Link here to Iraqi blogs

Today's San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting overview of blogs being written from Iraq -- or, in the case of refugees -- about Iraq by Iraqis. The headline tells the story:

BAGHDAD BLOGGING
Bloggers in the war zone write both about the devastating effects of the conflict and about the events, relationships and frustrations that occur in their everyday lives

At the bottom of the story are links to Riverbend and other blogs. Riverbend is the best known in the West, perhaps, but they're all complelling because they give us a viewpoint -- a variety of viewpoints, really -- we don't get from our media in the U.S.

Chief Illiniwek 'honored' with racist webpage

American Indians have now been "honored" with a racist webpage. It was on Facebook, and it was called "If They Get Rid of the Chief I'm Becoming a Racist." It contained comments by University of Illinois students -- or people who said they were students -- about the controversy over the U of I's Chief Illiniwek.
And it demonstrated pretty conclusively the kind of trouble that racist sports mascots can lead to.

By far the most detailed and balanced report is in Inside Higher Ed, an online newsletter that covers colleges and universities. The headline, "Ugly Turn in Mascot Dispute," says it all. And the story links to a screen grab from the Facebook site. It was taken down last week after Native American faculty noticed it and grew alarmed because it threatened violence.

According to a Jan. 10 story in the Champaign News-Gazette, the offending comments were posted a month or two ago:

Late in November, according to the UI Native American House and opponents of Chief Illiniwek, one UI student reportedly wrote, "there was never a racist problem before ... but now i hate redskins and hope all those drunk, casino owning bums die." (The punctuation and spelling are as reported by the Native American House.)

About two weeks later, another UI student posted, "that's the worst part! apparently the leader of this (anti-chief) movement is of Sioux descent. Which means what, you ask? the Sioux indians are the ones that killed off the Illini indians, so she's just trying to finish what her ancestors started. I say we throw a tomohawk into her face."

It's hard to tell. Were the kids who posted this stuff being playful? Sounds like maybe they were. But when people threaten violence, you can't be too careful.

It's like a bomb scare. Even if you hear children giggling in the background when they phone the damn thing in, you don't take any chances. You evacuate the building.

So on Jan. 10, the U of I felt there'd been a little too much "honoring." The News-Gazette has the fullest account of the university''s reaction:

In an e-mail to students, faculty and staff Tuesday afternoon, UI Chancellor Richard Herman said he would not tolerate violent threats, and the university "will take all legal and disciplinary actions available in response to the threatening messages."
Herman declined to say if the university has forwarded the threats to any law enforcement agencies.

The chancellor learned of the postings earlier this week and became appalled after reading them, he said. He called the messages racist.
"From my point of view, it (the Web page) clearly promotes divisiveness and singles out people," he said, adding, "I need to make clear this sort of behavior, whether legal or illegal, is unwelcome."

In his e-mail to the UI community, Herman wrote the idea that the debate over Chief Illiniwek "could degenerate to personal attacks that threaten the physical safety and well-being of members of the campus community is something that all of us should find truly abhorrent."

Inside Higher Ed has a few more details, including the fact the website targeted (although not by name) a specific student of Lakota (Sioux) ancestery.

Stephen Kaufman, emeritus biology professor, spoke to Inside Higher Ed of "an atmosphere of intimidation on this campus.” He was concerned for the Lakota student, of course, but he knows something about intimidation himself. Inside Higher Ed reported:

Kaufman became the target of campus protest last fall when a student started an online petition rallying students to get him to resign for sending letters to high school athletes that the university was seeking to recruit.
The petition against Kaufman received over 3,300 signatures.

No doubt they were "honoring" Kaufman.

Since I teach a Native American cultural studies course at a nearby college, I hear a lot about Chief Illiniwek from my students. And I believe them when they say they really don't think anyone intends for the mascot to be racist, and they truly can't understand why others think it is.

Me, I think it's kind of like beauty. Remember the old sayings? Racism is in the eye of the beholder. And here's another that fits even better. Racism is as racism does.

More stuff for COMM 317 syllabus

How to study court cases in class? Here are links to a couple of very helpful webpages by Princeton Review, the test prep company (not affiliated with Princeton University). One is on how to study a casebook and the other is on the Socratic method, which we will use in class -- at least some of the time. The University of Chicago Law School also has several pages and links on Socratic method. Read them and be ready to join in a Socratic discussion in class.

More COMM 317 links

Would voters OK the First Amendment today? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constition says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Read the introduction to the First Amendment by Doug Linder, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, and be ready to answer the questions at the bottom of the webpage.

'To keep the waters pure': Jefferson on media. From a webpage of quotes about the press taken from Thomas Jefferson's writings. On a website called Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Quotations from the Writings of Thomas Jefferson maintained by the University of Virginia.

Here's one: "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491.

And another, more frequently quoted: ""The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57."

The abbreviation "ME," if you're interested in this kind of thing, refers to the location in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

What do the Thomas Jefferson quotes suggest to you about the role of the press in the American Revolution and the early Federalist and Republican periods?

COMM 317 -- common law and Lord Coke

Some more links for the COMM 317 syllabus"

'Stork didn't bring our rights.' Read the essay on "Legal Foundations of Press Freedom in the United States" by Jane E. Kirtley, media ethics professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, explains how judges going all the way back to Merrie Olde England brought us our rights. Also read about Sir Edward Coke, legal scholar and judge of the English courts of Common Pleas and King's Bench in the 1600s. Lord Coke is one of the guys who most influenced our system of law, our way of thinking about legal issues and therefore the rights we enjoy as American citizens.

Wisdom from Lord Coke. Several passages from a collection of quotes by The ... Institutes of the Lawes of England Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Chief Justice of the King's Bench under King James I:

There be three kinds of unhappie men. 1. Qui scit & non docet, Hee that hath knowledge and teacheth not. 2. Qui docet & non vivit, He that teacheth, and liveth not thereafter. 3. Qui nescit, & non interrogat, He that knoweth not, and doth not enquire to understand. Sect. 232b.

The reason of the law is the life of the law; for though a man can tell the law, yet if he know not the reason thereof, he shall soone forget his superficial knowledge. But when he findeth the right reason of the law, and so bringeth it to his natural reason, that he comprehendeth it as his own, this will not only serve him for the understanding of that particular case, but of many others ... Sect. 183b.

Law temporall ... consisteth in three parts, viz, First, on the common law, expressed in our bookes of law, and judiciall records. Secondly, on statutes contained in acts and records of parliament. And thirdly, on customes grounded upon reason, and used time out of minde; and the construction and determination of these doe belong to the judges of the realme. Sect. 344a.

I like Coke.

COMM 317 -- links

A couple of resources on the World Wide Web that I can use in the first couple of weeks of the mass media law course:

1. How to think like a lawyer: A website called LawNerds.com has a six-part tutorial for law students and pre-law students on how to cultivate a legal frame of mind, legal reasoning and the case method, among other things. Since we will use the case method in COMM 317, read those three sections. If you think you might want to go on to law school (an excellent career choice for communications majors, by the way), take a look at section 4 on what it's like to go to law school, too.

2. Briefing cases. Since we'll be using the case method to study media law, you'll need to learn how to brief a case. It's a special kind of abstract, or summary, that law students learn. And doing it will teach you more about logic than all the liberal arts courses in the world. Start with the basics of "How to Brief a Case" at 4lawschool.com, a website designed, logically enough, for law school students. Follow the links at the bottom to an excellent guide to writing case briefs from the University of Virginia Law School and an even better guide from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.