Althouse on Craig-gate

Ann Althouse offers her two pence on the Craig affair. She criticizes a post by Arianna Huffington which stakes out a position somewhat similar to mine (Huffington, overplays the rhetorical terrorism card, in my humble opinion). Althouse makes several fair points in her criticism (though also uses a strawperson argument) and ends her post with an interesting rational-choice economic argument supporting the enforcement of so called "quality-of-life" crime investigations:

I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that the sting is cost effective. One police officer, carrying out very few arrests, ruins the reputation of this bathroom as a place for sex encounters. That bathroom is in the state's most important airport, a hub of commercial activity. Minnesotans have a huge interest in maintaining the quality of their international airport, and travelers have endless opportunities to choose other routes when they dislike an airport. I would speculate that Karsnia's work probably produced a large net benefit to taxpayers.

Having said that, someone in the comments thread referring to him/herself as EngimatiCore countered with an equally reasonable counter-argument.

...unless Sen. Craig was one of the first arrests by any officer in that bathroom. I think it is clear that the reputation of that bathroom had been unscathed at the time of the incident, and probably would still be had this not broken nationally.

I would bet that a cop stationed, in uniform, outside of the bathroom would work just as well. People would not have to 'go looking' for him, we would be further from the line of entrapment, and the cop would not be forced to spend his time on a commode.

Of course this reasoned discourse can't stand for long among the commenters of the Althouse blog. First troll A makes some silly sweeping generalization of the right, "The GOP Mantra...", followed by an equally sweeping generalization of the left, "You just repeat the same questions over and over again, while ignoring the debate that has previously occurred in response to such questions." And the troll baiting continues.

But to Ann and EnigmatiCore, I salute you.

More on Craig-gate

Well Senator Larry Craig has resigned from the Senate. An opinion column in yesterday's New York Times by Laura MacDonald argues that Senator Craig was entrapped.

MacDonald's interesting piece draws attention to a Sociological classic written by Laud Humphreys in the late 1960s. Every undergraduate sociology student who takes a research methods course will be exposed to Humphrey's book, The Tearoom Trade, which Earl Babbie and other text book authors point to as an exemplar in unethical research practice. Briefly, Humphreys was aware of a practice whereby men utilized highway rest-stops to engage in trysts with other male strangers. In his study, he observed these encounters (usually through the pretext of being a "lookout" and documented the ritual by which men identified potential partners and safely confirmed mutual interest). MacDonald does a better job describing this part of Humphrey's work than I can offer. While he was observing the "trade", Humphreys took down the men's license plate information, then used surreptitious methods to get names and addresses from the DMV. He appeared at the participant's door weeks later, in a disguise, to administer a survey. Data from this part of the study showed that a substantial number of these men lived their public lives in heterosexual marriages. Many were prominent men in the community. [Note: this is the unethical part. Humphreys collected his observational data under false pretenses, thereby not allowing the subjects truly informed consent. When he showed up at their door weeks later and asked them rather embarrassing questions in front of their families, he risked outing them. There is sociological lore that Alvin Gouldner punched Humphreys in the face and broke his nose, over the incident. Note that there are many variations of this story published in peer reviewed articles about the history of Sociology. All that we know for certain is that Gouldner hit Humphreys and was publicly critical of his work. I've yet to track down an authoritative accounting of the details. While Humphreys did put his subjects at risk, one could plausibly argue that these methods were necessary for us to really understand what's happening here; both to counter fear mongering and get a handle on the actual risks involved. I suppose that's not for me to judge at this time.]

Part of Humphrey's argument 37 years ago was that heterosexual worries about sexual advances from strange men in the rest-room are unwarranted. The participants had a vested interest in only approaching those that would reciprocate. Soliciting the wrong person could reasonably do violence to one's person or reputation. Therefore, they worked out an elaborate signaling system using subtle cues. One would have to be "in the know" to realize that he was being propositioned. Without a return cue, the seeker moves on.

