WWW www.habermas.org

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: April 28, 2006
Latest Update: April 28, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Topic of the Week:

We Didn't Do It

Why Are You Looking Like That At Me?

I know I'm safe.
I'd never do it.
We just kissed and
Fooled around a little.
Honest.
I'd never do it
Before I get married!
We didn't do it.
So how could this be?
Why are you looking
Like that at me?
I have HPV?

So, what's HPV? Never heard of it? Well, neither had we. Only two people in our graduate class knew of it last Wednesday. It's a virus for which they are working desperately on a vaccine because they've learned that though it's harmless in most cases, it contributes as a risk factor to the later development of cervical cancer. Both men and women can get it, probably have it at some time, since it's one of those viruses out there that our immune systems generally overcome with little problem. But sometimes, it's dangerous.

It's transmitted by direct skin contact. And, of course, sexual activity includes direct skin to skin contact. We thought we knew all the sexually transmitted diseases. We thought we knew how to be safe. The arrogance of knowingness is dangerous. There are so many things we don't know about yet. We thought we had convinced our young people that oral sex was sex, despite the President's contention. Now we need to make them aware of HPV, which can be transmitted innocently, without sexual activity, so they will understand how to protect themselves from the later development of cervical cancer and whatever else we eventually learn this virus can support or encourage.

Maria Marquez asked that I make available for flower gifts of cards, bookmarks, whatever to warn our young adults and parents of these new prcautions we need to know about. Read about it at HPV (Human Papillomavirus) - What Women Should Know American Social Health Association. Backup.

We were so sure we were safe. We didn't do it. Clinton claimed he didn't do it; but we've learned that "sex" has many meanings. We didn't do it. We've only just found out that HPV can be contracted by direct skin contact. That means "touching," not "doing anything in particular, just touching."

Parents, please look carefully at the information. It's time to talk with your teens. HPV can be a contributing cause to cervical cancer. We all need to know about HPV.

HPV (Human Papillomavirus) - What Women Should Know American Social Health Association. Backup.

References

• TALKING TO YOUR KIDS Dear Habermas focusses on illocutionary discourse, listening actively and in good faith and with respect to the Other, be the other a child, a public intellectual, a friend, or someone with whom we violently disagree. Sexuality is a topic on which we often disagree: whether it should be an open or a private issue; whether our schools and institutions should address it; even whether we, as consenting adults, should engage in it. I liked this explanation offered by the American Social Health Association. I think I'd expand the title to TALKING ABOUT SEXUALITY AND SEX, because I think it offers communication skills we all need when this issue comes up. It's on the site Maria Marquez found for us. I'm glad you sent the link, Maria. jeanne

• HPV (Human Papillomavirus) - What Women Should Know American Social Health Association. Backup. Thanks to Maria Marquez for sending me the link and asking me to put it up immediately. Good idea, Maria.

• Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) A free collection of articles about human papilloma virus (hpv) published in The New York Times.

Nota Bene: Part of the learning I ask that you do in art is to learn from the professional artists we study as a means to visual sociology. I put a circle over the face of the young man in the drawing of the two young people. I took that idea right out of John Baldessari's Stonehenge paintings, though it's a technique used by many other artists. It suited the subliminal message I wanted to communicate.

And I painted the abstract on HPV with a modern artist's work in mind. The work, Takeshi Kawashima's "Red and Black" (1966) appeared in Holland cotter's "Artists in Midcareer and Beyond Are Showing That Experience Matters" in Weekend Arts in the NY Times on Friday, April 21, 2006. Backup.

Takeshi Kawashima's Red and Black

.

What I recalled was that each image seemed to me to be two people, bodies entwined, the head and arms of one visible, the torso of the other visible. No, my drawing doesn't look like any of them. But Kawashima's work was my inspiration for that drawing. jeanne

NEWS, Announcements, and

Current Events Discussion Topics:

Speaking of Blue Dogs, and green and blue and pink, what about John Baldessari's:

Stonehenge (With Two Persons)
Red Yellow Blue Green Orange?


Don't forget the Exhibit at Mixografia
1419 East Adams Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90011 www.mixografia.com
May 13 - June 30, 2006 . . . . 323-232-1158

You'll have a whole month to catch this exhibit. Should be fun.

For more on understanding why and how artists engage in the process of trying to change traditional museum-bound painting, go to Dada as Arts Politically and Socially Opposed to Some of the Consequences of Our Culture and Our Preference for the Rational and The Arrogance of its Knowingness. And don't miss Paul Tractman's Dada, The Irreverent, Rowdy Revolution in the May 2006 Smithsonian Magazine Online. Backup.

Visual Sociology

• 

  Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance. (1916-17)

Lectures, Notes, and Texts

• Topics

  • Lecture Index, Fall 2005
  • Topic Index, Spring 2006

• Discussion Questions

  • Self Tests Index, Fall 2005
  • Self Tests Index, Spring 2006

• Lecture Notes Lecture notes on the substantive concepts discussed. These are not a "substitute" for actual lectures in class or workshops, but I have tried to cover the main concepts so that absence from class will not critically deprive you of the substance of our discussions. The discussion questions are for your own understanding of how well you have grasped the concepts. You may pose any of the questions on transform_dom, where we'll all be glad to discuss these issues. If you are confused, please make sure you clarify the concepts with jeanne when she is available in the office and in class.

