Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Raleigh: City of nothing special at all
Raleigh is the "city of oaks," but oak trees are not particularly distinctive. Maybe that's a good thing, says the author of the forthcoming Oak: The Frame of Civilization. "The persistent, the common, the various, the adaptable is valuable in itself. The oak's distinction is its insistence and its flexibility. It specializes in not specializing."
Family resemblance?
I don't really think so, Brad, but I'm glad you noted a key distinction. (Whew!)
UPDATE: Turns out there's another similarity. We are both Episcopalians. But yea, there is an important difference. The judge belongs to a church that broke away in 2004, after the ordination of an openly gay bishop. Big difference there.
UPDATE: Turns out there's another similarity. We are both Episcopalians. But yea, there is an important difference. The judge belongs to a church that broke away in 2004, after the ordination of an openly gay bishop. Big difference there.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Why I write
In the blawgosphere there's an interesting question going around: what motivates your academic scholarship? The answers go beyond the obvious. Since the people answering are not only law professors but also bloggers, which already means compulsive writers, that isn't surprising. Here's my start at an answer to why I write academic articles even though my career choices have taken me away from the tenure track. One of the best reasons to write, I find, is to piece out an answer to a question like this: writing as self-discovery.
1. To set the record straight. "Getting it right" in rebuttal to someone who has gotten it terribly wrong is a powerful motivator. An early publication of mine was written out of frustration with a New York Times review of a novel, The Night Travellers by Elizabeth Spencer. A male reviewer took this woman's novel that had two protagonists, male and female, and assumed that the boy was the one the story was really about. He measured it against his expectations of a boy's coming of age story and found it wanting. But this was the wrong measure, I claimed. It was the girl's story, and it had a very different trajectory.
2. Because I want to let you in on a secret. A poem by Plath is more interesting if, for example, you understand how the poet absorbed and translated the influence of the artist Giorgio de Chirico. A novel by Melville becomes more richly layered if you explore just one allusion to a long-forgotten historical figure. This style of criticism is commonly called an influence study.
3. Because I want to set the record straight by letting you in on a secret. For my dissertation, which led to a collection of essays, I studied the ways in which Renaissance literature influenced Virginia Woolf. By the early 1990s, feminist scholars of the Renaissance kind of had it in for Woolf, who in A Room of One's Own invents "Shakespeare's sister," a frustrated writer, and assumes that in the 16th century she would have been all alone. Not so! these contemporary scholars proclaimed, sharing their own secrets. Just look and you'll find all sorts of women writers back there. Maybe so, I thought; but that's not all Woolf got out of the Renaissance. Her Renaissance comes out of Michelet and the French Revolution--it is a space of imagination and hope and radical reinvention. By this point what I was deeply engaged in was not influence study so much as historical (literary) criticism: trying to understand works in broad social, political, and intellectual context. And this is where I have chosen to dwell.
4. Because I want to let you in on secrets within secrets, and closer to home at that. I'm lucky to have come along in a time when interdisciplinary study is so strong. (Paul likes to cruise the textbook aisles to see how many history professors are teaching novels.) Influenced by Woolf herself (by an understanding of both her interest in "the lives of the obscure" and her insistently open and democratic critical practice, as outlined by my friend Melba Cuddy-Keane), influenced further by making a life in Chapel Hill among a wealth of historical resources, I've turned my attention to the American South across two centuries. I've returned to Spencer, for example, by doing some 19th century detective work to discover the 1886 context behind her 1950s novel The Voice at the Back Door.
The fascinating thing about this project is the way it invokes issues of historical memory. The episode that Spencer alludes to, the historical event that I teased out of old newspapers, happened in her home town. But she knew almost nothing about it; her family wouldn't talk. There's a lot that southerners have refused to talk about. And so the study of historical memory itself, which has made valuable contributions to other fields, in southern studies has now come into its own. (The debate over the legacy of Cornelia Phillips Spencer is an example of an evolving historical memory.)