Suggesting that the Minneapolis men's room activity is similar to Humphrey's tea-room, MacDonald argues that the police investigation amounts to entrapment. I disagree. While I share her assessment of the negligible public safety risk constituted by tearoom activities (the signaling mechanism maximizes safety) and I agree that this sort of a sting operation is not an effective use of public resources, it is not entrapment.

As I posted back in June, entrapment occurs when the State induces a subject to a commit a crime that he or she would not carry out on his or her own. Jacobson v. United States illustrates this where law enforcement sent catalog materials to the subject baiting him to order child pornography. Following Robinson v. California, an underlying condition or predilection (no matter how distasteful to prevailing public opinion) can not be criminalized. Only conduct may be criminalized. Thus, when To Catch a Predator's, the vigilante group (Perverted Justice,) baits a predator out to make a rendezvous, it's tough to prosecute because this is entrapment. But when an undercover police officer poses as a streetwalker, and a would-be john asks, "how much?", it's not entrapment. In the latter case, the suspect initiates the transaction; it's reasonable to presume that he or she would have done so without the aide of the State.¹

Craig's case falls into this latter category. Based on the documents released to date, I'm satisfied with the state's argument that Craig was signaling and there is a public ordinance that makes this conduct illegal in that jurisdiction (though I still question the legality of that ordinance). Therefore, this is not entrapment. Indeed, it is the model of good police work. It's a stupid use of good police work, but good work none-the-less.

====
1. I am not a Lawyer, nor do I have any formal training in the law from a law school. But, since I started teaching courses about and doing research on criminal justice processes 10 years ago, I've been reading a lot of case law. Should someone with a legal background stumble upon my analysis and wish to comment on my interepretation, I welcome it. Actually, I welcome anyone's comments generally.

Radley Balko makes a good point...

One of the things I appreciate most about Radley Balko's writing is his libertarian consistency. Principles rather than political positioning guide his analysis. In a recent post Balko asks what conduct is Senator Craig actually guilty of committing? This is a great question.

For those not following the news, Senator Craig was arrested in a mens room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport back in June of this year. He was charged with (and plead guilty to) disorderly conduct. But he was arrested for lewd conduct (specifically, trying to pick-up an undercover deputy). The arresting officer wrote wrote in his report that Craig peered into his stall, then occupied the next stall and...

Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.... I saw Craig swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds....Craig swiped his hand again for a few seconds in the same motion...

. The report goes on to document that Craig did this for a while, leading the officer to believe that he was trying to solicit a sexual encounter. He arrested the man, only later to learn that Craig is a United States senator. Later in the report, the officer indicates what Craig said in a post Miranda interview (meaning, after the Senator had been reminded of his 5th and 6th amendment rights.

Craig stated the following

• He is a commuter
• He went into the bathroom
• He was standing outside of the stalls for 1-2 minutes waiting for the stall
• He has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine
• He reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor

.
These are all plausible (if creepy) bathroom behaviors. However, that's not Balko's point. While not condoning the actual engagement of sexual activity in a public bathroom, he asks:

Is it really illegal to try to find a sexual partner in a public bathroom using code? How would that be any different than looking for a sexual partner at a dance club, be it using code, pick-up lines, or any thing else in your singles arsenal?

.
I'm inclined to agree. While I agree with public decency laws prohibiting of sexual behavior in public places, Craig wasn't arrested for that. He was arrested for trying to pick someone up. And, he didn't try to pick someone up in an overt, offensive way. Had he walked up to someone with a wink and a nod and explicitly said... "hey, how about it?" I would support a charge of Harassment. But he was using an obscure code that effectively keeps those of us who are blissfully ignorant in that state.

Yeah, it's creepy. (Of course, I find many of the heterosexual mating rituals in the bar scene to be equally creepy). And, there's a perverse pleasure in seeing a hypocrite called to task. But at the end of the day, one has to wonder if we should be allowing the state to criminalize mate selection.

Like OMG? Overheard at the coffee shop

Young lady standing in line behind me yapping conversing on her cell phone:

Like... it was ridiculous. I mean, like, I couldn't even take notes, y'know. My teacher said um, like 364 times during her lecture. No... like, I counted them because she's like soooo obnoxious. I mean, like oh my gawd, how are you even a teacher? Sheesh, you should, like, think about what you're going to say and then say it.

