Harry

Today’s protests were the largest yet — the police estimate was 70,000. Not a single arrest. Tea Party people turned up in… well, force would be too strong a word — 500 maybe — and looked, to be honest, a bit bewildered. I did wonder for a moment whether WEAC had paid a bunch of out-of-work actors to make the tea party look stupid and lift our spirits, but, no, I think they were genuine and doing it themselves. Only 2 doors of the Capitol were open (the others were clear for emergency vehicles, which I was a bit alarmed hadn’t already been done yesterday). I’ve no sense of the numbers, but there are 5000 in the Capitol at any given time, and a march of protesters about 15-20 people wide and pretty densely packed is surrounding the building walking round the square.

State Street was completely packed for several blocks too. The mood was pretty jovial and optimistic (but it is not clear what that optimism is grounded in). There’s no new news today, but yesterday AFSCME and WEAC offered to accept the benefit cuts in return for the removal of the union busting provisions and Walker dismissed it out of hand, making vivid what this is all about. The Senators are still in Illinois (but some seem to have migrated somewhere more palatable than Rockford and who can blame them. My guess is that the winter storm coming tomorrow will make for a quiet day. Insofar as I can judge the mood, my sense is that teachers in Madison want to return to work Monday (there’s a mass union meeting at 2 on Sunday to decide this) and to get the Assembly Democrats to ensure that no real legislative action happens before 4.30 when large scale action can begin. Fuller coverage in the Journal Sentinel.

For those who have asked: at present not a single Democrat is wavering, and it looks unlikely that any will. There were initial worries in the Assembly, but the causus solidified pretty fast, and will almost certainly hold. People have, rightly, given them a lot of credit.

A word about the police. I’ve been brutally beaten and arrested by cops on two continents during activities in support of strikes, and have been at many, many more demonstrations and protests of this scale or larger, though not for a long time (if you watch the video, I was much fatter then, and have no memory at all of the red baseball cap I seem to have had on prior to the arrest). Bad things are always possible. But in my experience usually (as in both my cases) violence depends on incompetent or ill-willed policing (or, more rarely, the determination of agent-provocateurs or irresponsible buggers to provoke it). Often, there is considerable tension between the police and demonstrators especially when (as this week) neither side was really ready for what was going to happen. These protests have been good-natured and fun, but still it is striking how good the policing has been — a lot of cops visibly present, but low key and friendly, determined not to play any role in raising the temperature. All the more remarkable for the fact that neither the protesters (with a few exceptions) nor the cops (with even fewer) have experienced things like this before, and still weren’t anticipating anything like it 4 days ago. Several lefties of my acquaintance (including myself) have made a point of friendly contact with cops, and simply telling them how impressive it has been.

Rallies are scheduled tomorrow, but a major winter storm may make them less impressive than they’ve been. The Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday and my guess is that 5 pm first on Monday, then on Tuesday. will be the gathering times for major action. Unfortunately I’ll be out of town on Monday, but will get my family to fill me in if you want further reports.

The protests today were much bigger, again, than the day before. Rumours are swirling that maybe Sarah Palin will turn up tomorrow (not that her support is likely to do us much good, but that’s life) and even Obama (in which case he’d better be a little more energetic in our support than he has been). My guess is that Palin is the more likely of the two. The news today is that the Assembly vote has been delayed till Tuesday (this morning’s meeting was such fun that the Reps shut it down). If you are within traveling distance, and have the time, the Capitol in Madison is the place to go. Be there by 11.

(My 14 year old stayed up all night, and testified before the Assembly at 5.20 am, pointing out that whereas most of the testimony of schoolkids had been about teachers, janitors and clerical staff were in an even worse situation because in theis economy it will be even more difficult for them to get other jobs and they are less likely to be married to other people with well paying secure jobs. At least, that’s what she told us. With not an iota of pride. Unlike her father.)