Another thing is that once you start to think about "the texture of memory," as James Young calls his book on Holocaust memorials--about memory a component of history, rather than something apart--the work of writing becomes even more difficult, for you become aware of contingencies upon contingencies ("turtles all the way down"). You come to understand that the record does not intend to be set straight--which is not to say, however, that meaning cannot be made. I have two new projects on the horizon, both of which involve coming to terms with difficult untold stories. Seems like everyone I know who grew up in the South has a story. "Tell about the South": and so we should.
5. For pure pleasure. Gloria Steinem said it best: "I like to have written."
UPDATE: Eric Muller joins Michael Froomkin and Orin Kerr in articulating a thoughtful response. Some overlap: "I write out of a delusional sense that I have reached some insight others are missing" (Kerr); "Some articles I wrote because I was angry and wanted to fix something" (Froomkin); "I write to have fun and to tell stories about the law that I think are important, that outrage me, and that move me" (Muller). And others have recalled George Orwell: "[L]looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally."
1. To set the record straight. "Getting it right" in rebuttal to someone who has gotten it terribly wrong is a powerful motivator. An early publication of mine was written out of frustration with a New York Times review of a novel, The Night Travellers by Elizabeth Spencer. A male reviewer took this woman's novel that had two protagonists, male and female, and assumed that the boy was the one the story was really about. He measured it against his expectations of a boy's coming of age story and found it wanting. But this was the wrong measure, I claimed. It was the girl's story, and it had a very different trajectory.
2. Because I want to let you in on a secret. A poem by Plath is more interesting if, for example, you understand how the poet absorbed and translated the influence of the artist Giorgio de Chirico. A novel by Melville becomes more richly layered if you explore just one allusion to a long-forgotten historical figure. This style of criticism is commonly called an influence study.
3. Because I want to set the record straight by letting you in on a secret. For my dissertation, which led to a collection of essays, I studied the ways in which Renaissance literature influenced Virginia Woolf. By the early 1990s, feminist scholars of the Renaissance kind of had it in for Woolf, who in A Room of One's Own invents "Shakespeare's sister," a frustrated writer, and assumes that in the 16th century she would have been all alone. Not so! these contemporary scholars proclaimed, sharing their own secrets. Just look and you'll find all sorts of women writers back there. Maybe so, I thought; but that's not all Woolf got out of the Renaissance. Her Renaissance comes out of Michelet and the French Revolution--it is a space of imagination and hope and radical reinvention. By this point what I was deeply engaged in was not influence study so much as historical (literary) criticism: trying to understand works in broad social, political, and intellectual context. And this is where I have chosen to dwell.
4. Because I want to let you in on secrets within secrets, and closer to home at that. I'm lucky to have come along in a time when interdisciplinary study is so strong. (Paul likes to cruise the textbook aisles to see how many history professors are teaching novels.) Influenced by Woolf herself (by an understanding of both her interest in "the lives of the obscure" and her insistently open and democratic critical practice, as outlined by my friend Melba Cuddy-Keane), influenced further by making a life in Chapel Hill among a wealth of historical resources, I've turned my attention to the American South across two centuries. I've returned to Spencer, for example, by doing some 19th century detective work to discover the 1886 context behind her 1950s novel The Voice at the Back Door.
The fascinating thing about this project is the way it invokes issues of historical memory. The episode that Spencer alludes to, the historical event that I teased out of old newspapers, happened in her home town. But she knew almost nothing about it; her family wouldn't talk. There's a lot that southerners have refused to talk about. And so the study of historical memory itself, which has made valuable contributions to other fields, in southern studies has now come into its own. (The debate over the legacy of Cornelia Phillips Spencer is an example of an evolving historical memory.)
