| Futurama | Weeknights, 9p/8c | |||
| Bureaucrat's Song | ||||
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How Hermes Requisitioned his Groove Back.
Courtesy of Classmate Kristen and Comedy Central.
Last Post/Reflection
17 years ago
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Requisition Me a Beat! Futurama-Style!
How Hermes Requisitioned his Groove Back.
Courtesy of Classmate Kristen and Comedy Central.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
BUSA-Sponsored Study Group Meeting
The Berkeley Undergraduate Sociology Association will sponsor a review session to discuss the SOC 101B Midterm on Tuesday, April 14 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Barrows 420. If you attended the SOC 101A review sessions last semester, you'd probably attest that more than 50 minds brooding over an exam equals some really good ideas.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Week 11: Spontaneous, Brilliant Thoughts
This is a place for rambling thoughts, for spontaneous brilliant thoughts that just have to be written and cannot wait. A place to post something that comes to mind after lecture, or while reading, and that will generate spontaneous responses and a back and forth communication. So, freestyle your brilliance and post!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Playing Nice in School
I just wanted to quickly look at the role of the Spirit of Capitalism in our schools, which I know we all have lengthy experience with. I'm guessing the routine of jumping out of bed to get to high school, trying desperately not to fall asleep and then going back home to work on school work until some AM hour, might sound somewhat familiar. And now in college I know many of us feel perpetually behind on reading and every so often (or more often) lock ourselves in the library/dorm room/cafe and swear to catch up. 13 units is the minimum to be a full time student, and the University standard is that 3 hours should be spent outside of class time for each 1 unit. Thus 39 hours outside of the 13 hours is 52 hours per week. So we should be expecting 7 hours each day to spent on school each week as a full time student. In addition, we tend to want to spend time doing other things than reading Marx on the beach, like sleep, eating, trying new things and seeing friends. How can PE&SC give us new perspective on the role of the student?
Gossip Girls and Boys Learn to Be Nice
In this middle schools, the staff has felt the need to reteach or perhaps for the first time, how to be nice to others. The article cites busy schedules and workloads as placing pressure on children, perhaps leading them to ignore the finer sides of etiquette and kindness.
This Fall, More Sleep For Students In Wilton
And of course, students don't get sleep. Often in order to finish that deadline, students push to the side the necessity of sleeping enough so that you are not a zombie the next day.
Funny thing is that even as I write this, I feel guilty for suggesting that school may be structurally too taxing on students, and lazy for not simply committing myself to better time management and constant rigorous, focused work.
Gossip Girls and Boys Learn to Be Nice
In this middle schools, the staff has felt the need to reteach or perhaps for the first time, how to be nice to others. The article cites busy schedules and workloads as placing pressure on children, perhaps leading them to ignore the finer sides of etiquette and kindness.
This Fall, More Sleep For Students In Wilton
And of course, students don't get sleep. Often in order to finish that deadline, students push to the side the necessity of sleeping enough so that you are not a zombie the next day.
Funny thing is that even as I write this, I feel guilty for suggesting that school may be structurally too taxing on students, and lazy for not simply committing myself to better time management and constant rigorous, focused work.
The GodFatha
Opening Scene
Look at the exchange of favors and loyalty in action!
The scene where Salluzo talks with Michael at Louis':
"It was only business."
Look at the exchange of favors and loyalty in action!
The scene where Salluzo talks with Michael at Louis':
"It was only business."
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Specialization --> Iron Cage?
Treating an Illness Is One Thing. What About a Patient With Many?
By Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times
Published: March 30, 2009
Mazie Piccolo, 84, has so many health problems it’s hard to keep track: congestive heart failure, an abnormal heart rhythm, arthritis in her knees, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, gastric reflux, and depression.
What is striking about her predicament is not how rare it is, but how common. Two-thirds of people over age 65, and almost three-quarters of people over 80, have multiple chronic health conditions.
Yet people with multiple health problems — a condition known as multimorbidity — are largely overlooked both in medical research and in the nation’s clinics and hospitals. The default position is to treat complicated patients as collections of malfunctioning body parts rather than as whole human beings.