I chatted last night with a friend who is a Dem Representative (so not a Senator holed up wherever they are now), and my wife saw him an hour or so later, and said he looked as exhausted as he sounded. The Dem Reps are in the building round the clock basically, and excited but also tired. My friend says it really gives them energy to get messages of support, from old friends and new friends. Honestly, pretty much wherever you are, a short encouraging email will help keep their spirits up, and obviously if you’re in Wisconsin a nice note to your own (Dem) Rep is appropriate (Phelps – send a nice note to a bunch of them, ok, you’re almost uniquely capable of writing a letter that will encourage in this situation). An extremely polite note to your (Rep) Rep explaining why he or she should be opposing the bill, and making whatever pledge of support you can bring yourself to make, conditional on him/her contributing to the bill’s defeat, is also in order. Here’s the list of home pages, addresses, etc. I’m off now to see my mate and find my daughter.

Oh, by the way, its looking as if Tuesday’s budget speech will announce the de facto privatization UW Madison, so that’ll be fun too.

My understanding is that organizers are hoping for 100,000 at the State Capitol tomorrow. There is also word of counter-demonstrations, which should be fun. So if you’re within a reasonable distance of Madison and can come, you’re welcome. Bring your friends.

It’s a bit of a surprise to suddenly be in the midst of the biggest protests I’ve seen in my 25 years in the US. Wisconsin old-timers are saying they’ve never seen anything like it — not the Vietnam War protests, not even the earlier civil rights demonstrations in Wisconsin over housing. A sea of red surrounds the Capitol all day long, and the Capitol itself is chock full, tens of thousands of people chanting, joking, and occasionally bursting into loud applause which is entirely incomprehensible given that no-one can hear anything that speakers say.

The best news-gathering source I’ve found is at GlobalHigherEd where my colleague Kris Olds is regularly updating the links, and has a lot of background information. But the short story is this: last Friday our new Governor, Scott Walker, proposed a budget repair bill which includes considerable reductions in benefits for public sector workers, the removal of collective bargaining rights over anything but pay for public sector workers, and a provision disallowing payroll deduction union dues and a requirement that workers be allowed to be union members without paying dues. With majorities in both houses he assumed he could pass the bill within the week — the plan was that he would be signing it tomorrow (I’m writing on Thursday). Last weekend it was not at all clear that the opposition would be strong, and it wasn’t really until Tuesday night, when the local teacher’s union announced a sick out for Wednesday (widely thought to be a tactical error, including, I understand, by some of the leadership) that things really got moving. The Republicans have a large majority in the Assembly, but a majority of just 5 in the Senate, so all the action is in the Senate vote. Wednesday was when it all started to happen. The estimates of 15-30,000 demonstrators are probably on the low side — at any given time there may be 15,000 at any given point in the day hundreds are walking toward the Capitol, while hundreds are marching away. Although the teachers have been in the forefront of this (many more districts were closed today), other unions have been fully involved, including the police and firefighters unions which are exempted from the bill’s provisions [CORRECTED]

Thursday’s demonstrations were larger than Wednesday’s, and tomorrow’s (Friday’s) will be bigger still. Contrary to the impression given by the national reports I have seen, hardly any of the protest or rhetoric concerns the cuts in benefits; almost the entire movement is about protecting collective bargaining rights.

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For very personal reasons, depressing as it is, I cannot hear this one without smiling:

My wife has asked for wireless speakers for Christmas, for using an ipod or ipad with. I’ve looked through some of these options at amazon and, frankly, I’m clueless. I want speakers that are easy to set up, not too fancy or expensive, but reliable. Something like my Sanyo Internet Radio (much admired by my teenage daughter’s friends) that even I managed to set up in 5 minutes flat. I assume that our least tech-savvy reader is more tech-savvy than I, so I thought you might be able to give advice.

