Professor Lakoff is at it again! From this week’s Newsweek:

The pro-choice groups themselves have also been heatedly debating what to do. This spring, activists in New York and Seattle invited Berkeley linguist George Lakoff to speak about how to reframe the abortion issue. “They found that choice wasn’t playing very well,” says Lakoff, who’s become an unofficial guru to beleaguered Democrats. He told the groups it was no wonder: “choice” came from a “consumerist” vocabulary, while “life” came from a moral one. In one of his more controversial suggestions, he advised the activists to reclaim the “life” issue by blaming Republicans for high U.S. infant-mortality rates and mercury pollution that can cause birth defects. “Basically what I’m saying is that conservatives are killing babies,” he says.

Well at least when the pro-life folks use the “killing babies” frame, they have some proof, as opposed to myths.

Some random letters from the Daily Planet:

It was shocking to read of the enormous number of weapons, ammunition and explosives that were found only by accident by the Fire Department near the liquor store in Berkeley. And that machine guns were a part of this cache reported by the Daily Planet in the edition of July 22-25. I found it both interesting and disturbing that in this very same issue was a follow up account of the tragic shooting of Meleia Willis-Starbuck by her friend and letters (some hysterical) from members of the National Rifle Association advocating people owning guns. Where in the world and how did such an arsenal including machine guns get into Berkeley ? If this bizarre collection of guns and ammunition was only found by accident one wonders how many other such collections exist in the Bay Area and how many will be used.

Max Macks

I’m sure Mr. Macks is part of the Becky O’Malley school of thought when it comes to guns. He can keep on wondering. When was the last machine gun attack in the Bay Area?

How come the Daily Planet includes gender information when describing assailants in the Police Blotter? Doing so gives readers the fanciful impression that nearly all violent crimes are committed by males—a statistical impossibility since more than half the population is female.

P. Wooton

Is there something wrong with this claim? I don’t want to badmouth my gender, but I’m pretty sure that most violent crimes are commited by males. The overwhelming majority even. It’s like saying that the claim “Most terrorism is caused by Islamic extremists” is a statistical impossiblity since more than half the population is not Muslim. Come on now.

Neil A. Cook has a cute piece of commentary in today’s Berkeley Daily Planet, “‘Faith-Based’ a Cover for Fanaticism“:

Take “faith based initiative” for instance. Please.

You couldn’t very well call it “formation of state religion.”

Then, during the middle of the last century, we watched other predominantly Christian nations give rise to one compassionate and considerate leader after another: Franco (Spain), Mussolini (Italy), Hitler (Germany), Stalin (Russia).

It’s taken us a bit longer, but we’re finally on the road to such bold and imaginative leadership right here…

That little term, ‘faith based initiative’ is a subtle start.

First we funnel tax money to religious schools. It’s worked well in Afghanistan in Syria and in Saudi Arabia and it can certainly work here. We ‘educate’ an entire generation to ignore science, ignore facts and concentrate instead on religion. The right Religion. The Religious Right. Pretty soon all that’s left is the Right…

But remember, the September 11 missions were ‘faith based initiatives’ as well. So perhaps that other alternative has something to do with reigning in fanatics of every persuasion.

We can start with fanatics who think school vouchers will lead to the Holocaust. I also believe that Stalin was atheist, but that doesn’t really matter. Anyway, we’ll let Mr. Cook believe what he wants. The main thing we should be suspicious of is ’state based initiatives,’ and they come in many different forms, religious or not.

Fashion tip from the LA Times:

“There’s a saying, ‘If you have white skin, you can cover 1,000 uglinesses,’ ” said Qiu, a 36-year-old Chinese immigrant who lives in Alhambra.

The counterexample.

Daily Search String: “Girls of the Pac-10″

Hey, I was searching for that too! Any day now… This blog is only one result behind Playboy when you search for that phrase, so booyah.

Zombietime has a photo writeup of the anti-war protest in Berkeley that took place on July 23rd. Witty signs such as “Breasts not Bombs” and “Dicks not Draft” were carried by the elderly participants. Way to scare people away from your movement. If these are the breasts that are being offered, please bomb me right now. The following is the only safe picture I could find. Click the link at your own risk.

