Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

or what I’m thinking about today in a desperate effort to prevent my brain from going numb as I grade midterms

• A Question of Feminism or a “Movement”? – about the need to hold feminists accountable to each other and, especially, the need for white feminists (and those with other privileges) to be accountable to those with fewer social privileges. Discussion can be found at the original post and at Feministe
• Apparently only one US Senator cares enough about modern-day slavery in Florida to show up at hearings on the subject. And do you know who I blame for that? Us. Every other senator’s constituents. Our elected representatives will only act on this kind of issue when we let them know that issues like these matter and will continue to matter on election day.
• “[T]he current Democratic primary is the white vinegar that has brought the stains of misogyny and other forms of privilege more to the surface of our national carpet.” Of course, by “other forms of privilege”, I can only assume that the author is talking about race. Ableism certainly has not been brought up into the national consciousness, despite Senator Clinton’s support for the grossly misnamed Autism Speaks. I don’t see homophobia or transphobia being raised either.

I’ve already covered a few of the excitements and disappointments that occurred this week and, for a change, I have no papers to correct this weekend. My film classes will be turning in a character analysis this coming week; I spent about half of each class going over requirements for it and made sure to give them examples of good and bad thesis statements, along with so-so examples which I’m hoping will allow students for whom more complicated ideas are out of reach to move past summarizing at least.

My sophomore writing students, on the other hand, have been given their very first research project, a short description of a historical person using at least two sources; I fully expect their attempts at citation to be dismal failures, despite the examples I wrote on the board. This is why I don’t grade their first drafts: they should not be penalized for not being exposed to different types of writing before, and they need to be able to try something new without losing points. In the end, this will benefit them greatly, especially since they are required to complete a research thesis in their senior year (for which the official curriculum thoroughly fails to prepare them, a failure that encourages already rampant plagiarism).

On a more amusing note, I decided to give these classes a break from written drills by having them throw a ball around to practice using transitions to connect sentences. In theory, each student was supposed to catch the ball, say a sentence connected to the previous student’s, and then throw the ball to someone else. In practice, none of them even tried to catch the ball; they kept hitting each other on the head instead.

Crossing Rivers Into Twilight has a blog: Night Stream Journey

This CNN article on how the new show Eli Stone perpetuates the wholly unsupported belief that vaccines cause autism misses what is most offensive about the episode: the assumption that autism is such a horrific thing that a family with an autistic child should receive great economic compensation. Had the award been phrased only in terms of the amount needed for adaptations between the child and an environment that is manifestly unfriendly to autistics (that is to say, society as it stands today), that would have sent a different message. As it is, however, showing that parents whose children are autistic in some sense deserve cash rewards continues to perpetuate the idea that autism is entirely and overwhelmingly negative.

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Over on Alternet, a rather sloppy satire suggests making the AL an “altered league” and the NL the “natural league” in response to the steroid scandal (since the AL allows designated hitters afterall). As I am a fan of an AL team, I would vehemently oppose any such plan were it seriously proposed. However, the basic premise of separate leagues is sound: with any luck, the ‘roid rage league would take with it all the foolish “fans” who only want to see home runs and fail to appreciate a 20+ pitch duel or real offensive strategy.