FB confession page that named a specific student.  Here's an excerpt from an article from the following week's edition of the Sun Star about the original story.  I've blocked out the student's name which was in the original Sun Star piece.  

"On Tuesday Apr. 16, the UAF Confessions page administrator posted a “confession” that crossed the line for some of its audience. The post read, “Like if you’ve fucked xxxx xxxxx. Comment if it was a 3 some!” The post immediately received criticism from users surprised that the page administrator would allow the sexually explicit content targeted at UAF communications student and graduate teaching assistant XXXX XXXX."

All the comments cited on the confessions page express disgust at the posting and shock that it's being left up with the name.  Partly that's the purpose of the First Amendment - to get things out and get them debated.  But leaving in the name seems to go too far.  I can't articulate it more than that yet, which is why I wanted to wait on this.  But imagine your sister or daughter or son, for that matter,  being named that way in a newspaper which is still online almost a year later.  Anyone who googles her name would find it on the student newspaper website.  Something is just wrong there.

I must also add that the article in the paper quotes the student named in the piece.

“I hold no ill will to anyone that has created this page or message, but it did make me stop think [sic]: Here I am, a graduate student at UAF with so much to feel good about in my life, and an anonymous person calls me out on a UAF public forum for my sexuality,” XXXXX said in reflection. “Mostly, I think it is interesting that calling out a woman for her sexual activities is still the way that men (and women) put other women down.”  [Again, I xxx'd out the name]

Maybe she's a lot more sexually liberated than most of us.  Or maybe she's putting up a good front.  I have no way to evaluate at this point. 

As I say, I wasn't going to post on this yet.  But this morning someone sent me a link to a CNN special report.   CNN sent John D. Sutter to Alaska to report on our off-the-charts rates of  violence against women.  

The extent of Alaska's problem with violence against women is both horrifying and clear: Alaska's per capita rate of reported rape is the highest in the country, according to 2012 FBI crime data. An estimated 80 rapes are reported in Alaska for every 100,000 people. That's nearly three times the national average of 27; and almost seven times the rate in New Jersey, the state where reported rape is least common. Those comparisons are imperfect, of course. But localized surveys in Alaska paint an even bleaker picture. A majority of women – 59% -- have experienced sexual or intimate partner violence, which includes physical violence and threats; and 37%, nearly four in 10, have been raped or sexually assaulted, according to a survey of 871 adult women in Alaska, published in 2010.

I couldn't find the actual University report  that finds the postings constitutionally protected, so I emailed blogger and professor Anahita about its availability.  She wrote back:

"The report is not online, but it was sent to several news organizations. I can't share it with you because I think it would be unethical. There are many documents in the report that are clearly marked CONFIDENTIAL. But I'm happy to summarize the contents."

It's a little ironic that the newspaper can, without permission, publish a student's name connected to her sexual behavior written anonymously, but the report investigating it is confidential. [Note comment by Robyne below who says the student insisted that her name be put into the piece.  That would change my biggest objection here.  The person who does the insulting isn't able to reveal his name, but his intended victim has no problem standing up and identifying herself.  That changes the dynamics.]

I am a strong supporter of First Amendment rights, but there are exceptions to them, like shouting fire in crowded theater.  The rationale there is that people might get trampled and hurt in the ensuing panic.  I can't see how people, particularly women, aren't emotionally trampled by such posts, especially given the situation here in Alaska.  But the "Fire" example isn't as clear cut as it seems. There are libel and slander laws that also limit free speech. 

The University of Alaska Free Speech policy is pretty clear:

P01.02.010. Freedom of Speech.

A.

An environment of free and honest inquiry is essential to the functioning and the mission of the university. The board and the university therefore acknowledge, affirm, and espouse the right of freedom of speech as guaranteed in the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Alaska. The essential purpose of the university is to engage in the pursuit of truth, the advancement of learning and the dissemination of knowledge. To achieve this purpose, all members of the university must be assured of the constitutionally protected right to question, speculate, and comment, as well as the right to criticize the university and society at large.