My thought: Like, I wish I could get some of my students to pay such close attention to what I say in class. I'm going to try saying um more often.

Well at least we're #1.

Dead Sociologist Quote for August 27, 2007

A commitment made on the basis of an unexamined ideology may allow us to feel a manly righteousness, but it leaves us blind.
- Alvin W. Gouldner (1968) "The Sociologist as Partisan: Sociology and the Welfare State." The American Sociologist. 3:103-116. Pg 105.

This essay also has one of the strongest lead-in sentences that I've encountered in a sociologist's writing:

Sociology begins by disenchanting the world and it proceeds by disenchanting itself (pg 103).

.

Alvin Gouldner (1920 - 1980)was one of Sociology's brightest lights. A clear writer with acerbic wit, Gouldner challenged the orthodoxy of grand theory building sociology in the 1950s and 60s. But, while he critiqued the mainstream fairytale of scientistic sociology, Gouldner also recoiled against the self-congratulatory liberal activism which claimed the title of scholarship in the 60s. As he wrote in the quote above, we may vociferously proclaim our convictions, but that doesn't automatically make them thoughtful. In "Sociologist as Partisan" Gouldner put Howard S. Becker firmly in his sights.¹.

Becker was the president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and delivered a presidential address asking, "Whose Side Are we On?" Becker goes on to develop what Gouldner calls, the metaphysics of the underdog and the underworld. While this seems reasonable, even admirable, on its surface. Gouldner (who shares the sympathy) begins to pick apart the logical conundrums of such a metaphysics. I won't go into this in any detail here (though I am working on my own essay applying Gouldner's criticism of Becker to the principles of public sociology as outlined by Michael Burawoy in his 2004 Presidential address to the American Sociological Association.

I don't quite know where I'm going with this yet; my friends in sociology know that I harbor deep reservations about the public sociology project. Part of me worries that public sociology is nothing more than a new lingo thrown over the partisan sociologies of old. But there seems to be something worth considering in Burawoy's project. So, I slog along on an essay that will be difficult to publish and probably won't be read if it finds its way into print. Yet, it's been fun to re-read this essay that I first encountered in Gerry Markle's Advanced General Sociology seminar a decade ago.


=====
1. As any of my graduate students will attest, I am a Howard Becker fan boy. That is a testament to the power of Gouldner's position. I didn't want to like Gouldner's essay, but was persuaded by the power of the writing.

why I still dislike elementary school

I spent the better part of this evening filling out forms for my daughter as she begins a new school year in a new State. Having been an absentee father for the past two years, I missed out on the administrative joys of getting a child off to school in our modern world. There are the multiple forms requiring duplicate entry of information; sternly worded dress code notices; explanations on the importance of homework; release forms and permission slips (no, we will not let the school give my daughter fluoride treatments), and a byzantine bus schedule that took me the better part of the evening to decipher. [I'm pretty sure we've got her on the right buses, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if I get a call tomorrow from Cheat Lake or Scott's Run, telling me that I misunderstood the schedule and I need to drive out 40 miles to get her].

I never liked elementary school. I wasn't good at the cutting, pasting, coloring, or following directions. I was a lousy reader (particularly given the boring drek that they put into the phonics readers) and was worse at math flashcards. I spent the better part of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade in the hall (where the bad kids go). I started making smart-ass comments in the second grade to make other kids laugh. But this also gave me some sense of power or control in that situation. Of course, that didn't fly with Mrs. Berry. She warned the other teachers about me... and they remembered. I didn't know it at the time, but I was a poster child for labeling theory. In second grade, my teacher dumped my desk all over the floor and told the girl sitting next to me to organize my stuff at a big table at the side of the room. I actually kind of liked that arrangement and proudly told the Principal about my cool big desk. He came to visit that afternoon and on the next day they moved me back to a regular desk. Then there was the hubaloo that I caused by coloring in more than one bubble on the Stanford Achievement Test. I thought our teacher said that we should color in more than one right answer. Apparently, the canned instructions that she read out loud were, "there is only one right answer." When the test scores came back, the teacher announced to the class (with a measurable tone of disgust) "since Corey didn't follow directions, our class will retake the test." Yeah, I got sucker punched in the gut over that one. I was eight freaking years old; couldn't they cut me some slack? In a word, no. That screw-up was enough to get me labeled as "slow" Severn Elementary School. I suppose my current position in life is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that this test's predictive validity for measuring achievement is about as useful as the pieces of corn in a pile of decomposing poo. To this day, I'd still like to take my 2nd grade teacher (who I believe died several years ago) and kick her in the ass.