Today’s Daily Insight comes from Ben Shapiro’s latest book, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism is Corrupting our Future:

Does marijuana lead to crack? Perhaps. Do teen magazines lead to Cosmo and People? No doubt about it.

War on Trashy Magazines! SeventeenEdu: Your online, non-opinionated slut prevention program.

Hat tip to the great folks over at Catallarchy. Their blog is running excerpts from this book as a running feature.

On to our next order of business. Taking a cue from Beetle, each Daily Insight will now include a Daily Search String. This will of course give us some insight into the mind of your average web surfer.

Today’s Daily Search String: “how to treat an adderall overdose yourself”

I assume that you’re looking this up beforehand as a safety measure. If so, what you should really be looking up is how to avoid an overdose. There’s still time for you not to be an idiot. If, by chance, you were an idiot and are currently overdosed, then I’m sorry that you clicked onto this blog as you’ll find nothing that will save you. Good luck with that though!

The only reason I’m posting this is because I came up with a witty title.

A press release, from PRWeb, “Activists Call on the United Nations to Classify Male Circumcision as a Human Rights Crime“:

In response to results of a male circumcision HIV study presented yesterday at the Third International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, several intactivist groups called on the United Nations to classify circumcision of male children as a human rights crime. The study, performed on more than 3,000 African men, concluded that circumcision reduced the chance of HIV infection by 65% over an 18 month period…

Tina Kimmel, MSW, MPH, at the University of California Berkeley School of Social Welfare, said that the U.N. has a blind spot when it comes to male circumcision. “If this study had examined the health effects of preventive mastectomy or female circumcision, one can only imagine the uproar it would have caused. Sadly, there is a double standard when it comes to boys. The reality in Africa and the rest of the world is that male circumcision is usually performed on children who are unable to give their full consent, and the response from UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) calling the results of this newest study “promising” shows how the power of tradition can blind otherwise intelligent and rational people to the most horrific of crimes.” Kimmel is Coordinator of the Bay Area Intactivists Group (BANG), in Oakland, California, a group that hosts frequent public demonstrations and informational events on the consequences of male circumcision.

Wonderful acronym. Public demonstrations on the consequences of male circumcision… Ouch, can I get a volunteer?

On a more serious note, I guess I can’t really get worked up about this issue. I don’t see the male version being even a tiny bit as brutal as its female counterpart. And of the many ways that you can physically and emotionally abuse your kids, this probably ranks way down there. But I really don’t know.

You guys can battle it out. Bonus points if you’re able to keep it clean and classy.

Via Catallarchy, a list of punishments at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University:

• Improper personal contact (anything beyond hand-holding) - $10 fine
• Unauthorized borrowing (plus financial restitution) - $10 fine
• Attendance at a dance - $25 fine
• Gambling - $25 fine
• Possession and/or use of tobacco - $25 fine
• Attendance at, possession or viewing of, an “R,” “NC-17? or “X”-rated movie - $50 fine
• Entering the space above ceiling tiles - $50 fine
• Participation in an unauthorized petition or demonstration - $50 fine
• Association with those consuming alcohol - $250 fine
• Possession or consumption of alcoholic beverages- $500 fine
• Academic dishonesty - $500 fine
• Immorality - $500 fine
• Abortion - $500 fine

The full list is available at LU’s website.

Hmm, you’d think that an abortion would get you a harsher punishment than boozing it up or cheating on a test. And I guess “Immorality” is their catchall. Don’t get me wrong: I entirely support the right for a private university to create their own rules. But this list is pretty funny. I’d be down thousands of dollars just for my R-rated movie viewing alone.

Patriot Interactive Fun Time! Let’s make a list of Berkeley rules that would be enforced if the school really was the stereotypical leftist place that we like to think it is:

• Being white or Asian - $50 fine
• Drinking non fair-trade coffee - $50 fine
• Failing to use correct spelling of “Womyn” - $50 fine
• Smoking cigarettes instead of pot - $100 fine
• Less than 5 days between showers - $250 fine
• Heterosexual relationships - $250 fine
• Voting Republican - $500 fine
• Writing for the Patriot - Flagellation
• Abortion - $500 prize

Feel free to add your own in the comments. It can be a contest. Winner gets a $50 fine for being competitive.

