It's like having my own personal think tank.

[hermionesviolin]

I have really solid, quality people in my life. I appreciate that a lot. So yeah, big general thank you to y'all.

Am still tweaking next semester's class schedule (registration is in a couple weeks) and have now started thinking about next year also.

More abuse of the friendslist will follow.

Reminding you that op/ed pieces must be sent to Cate by Wednesday at 6pm.

These are the topics that we would like addressed this week:
1. Copyright and file sharing
2. the HONS issue
3. the saving-Energy contest

Let me know if you are interested in contributing on those topics or any others.

[Whoa, that e-mail was sent to 14 people. 5 editorials appear in an issue. 3 of us have a weekly column. Wow, that's a lot of "when I feel like it" writers.]

I don't feel capable of writing on any of those topics. So someone tell me what to write about.

As soon as the partial-birth abortion ban passed and everyone freaked out i thought about writing an article on that. It's such a tricky issue that i'm still working out what exactly i think, so i'm not sure i could manage a coherent piece on it.

When i finally update there will be stuff about the Buddhist talks i went to yesterday. One of the things which came up (though unfortunately it felt mostly like lip service) was being compassionate, not being antagonistic towards one's opponents; deep listening, trying to understand where one's opponents are coming from. Can that somehow be worked into a piece that isn't horribly vague and preachy?

I didn't watch the Democratic Debate tonight, so unless there's a transcript around i can't write on that. (The friends-of list will be abused again once i finally have time to start investigating candidates.)

Hmm. Logic 100 every year has its students break into 4 groups and chalk the campus arguing about some controversial issue which is actually fake but is presented as real. It didn't work so well this year because it was over Family Weekend and the rain meant flyers in the Campus Center instead of chalkings all over campus, but the issue this year was Smith establishing a Military Science department. I feel like somehow one could make an article out of that, but whatever vague plan i had seems to have fallen out of my brain.

There are those blinking studies i was talking about with akronohten the other night. The problematics of searching for and/or finding a "gay gene" or something similar. That could be a cool article. And it would just be an opinion editorial about an issue which has been in the news and happens to be relevant to Smithies but it gets me out of the all-about-Smith groove i've been in (Celebration, Grecourt Gates, political diversity at Smith). I feel like not only have i been in a Smith groove but it's been a complaining about Smith groove and even if no one else notices i feel like that's bad (not that there isn't plenty to criticize, i just think it's bad to do only that every week) so it would be nice to have a breather from that.

Or maybe i could just write a piece on SCMA's Undomesticated Interiors (which i heart muchly). Though that's really an arts piece, and i would want to wait until the companion exhibit "Photographing Undomesticated Interiors" went up (that starts this Friday). And i really have no idea how i would go about doing a piece on that, i just lurve the exhibit so it popped into my head.


[One of the many reasons i heart LJ is that writing things down helps me clarify them and apparently gets me thinking. I'm now thinking blinking studies as my piece, which totally wasn't on my possible list when i started this entry. And i may Letter to the Editor if the inevitable abortion piece makes me want to defenestrate desk chairs.]

Comments

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

First of all, big points to you for using 'defenestrate' in an LJ entry. :D

As soon as the partial-birth abortion ban passed and everyone freaked out i thought about writing an article on that. It's such a tricky issue that i'm still working out what exactly i think, so i'm not sure i could manage a coherent piece on it.
Which is why I'll be very excited to read about you opening up that can of rabid attack worms, if you ever do. That's something that calls for lots and lots of research.

What's the HONS issue? Is that a Smith thing?

What might make an interesting (though extremely meta) is a column about opinions, but I'm not totally sure how or if it would work. Or, the fact that election day is coming up, and that many people don't seem to bother to vote on non-big-deal elections (like city council or whatnot) even though those can have a much bigger and immediate effect on our lives?

Just throwing stuff out there...

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

*grins* "Defenestrate" is such a great word. I think it's the one thing we all took away from 10th grade Western Civ.

Rabid attack worms. I like that image, very apt. I will be writing about it some when i finally finish my next uber-update.


Yes, HONS is a Smith thing. HONS, Heads Of New Students, are ResLifers (but not policy enforcers) who are mostly all about helping the first-years adjust. Apparently this year before classes had even started, HONS in one of the houses were caught drinking and smoking up with their first years. It was a raucous party and Public Safety got called, so there has been debate about how only a few people got in trouble when so many people were there. Normally Judicial Board (made up mostly of students) would get called in on a case like this, but because not everyone was back yet or the new JB wasn't trained yet or whatever, the administration stepped in directly. I believe the HONS in question were kicked out of campus housing.

There was i believe one Sophian article on this a couple weeks after the fact, but mostly it's been discussed in places like the Daily Jolt (http://smith.dailyjolt.com/forum/) and i don't think there's been any official word from the college. The house in question put up a banner saying "Loyalty to our house always, loyalty to our college when it deserves it" which is still up.

I culled the intelligent bits from the Jolt thinking i might at some time want the information, so i can e-mail that to you if you're really interested.

Cate's been wanting someone to write on it ("is it over? or has it just begun?") for a couple weeks now.

Attilla the HON

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think that's an interesting topic, because it's an opportunity to delve into the drinking age/marijuana legalization as well as how mature are people at 18 really. It may be a way to examine both sides of the issue in a way.

Sorry your other idea got slammed, though. :/

Re: Attilla the HON

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's a really good thought. I hadn't thought of those angles before.

Re: Attilla the HON

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

:D glad you think so. (and honestly, your editors should be selling you on stories better *shakes head*).

But yes, on the one hand you have the stupid laws and rules that really don't apply to students or their lives. And on the other you have people who really don't follow rules, could have been hurt or sick, etc, and how young 18 can really be sometimes.

[laynamarya.livejournal.com]

i think the copyright issue has been done to death, the hons issue will get you into trouble, and the saving energy contest sounds boring (though if you managed to make it interesting would be impressed). I would jump all over the abortion issue but then again I am a card-carrying feminist prolifer and a catholic schoolteacher so maybe I am a bit biased.

All said and done, i would say you would produce the best piece on the sexuality issue.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yes, saying that an argument about genetics and sexuality is too familiar and has already been argued seems somewhat ironic coming on the heels of a request to write about copyright and file sharing, which i personally feel has been done to death. I have no interest in any of her 3 suggestions and find the HONS one particularly odd as i have heard nothing about it in probably a month (though the banner is still up in front of Sessions) and since most all of it was hearsay on the Jolt (though i do actually have a friend in Sessions) i feel distinctly unqualified to write about it.

Soon after the bill passed and i began to feel the campus reaction and read a bit about it myself i thought of it as a possible editorial topic and have in fact mentioned it to Cate in my most recent e-mail to her. I suspect a raging liberal will have already claimed it and i will cringe and write a Letter to the Editor, but we shall see.

I think i would produce the best piece on the sexuality issue as well. Shame the lady in charge doesn't see it that way. I may do an LJ on it anyway since sk8eeyore said "I'd love to read such a piece by you." In a lot of ways it feels to me like rehashing old stuff, but there is new science (particularly if i'm including the gender identity study) and one thing i really like about writing in LJ about all this interesting stuff i read is that it helps me understand what is being said and figure out and articulate just what i think about it (ironic given part of our comments on my other entry, huh?).

[hedy.livejournal.com]

a) you should get a domain
b)it's not when they feel like it, it's let me put this on my resume writers.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

a) I remembered recently that i'd been talking about that over the summer and then it fell by the wayside with the craziness that is this semester. Hopefully over the winter break i'll have time to actually look into it seriously.
b) Ah, yes.