Another thing is that once you start to think about "the texture of memory," as James Young calls his book on Holocaust memorials--about memory a component of history, rather than something apart--the work of writing becomes even more difficult, for you become aware of contingencies upon contingencies ("turtles all the way down"). You come to understand that the record does not intend to be set straight--which is not to say, however, that meaning cannot be made. I have two new projects on the horizon, both of which involve coming to terms with difficult untold stories. Seems like everyone I know who grew up in the South has a story. "Tell about the South": and so we should.
5. For pure pleasure. Gloria Steinem said it best: "I like to have written."
UPDATE: Eric Muller joins Michael Froomkin and Orin Kerr in articulating a thoughtful response. Some overlap: "I write out of a delusional sense that I have reached some insight others are missing" (Kerr); "Some articles I wrote because I was angry and wanted to fix something" (Froomkin); "I write to have fun and to tell stories about the law that I think are important, that outrage me, and that move me" (Muller). And others have recalled George Orwell: "[L]looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally."
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Triumph of Reaganomics: free-market theology
When Jeff Sharlet read Jonathan Mahler's story on megachurches, he got a little nervous that he'd been scooped. He needn't have worried. His article in the May Harper's is out. You can, and should, read it here.
Mahler focused on a church in Arizona; Sharlet went to the Mecca of the evangelical Christian movement, Colorado Springs. He follows the faithful as they migrated to this place:
Colorado Springs is the home base of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family," but what these folks found is a little different. They found Pastor Ted Haggard, who talks to the White House weekly. From his "New Life" church, Haggard preaches a "free-market theology."
Sharlet admits to being a kind of Judas to his subjects. "And I won't be shy about calling Ted Haggard, James Dodson, and all the other power preachers Judases. They're writers of a kind as well, telling stories about the nation, and they inevitably betray their subjects despite their best intentions."
UPDATE: A response in the form of a persuasive litany.
Mahler focused on a church in Arizona; Sharlet went to the Mecca of the evangelical Christian movement, Colorado Springs. He follows the faithful as they migrated to this place:
The story they found in Colorado is about newness: new houses, new roads, new stores. And about oldness, imagined: what is thought to be the traditional way of life, families as they were before the culture wars, after the World Wars, which is to say, during the brief, Cold War moment when America was a nation of single-breadwinner nuclear families.
Colorado Springs is the home base of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family," but what these folks found is a little different. They found Pastor Ted Haggard, who talks to the White House weekly. From his "New Life" church, Haggard preaches a "free-market theology."
New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, “like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society.” They like the stimulation of a new brand. “Have you ever switched your toothpaste brand, just for the fun of it?” Pastor Ted asks. Admit it, he insists. All the way home, you felt a “secret little thrill,” as excited questions ran through your mind: “Will it make my teeth whiter? My breath fresher?” This is the sensation Ted wants pastors to bring to the Christian experience. He believes it is time “to harness the forces of free-market capitalism in our ministry.” Once a pastor does that, his flock can start organizing itself according to each member’s abilities and tastes.
Sharlet admits to being a kind of Judas to his subjects. "And I won't be shy about calling Ted Haggard, James Dodson, and all the other power preachers Judases. They're writers of a kind as well, telling stories about the nation, and they inevitably betray their subjects despite their best intentions."
UPDATE: A response in the form of a persuasive litany.
Friday, May 27, 2005
"Mighty Times" then and now
I was sorry I couldn't join Paul last night for the Carrboro screening of "Mighty Times: The Children's March," an Oscar-winning documentary "that tells the story of a group of young people in Birmingham, Alabama, who braved fire hoses and police dogs in 1963 in a fight against segregation in their town." Tim Tyson, Reg Hildebrand, and Chuck Stone led the after-discussion.
Tim's book about some mighty times up in Oxford, N.C., has sold 50,000 copies. That's great. It'll be more by the time UNC gets through with it. This is a book about confronting the past straight on. Toward the end of it, Tim lays it out:
The reception in Oxford is, naturally enough, mixed.
It's a book well worth reading in our own not so mighty time.