Anyway, filling out these forms dredged out the memories. My daughter (who generally adjusts better than I do) appears to not have inherited my dread for elementary school; I hope that this can be sustained. Perhaps educators have learned a thing or two since 1980.

Gmaps Pedometer

Via Chris Uggen (via Eszter) gmaps pedometer allows you to get precise distance measurements for your walks and runs. I used the tool to map my old football training route. What I had believed was a six mile run was actually closer to 8.

Then I mapped my daily walking commute. 1 mile, door-to-door almost exactly (and and elevation change of about 250 feet. That may not sound like a lot, but I can assure you the walk home is quite a bit harder than the walk to work which is all downhill. This has almost inspired me to start running again.

Lexis Nexis and bad design

Well it's the beginning of a new semester and I'm frantically trying to get my syllabi done before the start of classes next week. This semester I'd like to have my Criminal Justice classes read some West Virginia Caselaw. It used to be easy to search for cases restricted to a particular state. However, it looks like Lexis Nexis decided to streamline their searching tools, thereby breaking my routine. Whoever designed this interface ought to be shot at sunrise.

Font Frustration

The new version of Microsoft Office ships with goofy default fonts and line spacing in the normal.dot template. After using the default out of the box for the better part of a month, I've decided they must be changed.

First, I changed the default font back to 12-point Times New Roman. But then I came across this font advisory for NSF applicants. It specifies four appropriate fonts of size 10 or larger. None of these are Times New Roman. The figure below shows the default Word 2007 font, the old Times New Roman, and the 4 NSF approved Fonts.

I then searched NIH's criteria (only Arial and Helvetica permitted... yuck). I couldn't find a font specification for NIJ. (These being the three agencies I'm mostly likely to apply to, I didn't search further).

Then I looked at some of the journals I write for. Many request Times New Roman. Ugh.

I've decided to set my default as Georgia (see the figure above). It seems to be the most visually striking, while not being distracting. We'll see how long that lasts.

My next time-frittering project will be to set up a word document template for my students to ensure that their papers are formatted correctly.

I am thanking the supreme beings for small blessings

As I've cryptically mentioned on this blog from time to time, I interviewed for a job at Gallaudet University. At the time, I really wanted that job. (Of course, as a freshly minted PhD, stuck in a joyless (some would say "soulless") work environment, really I wanted any job). But, I really felt like I hammered the interview at Gallaudet and that I would fit there.

I learned several weeks later that I did not get the job. [Not from any sort of formal notification from the school mind you, but rather from a friend... I still haven't gotten that rejection letter.]

Anyway, I learned today that Gallaudet has been placed on probation by its accrediting body. While this is sad news to hear, it makes me all the more thankful for the opportunities that I was given after I failed to get that job. To my WVU colleagues; despite my propensity to complain, I'm really quite happy here.

82 of 99 problems...

Though I don't pretend to understand social networking and I'm certainly not proficient at it, I've been goofing around with facebook today.

One of the WVU groups is called:

I've got 99 problems and 82 of them are the stairs by the Life Science Building.

I might have to join that group; those stairs are in fact... a bitch.

I have engaged in the war against paper

Thanks to my miserly ways and a reverting pool of startup funds, I splurged on a new document scanner. This thing is amazing. I had a meeting with a graduate student this afternoon, where I took notes on a legal pad. When the meeting was over it took all of 3 seconds to scan my notes to a pdf file and store it in my student's directory.

Thanks to Jeremy for his inspiration to start my own war against paper.

