Author: mklang

Environmentalism and Class

On the one hand environmentalism is science – irrefutable and extremely difficult to interpret socially, but it’s solutions are not. Well so I thought but my eyes were opened a bit wider after reading Monbiot’s article Flying Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on the connection between class struggle and environmentalism

If you understand and accept what climate science is saying, you need no further explanation for protests against airport expansion. But if… you refuse to accept that manmade climate change is real, you must show that the campaign to curb it is the result of an irrational impulse. The impulse they choose, because it’s an easy stereotype and it suits their prolier-than-thou posturing, is the urge to preserve the wonders of the world for the upper classes. “Cheap flights”, O’Neill claims, “has become code for lowlife scum, an issue through which you can attack the “underclass”, the working class and the nouveau riche with impunity.”(24)

The connection seems obvious, doesn’t it? More cheap flights must be of greatest benefit to the poor. A campaign against airport expansion must therefore be an attack on working-class aspirations. It might be obvious, but it’s wrong.

Working with empirical evidence Monbiot shows that the working class are not the primary users or even the intended users of cheap flights. The working class, it seems, does not fill the airlines of the world even when the tickets are priced at close to zero.

This is very interesting since confusing the science of climate change with issues of social and class justice are a wonderful way of creating counter arguments against “hard” science. If cheap air fares are not about class then the question is not about the “right to fly” but should be focused on making the travelers pay their own environmental costs.

Posted on by mklang

Another photographer arrested in London

The UK has adopted and intepreted the silliest anti-terrorist laws – they have created a state of paranoia which is hard for any sensible person to explain or understand.

The Independent reports that artist and photographer Ruben Powell was arrested last week his photographing of the old HMSO print works close to the local police station posed an unacceptable security risk.

For Powell, this brush with the law resulted in five hours in a cell after police seized the lock-blade knife he uses to sharpen his pencils. His release only came after the intervention of the local MP, Simon Hughes, but not before he was handcuffed and his genetic material stored permanently on the DNA database.

The Independent gives even more examples of people who have run afoul of the strangest intepretation of misguided security. Not only are phographers being seen as suspicious in one way or another. Another sad thing is that the data is stored permanently in the DNA database even when no crime has been committed.

Security is a bad joke creating a social paranoia beyond belief. Common sense has been suspended and seems to be nowhere in sight.

Posted on by mklang

Popeye and friends

Elzie Crisler Segar died in October in 1938 – as of 1 January this year he has been dead for 70 years which means that his artistic works have now entered into the public domain. Among the best known of Segar’s work is Popeye the Sailor and now the famous spinache eating strong man and all his friends and enemies are free to use. The strangest of the characters must be his friend and cowardly straight-man Wimpy

wimpy-from-popeye1

More details over at Cearta.

Posted on by mklang

Basic tip on essay writing

The new term has begun with new lectures and repeats of some old ones. Last week I gave a repeat performance (well for me at least) of my essay writing lecture. The main point is to get students thinking about their essays in time as well as getting them to understand how to write an essay. Then today I came across this wonderful quote from Antoine de Saint Exupéry the author of, among other books, The Little Prince

The way to get people to build a ship is not to teach them carpentry, assign them tasks, and give them schedules to meet; but to inspire them to long for the infinite immensity of the sea.

The problem with poetic and romantic quotes such as these is that they presents a misleading view of much of the world. All too many essay writers attempt (and many succeed) in writing an essay with no clear idea of what an essay is. You would never think of asking someone who has never seen a house to build you one?

The trick is get students to understand this.

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The best laid plans…

So at the beginning of the New Year I decided to plan, or at least, organize myself. As soon as I managed to define a vague plan of action I got sciatic pains that prevented me from working for a longer period of 10 minutes at a time. Then, today on the first real day of work – feeling a bit better and ready for action I readied myself for an intense morning of writing only to be reminded that I was due to give a lecture (I had forgotten).

After the lecture and a foodless lunch break I was interviewed by a PhD student writing her thesis on PhD academic bloggers. The result of the lecture and sitting still during the interview was the return of lower back pain.

Eventually realizing it was time to give up attempts to work I left and went to the gym for a yoga class – a great way to fix the ache in my back. Very relaxing.

So despite the best laid plans no real amount of work was produced… ah well there is always tomorrow.

Posted on by mklang

Jarrar free speech t-shirt case settled

In 2006 the Transportation Security Administration and JetBlue demanded Raed Jarrar to sit at the back of a 2006 flight from New York to Oakland because his shirt read “We Will Not Be Silent” in English and Arabic (According to a civil rights lawsuit) one TSA official commented that the Arabic lettering was akin to wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, “I am a robber.”

As a protest you can now buy t-shirts with the text – “I am not a terrorist” written in Arabic – all profits will be sent to the ACLU. Get them here.