Tim's book about some mighty times up in Oxford, N.C., has sold 50,000 copies. That's great. It'll be more by the time UNC gets through with it. This is a book about confronting the past straight on. Toward the end of it, Tim lays it out:
We cannot address the place we find ourselves because we will not acknowledge the road that brought us here. Our failure to confront the historical truth about how African Americans finally won their freedom presents a major obstacle to genuine racial reconciliation. In some instances, white people rose to the call of conscience, though only a handful followed their convictions into the streets. More often, what grabbed white America’s attention was the chaos in those streets. . . . The civil rights movement knocked down the formal and legal barriers to equal citizenship, but failed to give most African Americans real power in this society.
The reception in Oxford is, naturally enough, mixed.
"I know some people in town are angry about the book," said author Tim Tyson, who spent part of his growing-up time in Oxford and was 10 years old in 1970. He noted that a friend told him the book divided white Oxford into two camps, "the people who were angry about the book and the people who had read the book."
It's a book well worth reading in our own not so mighty time.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Vigils tonight
Vigils in Durham tonight at all three of the cross-burning locations.
DOWNTOWN VIGIL: 6:00 community dinner and discussion on the cross burnings and the communty's response, 7:30 pm Vigil: Meet for both at the Durham Main Library parking lot, at 300 N Rosboro, between Holloway and Liberty streets. The dinner will take place within walking distance of the library. The vigil will likely take place near the site of the cross burning, 2 blocks away at the United House of Prayer on Dillard and Holloway. If you can help bring a dish, banners, or candles please Contact Andrew Pearson, kangaroo@email.unc.edu 360 2028.
WEST DURHAM VIGIL: 8:00 pm At or near St. Luke's Episcopal Church, (919) 286-2273, 1737 Hillandale Rd, Durham 27705, near I-85. The Church pastor and neighborhood and community groups are involved in the planning. Contact: John Schelp, bwatu@yahoo.com, Old West Durham Neighborhood Association,
SOUTH DURHAM VIGIL: 8:00 pm on the sidewalk on South Roxboro Street, near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in front of the site of the cross burning. The plan at present is to have everyone gather on the sidewalk at the site of the burning on South Roxboro Street tonight at 8 pm and bring a candle "to shine some light in this moment of darkness." Churches and civic organizations are being contacted and fliers are being printed up. Contact Terry and Ann Lee Mosley, mosgen@earthlink.net, 489-8592.
DOWNTOWN VIGIL: 6:00 community dinner and discussion on the cross burnings and the communty's response, 7:30 pm Vigil: Meet for both at the Durham Main Library parking lot, at 300 N Rosboro, between Holloway and Liberty streets. The dinner will take place within walking distance of the library. The vigil will likely take place near the site of the cross burning, 2 blocks away at the United House of Prayer on Dillard and Holloway. If you can help bring a dish, banners, or candles please Contact Andrew Pearson, kangaroo@email.unc.edu 360 2028.
WEST DURHAM VIGIL: 8:00 pm At or near St. Luke's Episcopal Church, (919) 286-2273, 1737 Hillandale Rd, Durham 27705, near I-85. The Church pastor and neighborhood and community groups are involved in the planning. Contact: John Schelp, bwatu@yahoo.com, Old West Durham Neighborhood Association,
SOUTH DURHAM VIGIL: 8:00 pm on the sidewalk on South Roxboro Street, near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in front of the site of the cross burning. The plan at present is to have everyone gather on the sidewalk at the site of the burning on South Roxboro Street tonight at 8 pm and bring a candle "to shine some light in this moment of darkness." Churches and civic organizations are being contacted and fliers are being printed up. Contact Terry and Ann Lee Mosley, mosgen@earthlink.net, 489-8592.
Manning: Stop the "academic genocide."
Last year's crossing of the half-century mark for Brown v. Board of Education sparked much reflection. With the notable exception of Derrick Bell, who in the tradition of W.E.B. du Bois has argued that the goal of Brown should have been equal funding rather than integrated schools, most scholars agreed that the right result was reached, if for wrong, strained, or insufficient reasons.