The humbling reminder that we get things wrong

I'm deep in the historical databases, looking for material about W.I. and Dorothy Swaine Thomas. One of W.I.'s early arguments concerned the social and biological bases for the inferiority of women. As I understand the story, he changed his tune in the early 1920s. [Though I could be wrong, I haven't done a lot of biographical research yet]. In anycase, I came across the attached headline while working through Proquest's historical New York Times file. I like reviewing these bold proclaimations which turn out to be far from accurate. It humbles me and reminds me that regardless of how sure I may be about something, I too could be very wrong.

Source: The New York Times February 11, 1910, page 7

Bumper stickers that make me chuckle

After class this morning, I walked by the library on my way to buy a cup of coffee. A car parked in the library lot has the following slogan affixed to its rear bumper:

Yes I'm a librarian and I will shush your ass.

Travesties of pseudo science, part 831

My institution puts out a daily email news brief listing developments of note around the campus. This came through today:

RESEARCH:

WVU economic study: Expenses for women can be higher in Morgantown According to the latest edition of the Morgantown MSA Economic Monitor, published by WVU's College of Business and Economics, the purchasing decisions that women make may lead to more expense than for their male counterparts in Morgantown. For example, the cost for a trip to the hair salon, pair of khakis, bottle of wine and dinner at home for one woman was $10.71 more than what the cost was for a barbershop haircut, dress shirt, six-pack of beer and medium pizza that a Morgantown man might choose.

Sigh...

I'm not sure which is worse:
(1) The stereotypical assumptions about "typical" men and women and their choices of consumption, or
(2) using stereotypical assumptions about "typical" men and women to make apples and oranges comparisons and then conclude that these assumed differences reflect reality.

I went to the actual press release that describes this "study" in more detail. It begins as a comparison study for cost-of-living index items. The economist gathered price data on 61 items items; the Morgantown prices can be compared to San Fransisco, New York, Pittsburgh, etc. That's valuable and important work.

But then....

Then, she took the comparison a step further by looking at the prices of items and services men might purchase compared to those women might buy.

Yeah, it costs more to go to Vavoosh's Salon than Jake's barbershop. I'll concede that. But on what basis do we assume that women are more likely to purchase a bottle of wine than beer, expensive khaki's over a dress shirt? And dinner at home over pizza? Moreover, what the hell went into that dinner at home? I've had dinner at a couple of female friend's houses here in Morgantown; I would bet that the total cost of the ingredients for the meal was approximate to the cost of a large pizza with toppings. Behavior can be observed and verified empirically. To project one economist's assumptions about how women and men might possibly differ in the consumptive behavior is flat out bad science.

Though they do have numbers.... so it must be truth.

Chris Hanson's "To Induce a Suicide"

Radley Balko provides a link to a Texas newscast covering a "to catch a predator" sting that went horribly wrong. I make a point of ridiculing To Catch a Predator in my Criminal Justice course. Programs like this paint an inaccurate picture picture of sex offenders. If you consume a steady diet of television programming like this, you might be inclined to believe that there are perverts everywhere ready to snatch your children. While there are some people in the world who will engage in sexual activity with minors, they are not nearly as prevalent as Chris Hansen would have us believe.

No matter, I always assumed that the television program followed general legal principles in their stings. The video linked above suggests two questionable practices:

(1) By definition, if the government engages in entrapment when its agents persuades someone to commit a crime that he or she would otherwise have not committed. The classic case on this is Jacobson v. United States, (503 U.S. 540).¹ Briefly, in this case, Mr. Jacobson had purchased child pornography through the mail when it was legal to do so. After the law had changed, postal inspectors began sending Jacobson catalogs and other materials. Eventually, he ordered more stuff. They then arrested him and raided his home, turning up no child pornography beyond what he had previously ordered. The Supreme Court ruled that this is a clear case of entrapment. Jacobson was baited into breaking the law.