Well, prompted by the various criticisms of my practice described in this post on 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education I asked my current crop of freshman students what they think. Some answers below the fold (these do not make things easier). Entirely coincidentally I read this amazing paper about reducing the gender achievement gap in science courses, and it made me wonder whether the this issue (addressing professors) has more significance than I have thought.
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I’m sure we’ve had some discussion like this before, bemoaning the bad manners of undergraduates, but I can’t find it. Anyway, the other night I got one of those emails from unknown students which just starts “Hey” and continues with some request (usually to be admitted to one of my oversubscribed classes). My immediate reaction is to ignore (that was my wife’s advice) but this time I just decided to do something different. I wrote back explaining the over-subscription situation, and finished with this “By the way, you might want to address people you haven’t met more formally in future: I don’t find it irritating but many will” (which is a lie, I do find it irritating, but there’s no need to tell her that). My original version had more verbiage in it, but my 14 year old (whose missives to teachers are like business letters) told me to take it out on the grounds that “she’ll never do it again, but she’ll be scared to meet you”.

I was prompted to do this by Andrew Roberts’ book The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education (see tip 53). The central idea of the book is that students need a map of how to get the most out of college, and that lots of them arrive not understanding key things. Why not just make it explicit for her?

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Given the irritation at JQ’s short notice for his zombie talk, I thought I’d give more notice for my own talk at the UW Milwaukee Philosophy Department, on Justice in Higher Education, next Friday (December 3rd)[1]. It’s a more public-oriented talk than I imagine the other talks in their colloquium series (from extremely eminent scholars) have been [2], hence the unusual step of highlighting it here. Like JQ, I like meeting CT readers (even including those in my own field who know me from CT rather than from my scholarly work), and welcome feedback on the ideas I’ll present.

[1] I have been warned that for the past three years the first Friday in December has seen blizzard conditions between Madison and Milwaukee, so bear that in mind when planning…

[2] when I previously gave a talk at UW Milwaukee, thinking that my more mainstream work was more appropriate than my education related work, I gave a paper on democracy, only to be greeted with disappointment that I was not talking about education, which is one of many things I like about the department.

Via Laura at 11D, a bizarre, and surely either fake or drunken, memo. Penelope Trunk says she has verified the (excellent if true) Kimba Woods side of this. But the original memo cannot be real, surely?

Don’t be put off by the title. I’ve been entertaining students this week — members of my current freshman seminar on Monday, who watched an episode of Freaks and Geeks on campus for which I bought healthy food (after assuring the one who was made nervous by my reference to “healthy” that it would indeed be filling), and 12 members of my 2007 seminar on Friday at my home. One of the 2007 class is now working as a teacher critic/peer mentor in the current class, so she was at both events, and suspects that she has an allergy to gluten. (I hired her to tell me what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong as a teacher, which she is even better at than I imagined, and has time left over to get to know the freshmen, participate in class discussions, etc). I planned to bake one cake for the current class, and two for the 2007 class: and thought I’d just try to do it gluten free.

Working on the principal that of the four main grains corn and rice are far inferior to wheat, it occurred to me that, since oats are superior to wheat, maybe that was the way to go. So I’d try making my cakes with oat flour. My daughter observed that without gluten the rising process might be inhibited, and suggested adding an extra egg or two, and some chemical leavening (no idea whether she’s right about the chemistry, but I thought it worth a try). So I did. Both cakes turned out absolutely delicious — definitely no less good than when made with regular flour. Honestly, if you have a gluten-allergic guest or someone gluten-allergic in the house, these are cakes you’ll be happy to serve to everyone (I was also rather surprised how good the quinoa pasta tasted — as long as you have it pretty al dente, its good). Anyway, here they are:

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I always liked the Goodies more than the Pythons. Sillier, far less intellectual, funnier, and almost never stumped by the lack a punchline. My children have seen all the episodes available on DVD at least 7 times, the girls know several episodes by heart, and yet they still fall about laughing whenever they watch them. Here’s the obligatory 30-minutes celebration. Well worth a listen. And, much to my relief, this coincides with the release of several new episodes including the one with the giant Dougal which should arrive in time for the 9 year old’s slumber party on Friday.

This was made by some 15 year-old schoolkids in the UK. Having got the link I, mercifully, watched it before sending to my philosophy students. They get the philosophy pretty much right. PARENTAL ADVISORY though, it is very rude (I have not sent it to my students, though I suppose some of them probably read CT).