One route the court could have taken, but did not, was to declare that education itself is a fundamental constitutional right. Actually, Jack Balkin, in his smart and clever book What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said, said "one could be forgiven for thinking that the court did hold that education was a fundamental interest." Chief Justice Warren wrote that the opportunity for education, "where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." But the simple holding of Brown as it became understood was considerably more modest: that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
Any doubt on this point was resolved in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), a 5-4 opinion in which Justice Powell held (as Balkin puts it) "that education was not a fundamental right or a fundamental interest, that the poor had no constitutional right to equal treatment on grounds of their poverty, and that states and municipalities had no constitutional obligation to equalize funding for education, or, for that matter, to guarantee equal educational opportunity for rich and poor." (Thurgood Marshall was in the dissent, as you might imagine.) It was an issue best left to the states.
In North Carolina the Leandro case put this question to the test. Although Justice Orr would have found a constitutional right to equal education, he was a lone minority. The guarantee of Leandro is only a guarantee of certain basic minimal standards.
Still, you work with what you have. Judge Howard Manning, who has embraced his role as enforcer of the law, cajoler of legislators, thorn in the side of school administrators, does not let up. In a report issued this week on the sad state of N.C. high schools (available here), he cited four in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district--four schools whose low test scores aligned with high percentages of minority students--as victims of "academic genocide." Manning to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Manning to North Carolina: you must and can do better.
One route the court could have taken, but did not, was to declare that education itself is a fundamental constitutional right. Actually, Jack Balkin, in his smart and clever book What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said, said "one could be forgiven for thinking that the court did hold that education was a fundamental interest." Chief Justice Warren wrote that the opportunity for education, "where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." But the simple holding of Brown as it became understood was considerably more modest: that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
Any doubt on this point was resolved in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), a 5-4 opinion in which Justice Powell held (as Balkin puts it) "that education was not a fundamental right or a fundamental interest, that the poor had no constitutional right to equal treatment on grounds of their poverty, and that states and municipalities had no constitutional obligation to equalize funding for education, or, for that matter, to guarantee equal educational opportunity for rich and poor." (Thurgood Marshall was in the dissent, as you might imagine.) It was an issue best left to the states.
In North Carolina the Leandro case put this question to the test. Although Justice Orr would have found a constitutional right to equal education, he was a lone minority. The guarantee of Leandro is only a guarantee of certain basic minimal standards.
Still, you work with what you have. Judge Howard Manning, who has embraced his role as enforcer of the law, cajoler of legislators, thorn in the side of school administrators, does not let up. In a report issued this week on the sad state of N.C. high schools (available here), he cited four in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district--four schools whose low test scores aligned with high percentages of minority students--as victims of "academic genocide." Manning to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Manning to North Carolina: you must and can do better.
Southern discomfort
Priscilla Owen is in; William Pryor, a Christian states-rightser sitting as Bush's recess appointment to the 11th Circuit, will soon get his "up-or-down vote" (there is another kind?).
Known in some quarters as Roy Moore's persecutor because as Alabama attorney general he stoood by a federal court's order to have Moore's Ten Commandments removed from the state courthouse, Pryor did support Moore's candidacy for the state Surpreme Court on grounds of Christian redemption, and he continued to "avidly support" the judge's efforts to put Christianity in the courtroom.
Now from the federal bench, he has betrayed Moore again. In the case about the public school "warning label" on science textbooks he denied Moore permission to file an amicus brief while accepting other briefs. "Pryor explained in the ruling that Moore's arguments weren't relevent because they essentially asked the appeals court to overturn Supreme Court precedent." (Via Howard Bashman.)
And by the way, the pro-life folks can't figure out if he is with them or against them, because he has indicated an interest in following the rule of law.
It's all too confusing for me.