I always assumed that the Dateline show followed this convention in not baiting the predators. That is, while the activist group perverted justice, does impersonate juveniles on online discussion boards, I figured they always let the target initiate face-to-face contact. [It's a legal question as to whether typing something sexualized onto an internet chat service is illegal or free speech... but that's not really what this program targets for their stings. They want to capture the attempt to make face-to-face contact, presumably for the purpose of sexual activity. The video shows a member of perverted justice explicitly asking the target, "so when are we going to meet?" To me, that's baiting & constitutes entrapment. Online activity is not the same thing as action in the real world. Maybe this guy was just living out his fantasies on chatrooms. [Not that I'm condoning that. I'm arguing that to flirt online is a different magnitude from meeting someone face to face with an intent to engage in sexual behavior; since the target is actually e-chatting with another adult, one could argue this is simply a mutually consensual activity between predators of a different stripe. I'm not sure a police department will allocate lots of resources to roundup inappropriate e-chatters. Then again, maybe they will; not a wise use of our public resources in my opinion]. The point is, if this target did not initiate the face-to-face meeting, it's hard to argue that he wasn't entraped. The sting operation baited him out by making the first move.

(2) Relatedly, I thought that they always set up their cameras at a phony house and had the target come to them. That at least covers intentionality. If the target comes to the house for a purportedly agreed upon tryst, there's little question that the person intended to commit a felonious act. (Well, there might be a question, but it seems to me to be disingenuous.) But in this case, they went to the target's house. He did not respond to efforts to get him to come out. That again reflects entrapment. He is not participating in the exercise; he has not committed a guilty act (or at least, the guilty act that they want to capture on film for NBC's ratings).

Then they forced entry to serve a search warrant. As the video shows, they used a SWAT team to serve this warrant. WHY? Balko has done extensive writing on inappropriate use of SWAT and aggressive house entries. Now, we might be missing some information, but there does not seem to me to be any legitimate reason for forcing entry into that house to serve the warrant. They had probable cause for the search, otherwise they wouldn't have a warrant. But, as I understand the law, home entry is only to be used if they believe that evidence is being destroyed or that someone is in danger. When they entered the house, the target (a local assistant district attorney) killed himself.

I'm reading Philip Jenkins's Moral Panic right now. Jenkins is a historian with a social constructionist bent. In this book, he shows how moral panics about perverts and sex predators cycle over time. But a common denominator of this concern is it is out of whack with the actual dangers. This leads to strange public policy that at the end of the day is counter-productive and wasteful.

Why do I care about this? Well, it seems to me that paranoia of about these sorts of crimes creates misery and fear. As someone with the luxury of a job that encourages and rewards me investigating these sorts of things, I feel a responsibility to try to clarify where there is confusion and perhaps reduce unnecessary fear. I note that on their website, the editors of To Catch a Predator insist they are doing a public service. On the contrary, I think they are doing a public disservice by skewing perceptions about a real problem. I'm going to do some more writing about this television show and crime in the future.

------
1. Note, for the record, I am not a lawyer; just a layman who has read quite a bit of case law. Should a lawyer stumble across my blog and wish to correct me on interpretation of law, I am happy to be so guided.

Ward Churchill and the fraying of academic discourse

So the Prez at U of Colorado Boulder is initiating the process to terminate poor Ward Churchill. Some of my friends on the right who are outside of academe asked me my opinion about old Ward. Then, as now, I had no opinion. If calling the victims of the World Trade Center destruction little Eichmann's is the worst thing he's done, I wouldn't get too excited. Though that certainly wasn't a nice thing to say, or even terribly accurate (despite what his point may have been); I've heard far worse things said by professors and graduate students in a host of different venues.

No, where I begin to care is when I see evidence of fraudulent academic misconduct. It's one thing to make an honest scholarly mistake and fail to attribute sources due to confusion, or perhaps the misguided assumption that a claim is common knowledge. It's a far different concern to build one's career swiping the ideas of others. That's my understanding of the claims leveled against Mr. Churchill and apparently a faculty review panel substantiated this at some level. [And no, I don't know what that means. Frankly, I don't care enough about this to go find out either].