Academic Resources

• A Range of Sources on Global Info

  Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
  Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
  Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation - The Cato Institute (Libertarian)
  BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
  Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
  Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report
  The American Prospect

  Indymedia - Mother Jones - BBC News - New Profile - KPFK Progressive Radio
  Progressive Sociologists Network Environmental Working Group - Mirror of Justice

• Mentoring

  Graduate Exams Study

  • University of Chicago Prelim Study

    Some older files not yet revised for Fall 2005, but useful.

  • Mentoring Help for New Students with Frequently Asked Questions
    
  • Mentoring Help for Returning Students with More Frequently Asked Questions
    
  • Shared Reading Suggestions
  • Learning Styles

  • Home Page for transform-dom You can read all the messages on Transforming Dominant Discourse from this page. Just click on messages in the left hand frame. You can read the messages, even if you're having difficulty signing up.

  Preparing for Graduate Study:

• Test Prep Preview Joshua L. Stewart recommended this site because it has free practice tests. If you're thinking of taking the GRE, the LAST, or any other graduate entry test, this might be a good place to gather some early information. Joshua suggested it for Praxis Practice, but a quick first look suggests they don't mean by praxis what we do. Check it out, anyway, if you have some spare time. jeanne

Resource Literacy

• Urban Legends Reference Pages. They post rumors and scams and phony e-mails circulating, to offer you a quick check. It worked for me. I entered "Fat Boy" as a google seacrch, and when I saw the Snopes.com link, I knew it would help, and it did. To not check your sources is as grievous as to plagiarize someone else's information and writing. A Page from Urban Legends As an Example.

• the-artists.org Good quick reference site with many of the artists, art schools, and visual approaches to present social issue that we discuss. Added April 8, 2005.

• Plagiarism Watch www.streetgangs.com site. The intelligent and effective use of resources means that you have to be careful not to plagiarize other people's material. We have several files on plagiarism, but I think the one that might make the most sense to you is this complaint on streetgangs.com. They give you samples of sites that have taken their material without citation, even at colleges, and they also give you examples of sites that have used their material with proper attribution. I find the irony poetic, and hope that their message will get through to you the importance of attribution. Dr. O'Connor on his Mega Criminal Justice site led me to streetgangs.com and noted that others frequently hack into the site. For that reason I have created a backup copy for your use in case you cannot access the actual site. Please be sure to attribute any citation to streetgangs.com. jeanne Backup.

  http://www.quackwatch.org/index.html Quackwatch, a website maintained by Stephen Barrett, M.D.

  "Quackwatch, Inc. . . . is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to combat health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere. Founded by Dr. Stephen Barrett in 1969 as the Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud, it was incorporated in 1970. In 1997, it assumed its current name and began developing a worldwide network of volunteers and expert advisors. . . . "

and Careers

• Resumes:

  • College Journal Resume Suggestions . . . Backup

• Letters of Recommendation:

  • Letters of Recommendation: How to get me to respond to your request. Many of you need letters. If you will follow this format, I can do them quickly and make them good.
  • Dog Letters If you do not give me adequate information, but do manage to get my attention, you may end up with a dog letter. That is a letter that says that you work well with people, that you are enthusiastic, that you persist at getting things done, and that everyone likes you. Of course, my dog gets along well with people, brings his ball to them, is enthusiastic, and persists at getting them to take his ball. Everyone likes my dog. That's a dog letter. It's so general it could be about my dog. jeanne

• Career Options You Might Not Have Considered

  • visual media and their interdependence with other means of knowing to understand that we are not totally rational creatures deciding things apart from our feelings and values. Wolfowitz (new President of the World Bank to aid developing countries AND principle advocate of the Iraq War) might feel very differently when he is exposed to visual and aural images of the poor developing countries that have not before been his primary concern. So we want to know how best to present those developing countries visually. And we might find that we can have a career doing that sort of thing, so it does reflect on us as individuals. Added April 2, 2005.

Sneaky Strokes and Flying Good Dogs

Flying Dog is also a painting by Zhang Kai. Best I've ever come across to illustrate our site with magic numbers and unicorns and whipped cream cats and now, flying dogs, oh, and Faupel's Flying Fish.:

• Icons and acronyms and what they mean in Internet Speak

• Index of Nice Things We've Said to Each Other

  • I Was Scared of Statistics
    • Jennifer Schwind, Fall 2005

  • It Feels Good to Make a Difference
    • Olivia Guttierez, Love 1A, Fall 2005

  • The Site Goes On - You're Always Welcome Back
    • From Angelique Hawley on December 16, 2005: Message No. 9072 on transform_dom.

      Merry Christmas! Jeannne and Pat and all the marvelous students at CSUDH that has shared in "Naked Space"

      I wish I had a lot of money so that I could reward all of you properly. Transform_domDigest is so wonderful.

      I can recall when being one of the first users in 2004 and I see we are at digest 594. my how time flies when we are learning and having fun.

      Jeanne you and Pat are the bomb!

      I continue to read the digest although I am not taking any of your classes now. The digests have been more informative than the school paper. Please continue to keep it going.

      Get rest ! I hope to see you .

• Flying Good Dogs: Whenever something happens in this or any other class that works out well, that inspires you, that helps in studying, whatever, take a few minutes to send us an e-mail. We'll post it where all of us can learn from it, including other teachers.

  ---

  ---