Your mindblowing thought of the day, courtesy of Wired:

Regarding “Time’s Up, Einstein” (issue 13.06): “Time’s not real,” I tell my students. Physics time is an illusion; Peter Lynds rocks! The now is the temporal singularity - collapsing past, present, and future sequences of events into “oneness.” There are therefore no instants of time, no time at all. The structure of our minds creates and destroys time. Days are long or short depending on our perceptions.

Americ Azevedo
Director, Collaborative Intelligence Lab, UC Berkeley

Whenever people tell you that you waste too much time, tell ‘em: “Time’s not real man, the now is just a temporal singularity! Now get out of the way, you’re blocking the TV.”

A slightly more creative project than endless Hollywood remakes is Rob Reiner’s upcoming film, “Rumor Has It.” IMDB gives us the plot outline:

Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who learns that her family was the inspiration for the book and film “The Graduate” — and that she just might be the offspring of the well-documented event.

It appears that Kevin Costner will play the role of Benjamin, Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1967 classic. And Shirley MacLaine will try her take at the late Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson.

The original film is one of my favorites. My high school English teacher showed it to our class. This was shortly after I chose to attend UC Berkeley. So seeing Berkeley in a film was pretty cool. Even if it was USC after all. Either way, excellent movie.

But I digress. How about this new flick? Judging from the recently released trailer, it looks like your basic romantic comedy. It’ll probably be better than average though, given its unique premise. And incest jokes. Plenty of opportunities for incest jokes.

Check it out this December. If you haven’t seen the original movie, what are you waiting for?

Where’s Neo when you need him?

After digressing on the diminished adversary power of new art generally, he wrote: “I would say autonomous depoliticized production … could be an accurate description of much work of any kind today but it is also a description of a lot of what passes for art making. So … we need to look to politicized autonomous production, or activism, as our model for an interesting and resistant practice — one that does not merely replicate the status quo.”

…?

Morpheus: “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”

A proposal by a school district in California has been making the news this past week:

Incorporating Ebonics into a new school policy that targets black students, the lowest-achieving group in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, may provide students a more well-rounded curriculum, said a local sociologist.

The goal of the district’s policy is to improve black students’ academic performance by keeping them interested in school. Compared with other racial groups in the district, black students go to college the least and have the most dropouts and suspensions.

Of course, this has reignited the decade old debate:

Texeira suggested that including Ebonics in the program would be beneficial for students. Ebonics, a dialect of American English that is spoken by many blacks throughout the country, was recognized as a separate language in 1996 by the Oakland school board.

Berkeley professor John McWhorter has come out against the proposal:

Dr. John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writes extensively on race, ethnicity, and cultural issues. He contends it is already known how minority children, as well as those from poor school districts, learn better — and it is not through teaching them “Black English.”

“[T]here are all sorts of programs, most of [which] fall under the umbrella of what’s called direct instruction — and they involve drills,” McWhorter explains. “They involve tested methods that have been shown to work many, many times. So the question is, why would you choose the Ebonics idea instead of these, unless what you’re really trying to do is make a kind of nationalistic statement, or you’re trying to reinforce identity.”

McWhorter continues, saying that his wish is that school district officials “would let go of the idea that what we’ve got is an identity problem, and realize that what we’ve got is a problem with teaching methods and diligence, and go with what works to help students who really need it.”

Indeed.

Update: jonp points out that the school district will not be incorporating Ebonics after all. BlackAmericaWeb reports that the original suggestion was an unsolicited opinion by a CSU sociology professor. In other words, wishful thinking. The public outcry against the possibility of teaching Ebonics in public schools has been heartening. Fortunately, for the students, there is still a chance for the school district to take Professor McWhorter’s advice and implement policies that really work.