“Very often, there is nobody looking at the big picture or recognizing that what is best for the disease may not be best for the patient,” said Dr. Mary E. Tinetti, a geriatrician at the Yale School of Medicine. "And treating one disease in isolation, she added, can make another disease worse.
“As our population ages, we need some kind of overseer to juggle all the diagnoses and prescriptions and look for conflicts and duplications. This would also help to counteract the notion in many people’s minds that the doctor knows best — because often the doctor doesn’t.”
In a medical system geared toward individual organs and diseases, there is no champion for patients with multiple illnesses — no National Institute on Multimorbidity, no charity Race for the Multimorbidity Cure, no celebrity pressuring Capitol Hill for more research.
[...]
By Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times
Published: March 30, 2009
Mazie Piccolo, 84, has so many health problems it’s hard to keep track: congestive heart failure, an abnormal heart rhythm, arthritis in her knees, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, gastric reflux, and depression.
What is striking about her predicament is not how rare it is, but how common. Two-thirds of people over age 65, and almost three-quarters of people over 80, have multiple chronic health conditions.
Yet people with multiple health problems — a condition known as multimorbidity — are largely overlooked both in medical research and in the nation’s clinics and hospitals. The default position is to treat complicated patients as collections of malfunctioning body parts rather than as whole human beings.
“Very often, there is nobody looking at the big picture or recognizing that what is best for the disease may not be best for the patient,” said Dr. Mary E. Tinetti, a geriatrician at the Yale School of Medicine. "And treating one disease in isolation, she added, can make another disease worse.
“As our population ages, we need some kind of overseer to juggle all the diagnoses and prescriptions and look for conflicts and duplications. This would also help to counteract the notion in many people’s minds that the doctor knows best — because often the doctor doesn’t.”
In a medical system geared toward individual organs and diseases, there is no champion for patients with multiple illnesses — no National Institute on Multimorbidity, no charity Race for the Multimorbidity Cure, no celebrity pressuring Capitol Hill for more research.
[...]
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
An Interview With Foucault
This interview was conducted on Nov. 3, 1980, by Michael Bess, a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Foucault was in Berkeley to deliver the Howison lectures (“Subjectivity and Truth”) on October 20-21, 1980. Excerpts of this interview appeared in an article written by Bess, and published on November 10, 1980 in the Daily Californian, the Berkeley student newspaper. The interview was conducted in French, and is translated by Michael Bess.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/michaelbess/Foucault%20Interview
Or click on comment section for complete interview.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/michaelbess/Foucault%20Interview
Or click on comment section for complete interview.
Religous Duty to Live
Religious Belief Linked to Desire for Aggressive Treatment in Terminal Patients
Click for full article.“People think that spiritual patients are more likely to say their lives are in God’s hands — ’Let what happens happen’ — but in fact we know they want more aggressive care,” said Holly G. Prigerson, the study’s senior author and director of the Center for Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
“To religious people, life is sacred and sanctified,” Dr. Prigerson said, “and there’s a sense they feel it’s their duty and obligation to stay alive as long as possible.”
Does the spirit of capitalism drive us to live as long as we can to work as much as we can? The picture at the top is actually from the movie "Bucketlist" in which two terminally ill patients attempt to live out all their life dreams (skydiving... and more I'm sure, I've only seen the trailer) instead of wasting away in bed. What would Weber think?
As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up
Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.
“We were stunned,” said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.”
It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.
Apparently courts want to restrict jurors knowledge and judgement to that of what the court, and both sides of the case have agreed upon. Controlling internet searches is no easy feat, but judges are able to gather information about jurors outside information by cell phone text message records, twitter, and looking at jurors online blogs. (Yet I still can't bring myself to delete my Facebook profile) Do you think this control of juror's given information is just? What would Foucault say?