Known in some quarters as Roy Moore's persecutor because as Alabama attorney general he stoood by a federal court's order to have Moore's Ten Commandments removed from the state courthouse, Pryor did support Moore's candidacy for the state Surpreme Court on grounds of Christian redemption, and he continued to "avidly support" the judge's efforts to put Christianity in the courtroom.
Now from the federal bench, he has betrayed Moore again. In the case about the public school "warning label" on science textbooks he denied Moore permission to file an amicus brief while accepting other briefs. "Pryor explained in the ruling that Moore's arguments weren't relevent because they essentially asked the appeals court to overturn Supreme Court precedent." (Via Howard Bashman.)
And by the way, the pro-life folks can't figure out if he is with them or against them, because he has indicated an interest in following the rule of law.
It's all too confusing for me.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
When not to decide is not to decide
In December I wrote about a Honduran national on trial for murder in Durham whose case was poised to be significantly affected by an upcoming Supreme Court case, Medellin v. Dretke. The issue was whether the prosecution's violation of a Geneva Convention rule about notifying the foreign national's consulate constituted a procedural bar to the prosecution. With a capital sentence at stake, obviously this was no small question.
Between December and the date the case was heard, in March, the Bush administration caved, at least in regard to the defendants involved in Medellin: it ordered that all 51 of the defendants joined in that case be allowed to make their procedural defense. (At the same time, it announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from this inconvenient treaty obligation.)
The Supreme Court's decision was announced Monday. The appeal was dismissed "in order to give the Texas state courts a chance to sort out the issues." Those cases will get sorted out, but what about the defendant in Durham and others elsewhere? Four justices would have held on to jurisdiction so that eventually they could decide the question. "It seems to me unsound to avoid questions of national importance when they are bound to recur," Justice O'Connor said. Justice Ginsburg was the swing vote for dismissal.
Between December and the date the case was heard, in March, the Bush administration caved, at least in regard to the defendants involved in Medellin: it ordered that all 51 of the defendants joined in that case be allowed to make their procedural defense. (At the same time, it announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from this inconvenient treaty obligation.)
The Supreme Court's decision was announced Monday. The appeal was dismissed "in order to give the Texas state courts a chance to sort out the issues." Those cases will get sorted out, but what about the defendant in Durham and others elsewhere? Four justices would have held on to jurisdiction so that eventually they could decide the question. "It seems to me unsound to avoid questions of national importance when they are bound to recur," Justice O'Connor said. Justice Ginsburg was the swing vote for dismissal.
Paul Ricoeur
John McGowan (guest-blogging for Michael Bérubé while he recovers from an appendectomy) has a lovely and thoughtful post on Paul Ricoeur, who died last week. Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting, which came out in English last year, has just jumped higher on the list of books I really must get around to soon.
Scott McLemee is puzzled: "nobody in the American media has insulted Ricoeur yet. What’s going on? Have our pundits lost their commitment to mocking European intellectuals and the pointy-headed professors who read them?"
Scott McLemee is puzzled: "nobody in the American media has insulted Ricoeur yet. What’s going on? Have our pundits lost their commitment to mocking European intellectuals and the pointy-headed professors who read them?"
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
"Light in the Piazza" CD is out
And it's off to a great start with this rave from the Times. This is the second review I've seen that compares the musical to "West Side Story."
Business cycles
While I spent yesterday morning in Town Hall hearing presentations from the two teams who are bidding on our downtown redevelopment project, the Burlington Industries building in Greensboro came tumbling down. To the inexplicable cheers of a curious crowd, the empty and useless building was imploded. Ed Cone has an eyewitness report. Chewie, another G'boro blogger, has more, including this nice picture:
Various efforts to save this stunning building--Ed called it "one of the finest examples of corporate modern architecture in the southeast"--came to naught. Over in Chapel Hill, it strikes me as a dose of humility.
.
Once upon a time, Burlington Industries brought the world to Greensboro. Its executives came and went from a helipad atop the corporate headquarters, an award-winning landmark of steel and glass on a corporate campus of stunning maple trees.