The UC and CSU systems have partnered up with an online media company, Cdigix, to provide legal audio and video downloads for its students. The move is seen as a way to entice students away from the “less legal” p2p transfers that they have become accustomed to. As such, the colleges are prepared to subsidize the service:

Cdigix generally charges $3 per month to access its music downloading service, but Rubenstein said several of the 24 Cdigix-partnered universities subsidize the fees, making the services free for students.

In these cases, the school or anonymous donors cover the costs instead of individual students.

“We see the university’s role as a facilitator of a marketplace where vendors can establish a business relationship with the students,” Ward said. “We feel we have a responsibility to steer them in the right direction.”

Staying on top of things, the major UC student newspapers have decided to weigh in. In today’s Daily Cal, the editorial is surprisingly positive. “Facing the Music“:

While the deal would only cover 600,000 students across both systems, it’s an important first step to reducing illegal file sharing.

File sharing has become a problem for both students and the university… Offering these services is a way to avoid litigation…

The music and movie world has changed, shifting away from CDs and DVDs to downloads. But the industry has been slow to catch up with the digital age and unable to exercise power over this expanding empire. It’s fitting that college campuses are recognizing it first and working toward a viable long-term solution. With any luck, it’ll catch on.

Their only concern is with the subsidy:

The charge for this program—$3 a month for music and $5.99 for video services—is another draw, but UC Berkeley should not subsidize the service with increased fees. Students should choose whether they want to participate or risk illegal behavior, not have another fee foisted on them.

The UCLA Daily Bruin is more critical of the program. And less creative in its titling. “UC-backed file-sharing service unnecessary“:

UC students have not been clamoring for subscription music services. They’ve been protesting fee increases, budget cuts and diversity on campus. So why is the university bringing a service to students they aren’t even asking for?

Cdigix touts its discounted rates, but saving a few dollars isn’t likely to swing many to the legal side of the tracks if they aren’t there already. Subscription music services don’t have the complete volume of music available on file-sharing networks, and often have limited ability to transfer files to portable music players.

The university is pandering to the interests of the business world – specifically the recording and motion picture industries – over the interests of its students. It is spending its time and resources to investigate and negotiate discounted rates on music when it could and should be using its energies on addressing other issues.

Ouch.

As for me, my opinion is more along the lines of the Daily Cal’s, which is pretty amazing. Change is in the air, and services like these are going to be the wave of the future. I am concerned about the subsidies, but what isn’t subsidized here? Along with your reduced price gym membership and free condoms, you might as well grab a couple of tunes.

I signed up with the Real Rhapsody music service that Berkeley is currently offering. It’s $2 a month, but I don’t have to start paying until October, since you get a couple of months free. My first hand opinion after using the service for a couple of weeks? It rocks. It has over a million songs and is growing everyday, so you can’t go wrong. The Daily Bruin touts that the p2p networks have the “complete volume” of music, but let me call BS on that. While it’s easy to find popular tracks, try and search for something a little rarer and you’ll know what I mean. On the other hand, Rhapsody and other services make it easy to find Top 40 hits as well as albums from bands that may only have 40 fans. Things that you’d never be able to find on a file sharing service, unless one of the 40 happens to be online. I exaggerate with my numbers, but I’m essentially correct. This is The Long Tail in action.

It isn’t for everybody though. I personally listen to all of my music while on the computer, but if you want to burn a cd or transfer to an mp3 player, you’ll have to pay a small fee per song. Some of the very big artists are missing (the Beatles for instance) or offer only 30 second samples. However, this is sure to change as the library gets bigger. Rhapsody is Windows only, not sure about the other programs. Finally, some genres are terribly underrepresented (more trance please!), but I chalk that up to America’s poor taste in music. Just kidding.

Wow, now I feel like a whore for these media services. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this particular issue. So in essence: great idea, bad subsidy (possibly). Your thoughts?

Robert Reich, President Clinton’s Labor Secretary, is joining the UC Berkeley faculty. Specifically, the Goldman School of Public Policy.

“In many ways, Reich embodies the best in a UC Berkeley faculty member,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau. “He is a brilliant researcher, a dedicated public servant, and a superb teacher. Bringing him to campus is a real coup.”

A webcast of one of his talks on campus is available.

So, any thoughts on this guy? I’m not too familiar with him.