TSA officials and JetBlue Airways are paying $240,000 to settle (.pdf) a discrimination lawsuit against a District of Columbia man who, as a condition of boarding a domestic flight, was forced to cover his shirt that displayed Arabic writing (via Wired).

For other examples with free expressions and clothing see Are we losing out right to dissent? and Are we secure yet?

Posted on by mklang

File Sharing and Cannibalization

Fred Benenson comments the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV album over at the Creative Commons blog. The album is a great example that tears apart the arguments put forward by many “content” industry know-it-alls.

The argument, often repeated, is that putting material online will destroy all sales and therefore profits. There are several examples of books making great sales even after the content has been made available for free online. But thick academic books have been seen as a strange exception to the rule. In a recent discussion with a Swedish publisher they included the condition that making material available online only could work in English books – the Swedish market was too small to cope.

But books are not the only successful free content. The Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV album is available online via file sharing networks – the entire content was licensed via Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA) which allowed users to download it legally and many, many did so. But the fascinating thing is that Ghosts I-IV is ranked the best selling MP3 album of 2008 on Amazon’s MP3 store.

NIN Best Selling MP3 AlbumNIN’s Creative Commons licensed Ghosts I-IV has been making lots of headlines these days.

First, there’s the critical acclaim and two Grammy nominations, which testify to the work’s strength as a musical piece. But what has got us really excited is how well the album has done with music fans. Aside from generating over $1.6 million in revenue for NIN in its first week, and hitting #1 on Billboard’s Electronic charts, Last.fm has the album ranked as the 4th-most-listened to album of the year, with over 5,222,525 scrobbles.

The natural question is why fans bother buying files that were identical to the ones on the file sharing networks? According to Fred explanations vary from the convenience and ease of use of NIN and Amazon’s MP3 stores to the desire of fans to support the music and career of musicians they like.

The point is that “the next time someone tries to convince you that releasing music under CC will cannibalize digital sales, remember that Ghosts I-IV broke that rule, and point them here.”

Posted on by mklang

More crap in the kitchen

How much unnecessary technological crap can you fit in a kitchen? Obviously this depends on your definition of unnecessary, technological and crap – in addition to the size of your wallet and kitchen. But taking a walk through the aisles of kitchen products available is a frightening display of the excellent collaboration between product developers and marketing departments.

In much of the developed world the basic kitchen contains a cooker, an oven, a fridge and a freezer. Beyond this some would argue that the microwave is a basic necessity but after that things get more complicated since the line between necessary and unnecessary becomes blurred and ever more subjective and difficult: Is a toaster a necessity? What about a coffeemaker?

Even if we limit this exploration to those products that require a powersource the list is impressive: A bread maker, rice maker, pizza maker, popcorn maker, juice maker, kitchen aid, electic knife sharpener, milk foamer, egg boiler, juicer and sandwich maker…

pizza

popcorn1 eggs

Of these strange products that surprise and annoy me the most are the ones which are completely unnecessary – I know the term is vague – the pizza maker, the egg boiler and popcorn maker are all excellent examples of products which do not really increase efficiency in the kitchen. These three machines do not make the tasks of boiling eggs, poping corn or making pizza any easier. They are products which show the great advances which can be made so long as there is a strong marketing department creating desire.

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Peeing women bad for the environment

The Vatican seems to have nothing better to do than to blame women for polluting the environment and male infertility.

The contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said Saturday. The pill “has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature” through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report.

It’s not enough for the church to have stupid religious reasons against the use of birth control it now feels the need to add quasi scientific motivations to support its arguments. Women peeing is obviously what we should be concentrating our efforts on rather than the tonnes of other environmental threats.

(via Feministing)

Posted on by mklang

Planning less for 2009

In the past I have always thought of New Years resolutions as being useless and lame since people should implement change when they need it and not save it for the 31 December. But 2008 flashed past in a blur and I want to know what really happened, why do I still feel like I am stuck in a different time zone – my body is still somewhere in September. Sure I have done lots of stuff and enjoyed most of it, there is still a residual feeling of restlessness.

So this year needs a better plan than the last one (which failed). Not really sure what the plan will contain even though the year has already begun and tomorrow is the first real day back at the office. What I do know now that I am actively making plans is that 2009 will contain less projects not more. More focus on the stuff I need to do and less small projects which make other people happy, eat up my time but lead (in the end) nowhere.

So what will 2009 contain? Natually teaching, blogging, photography as usual. But I want to carry through a larger writing project, something I have been on about before but still not managed to put this time into my schedule. Once the plans are set I hope also to be better at sticking to them.

Not sure this will be better or more fun but I think I will enjoy working on it.

Posted on by mklang