The company prospered; the town became a city.
The city grew; the world changed. Eventually, no one could find much use for a textile company's corporate world headquarters.
So on May 23, 2005, they brought it down.
Various efforts to save this stunning building--Ed called it "one of the finest examples of corporate modern architecture in the southeast"--came to naught. Over in Chapel Hill, it strikes me as a dose of humility.
.
Monday, May 23, 2005
If you have to lose something, Paris would be the place.
The 200th anniversary of a lost-and-found office established by Napoleon.
Two wedding dresses retrieved from the subway.
Five cut diamonds.
A collection of 200 light blue butterflies.
Skis, sunglasses, roller skates.
Many, many cell phones. (Sometimes they ring.)
"A museum of daily life," says the director.
Two wedding dresses retrieved from the subway.
Five cut diamonds.
A collection of 200 light blue butterflies.
Skis, sunglasses, roller skates.
Many, many cell phones. (Sometimes they ring.)
"A museum of daily life," says the director.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Art in very public places
When I commented on the gutter art contest in Vancouver last August, I thought it was just a splash in the pan. Wrong! If your summer plans include a trip to a major city, be sure to look down. There's a whole world of creativity and history swirling right under your feet.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Tool of the trade
At the beginning of Black History Month 2002, Norman Powell, a white employee at a NCDOT maintenance depot in Raleigh, made a noose out of a 7-ft. rope and hung it up for benefit of his black colleagues. In their case alleging a hostile work environment, seven of these black men alleged that Powell said in a meeting, "We need to go back to the way things used to be and tie them up and hang them like my father did."
The jury returned its verdict on Wednesday. They found that indeed the work environment was hostile. But they gave no money damages. Money damages depended upon a finding against DOT management, and on this point the jury credited the defense. "Lawyers for the DOT had argued that the men's supervisors believed the looped rope was a tool, not a noose, and therefore the agency was not responsible."
It was certainly a tool. Yes, that it was.
UPDATE: Last night at the NAACP Banquet I sat next to Ashley Osment, whose husband Al McSurely represented the plaintiffs. She explained that the verdict was a total loss. The way the newspaper had it, I thought it was like a civil rights case under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 in which you can get an order against a state agency telling it not to act up again, ever, even when you can't get money damages. No, this was a Title VII employment discrimination case: you not only have to prove a hostile environment, but you also have to link the management directly to it. The jury wouldn't go that far. So the plaintiffs lost. Not even a promise that it wouldn't happen again. Ashley said that because of the misleading coverage they'd fielded many "congratulations" calls. But this is not even a Phyrric victory, because nothing was gained.
The jury returned its verdict on Wednesday. They found that indeed the work environment was hostile. But they gave no money damages. Money damages depended upon a finding against DOT management, and on this point the jury credited the defense. "Lawyers for the DOT had argued that the men's supervisors believed the looped rope was a tool, not a noose, and therefore the agency was not responsible."
It was certainly a tool. Yes, that it was.
UPDATE: Last night at the NAACP Banquet I sat next to Ashley Osment, whose husband Al McSurely represented the plaintiffs. She explained that the verdict was a total loss. The way the newspaper had it, I thought it was like a civil rights case under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 in which you can get an order against a state agency telling it not to act up again, ever, even when you can't get money damages. No, this was a Title VII employment discrimination case: you not only have to prove a hostile environment, but you also have to link the management directly to it. The jury wouldn't go that far. So the plaintiffs lost. Not even a promise that it wouldn't happen again. Ashley said that because of the misleading coverage they'd fielded many "congratulations" calls. But this is not even a Phyrric victory, because nothing was gained.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Women's Center interview
The Women's Center of Chapel Hill has been providing invaluable services to the community since 1979. Elizabeth Waugh-Stewart, their energetic and dynamic director of financial and housing programs, interviewed me and my neighbor (and longtime activist) Florry Glasser for the spring newsletter. Here it is.
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