B.

The university will not limit or abridge any individual's constitutional right to free speech.

What happens when it conflicts with the  University policies on Sexual Harassment?

University of Alaska Policy Regarding Sexual Harassment

P04.02.022. Sexual Harassment.
A. The university will not tolerate inappropriate sexual or sexually harassing behavior and seeks to prevent such conduct toward its students, employees and applicants for employment. Violation of this policy may lead to discipline of the offending party.
B. Since some members of the university community hold positions of authority that may involve the legitimate exercise of power over others, it is their responsibility to be sensitive to that power. Faculty and supervisors in particular, in their relationships with students and subordinates, need to be aware of potential conflicts of interest and the possible compromise of their evaluative capacity. Because there is an inherent power difference in these relationships, the potential exists for the less powerful person to perceive a coercive element in suggestions regarding activities outside those inherent in the professional relationship.
C. It is the responsibility of faculty and staff to behave in such a manner that their words or actions cannot reasonably be perceived as sexually coercive, abusive, or exploitative. Sexual harassment also can occur in relationships among equals as when repeated unwelcome advances, demeaning verbal behavior, or offensive physical contact interfere with an individual's ability to work or study productively. Consensual sexual conduct that unreasonably interferes with other employees’ work or creates a hostile, intimidating or offensive working or learning environment constitutes sexual harassment for purposes of this policy.
D. The university is committed to providing an environment of study and work free from sexual harassment and to ensuring the accessibility of appropriate procedures for addressing all complaints regarding sexual harassment. Nothing contained in this sexual harassment policy will be construed or applied to limit or abridge any person’s constitutional right to freedom of expression or to infringe upon the legitimate academic freedom or right of due process of any member of the university community.

Apparently free speech trumps harassment.   I wonder what would happen if students started testing the limits of free speech in class.  "Professor, did you fuck your wife last night?  Is that why you haven't graded our papers yet?"  I wonder whether the student's free speech rights would be upheld. 

In another post, Anahita shares some of the hate mail aimed at her.  I was confused about whether this came to her website or not and asked her that by email.  She responded:

"The comments that I posted in "Misogynist Hate" on my blog were from blogs on other sites. I have not been able to trace the origins of most of them. I found them by searching for my name and Title IX. Some of them have been deleted or I get a "page not found" error. There was a period in November when there were dozens of them, but now there are fewer hits." 

 I don't claim to know what motivates someone to write and post this sort of stuff.  But unless we try to understand it, things aren't going to change.  These are troubled people.  I post some of the comments for same reason Anahita does "As an antidote to the online hate, and as a way to contribute to the data about online misogyny."

“She’s so ugly I wouldn’t rape her with a dead man’s penis.”
“She would never, even if she was the only woman on an island with thousands of men, have to worry about being raped.”
“if THAT is a picture of her, i think she “doth protest to much” as a reaction to her inner desire to partake in the sex she doesn’t stand a chance of ever getting.”
“What that femiNazi needs to do is go in search of a sense of humor. That is not sexual harassment; true sexual harassment is something she need never worry about, judging from her mouth and her photo.”
“Dear Feminists, Please get a Life . Perhaps get laid, get over yourselves we are tired of hearing from your twisted little selves”

Sutter, in the CNN piece, writes:  

I asked [UAA Justice Center director] Rosay  what researchers had done to try to make sense of [the high violence rates against women.] Had there been efforts to interview rapists? To understand what life experiences may have led them to rape? Or to try to figure out what might stop perpetrators from raping again?

No, he said. Not to his knowledge.

But, he offered: Maybe that would help.

That conversation and others like it led me to the small community where I met Sheldon – and to the decision to focus on offenders rather than victims. A common refrain from women's rights activists is that "rape won't stop until men stop raping."

