Final "exam" info Or, watch Angela abuse the strikethrough tag.

From this page at the registrar's site: (chart deleted)

It IS listed as a MWF course. The table doesn't offer single-day courses, just MWF, TTH, and Saturday classes. Down at the bottom, though, it cautions that

Tuesday/Thursday classes which meet only one day/week or Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes which meet less than three days/week may result in the same classroom being assigned for two different exams. Instructors: If you are giving a final exam during the week, and your class falls into the above description, please make a room reservation to ensure a testing place.

So as I understand it, this means that our meeting time is indeed at noon on Tuesday, but that if we were going to meet in our usual classroom (and not a restaurant) there might be conflicts.

BUT, didn't somebody say they already had a noon on Tuesday final? Apparently, classes that meet at 7:30 in the morning on MWF also have their final at that time. If that's the case, does anyone have any suggestions?

I know some people had found other dates/times for our exam. Where did you dates come from? I wouldn't put it past the university to say two different things in two different places.

EDIT: Ignore what I wrote above. Our real exam time is 7:30 in the morning on Thursday. Soo.... 8 o'clock breakfast?

Everyone's still cool with Lou Henri's, right?


EDIT the Second: In case anyone missed the email, instead of a final class, we're having final office hours, between 1pm and 3pm on Thursday, whenever it's convenient to drop by. If the weather is nice, Adrienne says she'll be on a bench in the Ped Mall somewhere, likely around the corner of Dubuque and Washington. If the weather sucks, she'll be in her office.

If you do a google search for images of prisons, you find a lot of stuff you sorta wish you hadn't.

This reminds of Alamanac of the Dead. Big business in real estate to build prisons and promise to fill them, huh. They make it sound like a hotel.

"He said it was too early to predict exactly where inmates would come from, but federal prisons throughout the country are overcrowded. "

This is a Take Over, Not a Make Over

yay community control!

okay, don't have much to say yet because i haven't yet read it, but i was searching for prison images and found this online mag written by political prisoners about what my skimming told me is some really great stuff! some of the images are pretty hard to handle, so enter prepared.

oh, i guess the link above is to a dated issue. try here for the home page.

Wow! this is even better than i thought! everybody check it out and let me know what you think!!! this could be some good resources for talking about the Prison Industrial Complex, among other things.

Updated Presentation Archive

Hey Kids,

Click here to see the latest additions to the presentation archive. If any of you are willing to share presentations and haven't yet, please send 'em to me!

WHITE PRIVILEGE

Yay for the first post on the liberated(hahaha) class blog! I've wanted to share this with you for the past week or so but it was never really appropriate. I'm so glad we now have the blog to share things with each other!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a big thing for Radiohead. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, they have really changed my life. Ever since I heard the opening chords of "Planet Telex" in eighth grade I knew that I was getting into some real different type shit. My love affair started then and continues until this day. Entering the world of Radiohead was the starting point on my musical adventures, both playing myself and listening. It was also their message that really resonated with me and taught me to be more critical of our politics and culture. They have never let me down and their latest video is no exception. It's for the song "All I Need" off their latest album and it poignantly exposes our first world privilege. Check it out:



The only criticism that I have is that it was jointly produced by MTV, but they are using it as sort of a freely distributed PSA, so it's not so bad. From this article:

Under the music broadcaster's EXIT (end exploitation and trafficking) campaign, MTV and Radiohead have jointly produced a video for the "In Rainbows" track "All I Need," which will premiere Thursday on all of MTV's channels and sites around the world. (Watch video at left.)

Yorke said the band linked with MTV to highlight such issues as child slavery, enforced servitude and sex trafficking because it was "about exploiting a situation while you have the chance."

"All power to MTV for taking this on because its obviously going to be difficult for them in terms of the advertisers," he said. "With the ('All I Need') video, their lawyers had to beg to make sure there wasn't a single white trainer with a logo on it because the implication would be a little too close. But the implication is still there."

And now it begins ...

Our class may be over in the sense that we won't be seeing each other each Thursday, but this space is ours, now more than ever. I just sent out invitations for 20 of you to be blog "administrators." That means you each can make posts any time you like. I will also come here at least once a week to send you all a message.

I know this will be the first time blogging for many of you. When you get your invitation, it will include some instructions on how to sign in and access the blog. Once you do, it's not too hard to find your way around. You'll see a "dashboard," and from there, you can click on the link to make a "new post." (Or, if you are savvy and feel like making changes to the template, adding links, etc., go nuts.) If you click on "new post," you'll be taken to a window that lets you write your post. There are two ways to do it, using either the "edit html" or "compose" modes. If you are new to blogger, the "compose" mode is easier. Just type in what you want to write. If you have an image to upload, there is an icon 3rd from the left above the window where you type to do that, and if you want to add a link to another website, use the icon on the 6th from the right up there. If you have any trouble, let me know.

To keep us feeling the love and the urgency, please enjoy this video of my (probably) favorite song performed by Diskarte Namin!

Who protects and serves us? Thoughts and information from Randy

Randy sent me a great message last night. I'm posting part of it below (emphasis mine).

I found the spreadsheet of all data gathered through OSHA and another federal bureau that records occupational fatalities (http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/CFOI_Rates_2006.pdf). These are the numbers for 2006, but two numbers that I can point out specifically are Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers which had a rate of 16.8 (rater here is number of fatalities divided by number of total workers times 100,000, or the number represents how many thousandths of a percent of the total workforce is killed). The second, Military, had a fatality rate of 5.3 -- I don't know if this can be trusted though, since it seems to only factoring in 57 deaths for the year; maybe stateside deaths in the year minus suicides. If you do a quick scroll of the occupations and keep an eye on the right column (the rate for all occupations), you'll find that these are very low. I was wrong when I said farming. I'm guessing that the number I heard was a little old and before tractors had roll-over cages and other safety features. Their number is still rather high at 33.5 for Crop Production. The highest rate comes from fishers and fishing workers, although there are a lot more farmers in comparison. Also to be noted are truckers, who had a higher rate than farmers, although I suppose that isn't too surprising.

... Law enforcement, which the public is always led to believe is in constant dire danger as they "protect" us, is in much less threat than farmers. And farmers do a whole lot more to serve and protect us than any law enforcement officer.

Happy May Day, Everybody!

I don't regret setting aside the May Day plans to deal with what we needed to discuss. That's how life is, right? We are often presented with situations that demand our immediate attention, and if we've learned anything together this semester, I hope it's that our lives and our struggles are connected. That's actually one of the reasons May Day is special to me and why it's the only holiday I celebrate. It is a time to remember that we aren't "criminals." I just posted a few things on my personal blog here that you might want to check out, but I really want to encourage you to find your own way to celebrate May Day, even if it's late.

Watching Matewan would be a great way to do it! That movie really gets to me no matter how many times I see it, and even though we didn't watch it together, I really hope you all make time to see it. Here is a synopsis from the director.

And you can also watch some recent footage of May Day demonstrations. Here are some. I'm sure you can find more.