Over at Inside Higher Ed, there is a raging discussion with all the usual trolls getting in their licks. {I know I should spend my time reading other things, but I get sucked into these things like a soap opera. I just have to see the next outlandish claim made by someone associated with (or antagonistic to) Higher Education}. Within the cacophony of claims, I read this incisive lament by someone calling him/her-self "unapologetically tenured". I quote the comment in full because I don't see any way of linking directly to that comment. If the author of this comment wishes for me to remove this, contact me privately and I will do so.

Quoting...

Political Hacks and Higher Education

The frustrating thing about the Ward Churchill case is that it seems to bring out the worst in everyone. From the political hacks in Denver, to the mouth breathers on cable television, to the professor-hating basement-dwellers who oddly find themselves flocking to higher education websites, everyone plays her part as scripted. It’s all a big game to them, your guys against my guys.

Well, to me this is not a game. This is my career and I take it seriously. I couldn’t care less about Ward Chuchill. In fact, he seems like a bit of an idiot, but that’s not my call to make. I care about this case because I care about academic freedom, not as some abstract slogan to be batted around in pointless debates on Fox News or CNN, but as a fundamental condition of my workplace.

When I hear Chuchill’s defenders adopt a knee-jerk stance of support, I am disappointed. Professor Yellow Bird and Professor Craven should know that Churchill’s violations are not trivial, and are not excused by the good work he may have done on behalf of their cause. Chuchill is discredited, and rightly so, regardless of where this case ends up.

But I am far more concerned about the effectiveness of the right-wing noise machine and its political co-conspirators. Their disingenuousness is obvious, and well represented by Hank Brown’s ludicrous invocation of Paris Hilton. For the record, Paris Hilton was never the target of a full-scale investigation by an institution of the government as a result of her notoriety. Either Mr. Brown knows this, and is insulting our intelligence, or he does not, in which case his political baggage evidently prevents his from even producing a coherent argument on his own behalf.

What Chuchill did is not all right. But what the State of Colorado is doing is worse. It is a cornerstone of the notion of due process that nobody should be subject to unusual government scrutiny or selective prosecution as a result of her constitutionally protected speech. When anyone, including Hank Brown, chips away at that cornserstone, we all become more vulnerable.

I regret that Ward Churchill has become the vehicle for this fight. He is unworthy. But anyone who knows the history of people like Ernesto Miranda knows that we cannot choose our champions. Just our principles.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 9:10 am EDT on May 30, 2007

The analogy to Miranda is one of the better references made on this site. A serial rapist, his conviction was overturned because police interrogators failed to respect his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to counsel. He was later killed in a knife fight at a bar. Not exactly the spokesperson we want for due process rights; yet they are all the more important for it.

Two things about some new software.

I got some new software this week. The new version of Microsoft Office has a redesigned user interface which I'm having to adjust to. But, my version includes Microsoft Onenote, which is a phenomenal tool. It's designed to operate like a virtual notebook, by intuitively creating moveable boxes for content insertion. I've only used it a couple of days, but I think it may be time to retire zoot!

The other program? Well, I can confirm... it is silicone crack. It's unbelievable how completely a game like Civilization can suck you into a fantasy world.

Another mystery of modern airtravel

What exactly is the point to "checking in"? One would think that by having passengers "check in", the airline will know how many people are going to be on the plane. Fine. But now, airlines let you "check in" from your home or office computer. A lot can happen between the time I click "check in" and the time I arrive at the airport.

I just bought a ticket on Southwest to fly from Pittsburgh to Chicago (which is the first leg in a 12 hour Planes, Trains and Automobiles odyssey that I'll write about some other time). Southwest has an annoying (imho) practice of not assigning seats. Instead passengers are classified into boarding categories. Theoretically, the first people to sign in get the first priority to board. This leads people to go online upto 24 hours before the flight to "check in".

I'm weird about seats. On planes & trains, movie theaters and stadiums, etc & so on, I want to know where my seat is and that nobody will take it from me (note, I already stipulated that this is weird). But I also don't want to commit until the last minute. Once I'm at an airport, I have no trouble checking in; but it seems wrong to notify the airline of my arrival 24 hours prior to my arrival. Anyway... it's almost time to teach the first class of the day.

Me in 20 years