I couldn't agree more. Victims aren't to blame; rapists are. [emphasis added]

I've sometimes thought of interviewing prisoners about how they got there.  Without understanding what sort of life history leads to the mean, hateful comments and to actual violence, we can't take action to meaningfully reduce the incidence of violence against women.  

I'm leery of abridging Free Speech.  It's how people express their ideas and feelings. It's how we keep a free society.   And letting people express their vile feelings and thoughts is a way to find out what lurks in our communities.  Isn't it better to know these thoughts are there?  But once we know these things, our institutions - like the legislature and the university - have responsibilities to act to alleviate the conditions that give rise to the kinds of hatefulness that is expressed.  And to give protection and comfort to those targeted.  I understand some of this may simply be adolescent bravado said thoughtlessly, and with no real intent at harm.  But when things are posted on the internet, they take on a life far beyond anything in the past.  And some is serious and does intend harm.   I still don't think the student's name should have been published.  Part of being a responsible journalist is knowing that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Does such speech fuel violence against women or is it merely a symptom of the things that cause violence against women?  How does such speech affect women?  Not just the named student, but other women who could be named by other people?  How does such speech affect other men who hear it?  Does it make it more acceptable?  What possible benefit comes from publishing the student's name in the student paper?  How can we as individuals, as residents of Alaska, and as parents, as elected officials, and as professionals in schools and hospitals and the media change what's happening? 

In a democracy, we're all responsible for what we let happen.  If we don't vote, if we don't support good candidates, if we don't voice our opinions regularly, we're part of the problem.   The legislators we elect do or don't pass good laws, do or don't appropriate funds to help eliminate the conditions that lead such hatred.  I understand that some of this is simply human behavior and eliminating it altogether is not going to happen.  But it happens much more in Alaska, if the numbers are to be believed, and so we are responsible for getting those numbers down.  "Numbers down."  How cold and abstract.  We're responsible for protecting women from abusive men, from their abusive words, from their unwanted touch, from their violations.

[Feb 7:  Follow up post here:  We don't call vets with PTSD who freak out at the sound of a loud noise 'thin-skinned']

[UPDATE June 18, 2014:  The University of Alaska system was added to a list of colleges and universities being investigated for Title IX violations, including sexual assault.]

Colorado Legalizing Marijuana Leads to Denver's Superbowl Debacle

That's the kind of simplistic cause and effect thinking we see so much of on the web.  Our tendency to, without any thought,  use events, to support what we believe, has become rampant.  (OK, I'm not sure it's more rampant now than in the past, but the net lets us see it more.) 

But given that Washington State also legalized marijuana, they should have lost badly too, by the title's logic.  But if you really want to believe that legal marijuana is the devil, you could still argue that Colorado is far ahead of Washington in terms of actually selling it. 

Or, we could leap off another illogical cliff and say legalizing marijuana will get your team into the Superbowl. 

Michele Norris Talks Race At UAA

For people who listen to NPR at lot, getting to see a familiar voice, like Michele Norris', is an interesting reckoning of what your ears hear and your imagination conjures up.

Norris spoke at UAA on January23, 2014


Below is a bit of video of her talk.


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The main focus was race and her Race Card Project - which asks people to send her 6 word stories about race.  Here are some examples from the race card website:

Place change in my hand, please.

I trusted adults that taught hate.

I don’t know my Native language.

Unlawliness: One of my White Luxuries.

Momee, why did you hit me?

 Many have longer explanations and comments.  At the Race Card Project website you can add your own card or comment on other folks' cards. 

In the video she talks a bit about topics like "post racial" and whether 'race' is bad, the end of racism, how to make people comfortable about talking about race,  and how people overseas find the US's multicultural imagery as very attractive.   It was  a surprisingly warm and comfortable evening discussing a topic that isn't normally so easy, especially in mixed company. 


[UPDATE March 12, 2014: Viddler video replaced by YouTube]