Week 9: Spontaneous Brilliant Thoughts
This is a place for rambling thoughts, for spontaneous brilliant thoughts that just have to be written and cannot wait. A place to post something that comes to mind after lecture, or while reading, and that will generate spontaneous responses and a back and forth communication. So, freestyle your brilliance and post!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Castration as Punishment
Europeans Debate Castration of Sex Offenders
“I can finally live knowing that I am no harm to anybody,” he said during an interview at a McDonald’s here, as children played loudly nearby. “I am living a productive life. I want to tell people that there is help.” ...“These people must be under permanent detention where they can be monitored,” he said. “There has to be a difference between the rights of the victim and the perpetrator.”
Click here for a link to the full article
How do we exit the panopticon? Is castration corrective? Interesting that the father of a victim invokes the notion of human rights.
Monday, March 9, 2009
China's Secret Jails
Seeking Justice, Chinese land in secret jails
China claims to have a petition system available to all citizens that allows them to voice complaints to the central government. Instead of being heard, citizens are being abducted, held in secret jails and then sent back home. What form of power is this? Is this disciplinary power, or a panopticon on a nation-wide scale?
China claims to have a petition system available to all citizens that allows them to voice complaints to the central government. Instead of being heard, citizens are being abducted, held in secret jails and then sent back home. What form of power is this? Is this disciplinary power, or a panopticon on a nation-wide scale?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Week 8: Spontaneous Brilliant Thoughts
"This is a place for rambling thoughts, for spontaneous brilliant thoughts that just have to be written and cannot wait. A place to post something that comes to mind after lecture, or while reading, and that will generate spontaneous responses and a back and forth communication. So, freestyle your brilliance and post!"
Note: brilliance is subjective. one person's random/tangential thought could be another person's awesome insight for the week. or even if something isn't initially stunning it can be transformed...like diamonds.
happy posting! =)
Note: brilliance is subjective. one person's random/tangential thought could be another person's awesome insight for the week. or even if something isn't initially stunning it can be transformed...like diamonds.
happy posting! =)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Prison-as-Panopticon
From Michael Burawoy: "Pelican Bay is one of the most advanced Panopticon Prisons in California. [The following youtube clip] shows the limits of the panopticon."
Sovereign Power and Repression
Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Courtesy of Youtube and Mike Levien.
This movie (see link), "Entre les murs" or "The Class" is now in theater and comes straight from Foucault's DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH. Disclaimer: It is a slow film precisely because it aspires to be realistic, but I was able to make numerous connections to class. Has anyone else seen it?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068646/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1068646/
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Where's my social function?
Forced From Executive Pay to Hourly Wage
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/us/01survival.html?scp=1&sq=janitor&st=cse
Abnormally, our societies natural abilities aren't corresponding to our social functions. Many are finding different jobs that may earn less, and be lower on the social hierarchy than their previous jobs. Will our society change the social functions or the natural abilities of those who live here? I wonder if jobs will come back to those that were recently fired.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/us/01survival.html?scp=1&sq=janitor&st=cse
TEMPE, Ariz. — Mark Cooper started his work day on a recent morning cleaning the door handles of an office building with a rag, vigorously shaking out a rug at a back entrance and pushing a dust mop down a long hallway.
Nine months ago he lost his job as the security manager for the western United States for a Fortune 500 company, overseeing a budget of $1.2 million and earning about $70,000 a year. Now he is grateful for the $12 an hour he makes in what is known in unemployment circles as a “survival job” at a friend’s janitorial services company. But that does not make the work any easier.
“You’re fighting despair, discouragement, depression every day,” Mr. Cooper said.
Abnormally, our societies natural abilities aren't corresponding to our social functions. Many are finding different jobs that may earn less, and be lower on the social hierarchy than their previous jobs. Will our society change the social functions or the natural abilities of those who live here? I wonder if jobs will come back to those that were recently fired.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Week 7: Spontaneous Brilliant Thoughts
This is a place for rambling thoughts, for spontaneous brilliant thoughts that just have to be written and cannot wait. A place to post something that comes to mind after lecture, or while reading, and that will generate spontaneous responses and a back and forth communication. So, freestyle your brilliance and post!
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