Some important items to consider this evening are:
1. My feelings of frustrated desperation. I have taught this novel three times with increasingly brilliant handouts. The last time I taught it the handouts were truly stellar, and a great deal of scholarly reading went into creating them. I start teaching the novel again tomorrow and I expected simply to print these handouts. The files are nowhere to be found. I want to move out into the swamp like the Angry Professor.
2. K. C. Sheehan’s post on the Jena Six, including the excellent video links, as well as Bill Quigley’s article on this matter in Countercurrents.
3. The September 10, 2007 issue of The Nation, devoted to post-Katrina New Orleans. Read it (there is more in the paper version than what there is on the website – get one if you can) and see what you think.
4. The new article on women in science by author of the excellent New Orleans and Katrina related blog Redstar Perspective. See the abstract:
Growing opportunities for academic scientists to commercialize their science have led to the emergence of a new commercial marketplace. Recent evidence suggests that “commercial science” participation is characterized by gender stratification. Using interviews with life science faculty at one high-status university we examine the mechanisms that instituted, reinforced, and reduced the gender gap in commercial science between 1975 and 2005. We find gender differences from processes on both the demand (opportunity) and supply (interest) sides; of deeper significance are the intersections between these sides of the market.
Specifically, explicit early exclusion of women left them with fewer opportunities in the marketplace, which weakened their socialization and skills in commercial science. This uneven opportunity structure left senior and mid-career women with fewer chances to confront the ambiguities of this new practice, resulting in their greater ambivalence. Gender differences remain significant among junior faculty but we find their decline prompted by greater gender equality in advisor mentoring and the presence of institutional support, which together have started to reshape the supply side of commercial science.
Read the whole study, and see Redstar’s new post on key findings.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Whoa … I gots me some reading to do. Thanks for these excellent links.
Peace,
Ridwan
Shame about the brilliant handouts.
May I suggest concocting a Dadaist poem in their stead?
Profacero,
You are too kind! For those looking for the crib notes on the study of women and science, click on my name above!
Will look through the rest of your links today. I am glad to see the coverage of the Jena 6 story is slowly growing.
Hi, Cero. I just got back in town, and had more time to look at your comment on the Blogging for Jena Six post. I agree that accuracy is essential, so I’ll double check this. But my understanding on Aug. 30 was that charges had only been reduced from attempted second-degree murder (and conspiracy to commit it) to the aggravated battery & conspiracy charges, with the lower maximum sentence of 22 years, for Mychal Bell only. Not for the other five students.
Thanks for the heads-up, and if I got that wrong I’ll certainly post a correction.
And of course there has been some improvement since Aug. 30 as well.
Thanks Tom! And everybody: go read the Francis L. Holland Blog which is really keeping up on this: francislholland.blogspot.com