December 15, 2009 – 11:31 pm
My spouse spotted the NYT obit for Dennis DeLeon, an old friend from high school we have not seen since our wedding reception in 1970. Our last communication from him was a note saying he’d get our wedding present to us later. It’s a common name so we wouldn’t know it was him without the [...]
December 13, 2009 – 9:58 am
For those who may find it useful for teaching or awareness, I have posted a longish memo when you are called racist over on my own blog. I sent it to my students after a class discussion. In it I sketch two alternative world views, the minority/Black person who is sensitive to discrimination and racism [...]
December 9, 2009 – 6:26 pm
(Note: This does turn into a “professional” post as well as a “personal” one, and a sociological one as well, if you hang in there. This was written last week but I didn’t have time to post it from the road. Today’s snow emergency gives me the time to finish it.)
We’ve been here all week [...]
November 22, 2009 – 3:04 pm
Irv Piliavin passed away November 19 at age 81 of cancer. Irv was an emeritus professor of social work and sociology at the University of Wisconsin. Because I knew him best as the husband of my beloved colleague Jane Piliavin, I am linking to celebrations of his career by two of his former students, Brad [...]
November 12, 2009 – 4:04 am
I study racial disparities in criminal justice, but this still completely blew me away. I started clicking around and have ended up collecting links to a large number of quite amazing videos of racial interactions that would be great discussion-starters in class. The two segments that just make my jaw drop were broadcast last February [...]
November 10, 2009 – 8:00 am
I’m scheduled to teach intro to sociology next term for the first time in 30 years. It will be a small (15-20 students) honors section (targeting freshmen), so I’m thinking of centering the course around sociology’s most important ideas (rather than the “little bit of everything” approach) and the reading on 4-6 good books interspersed [...]
September 24, 2009 – 9:35 pm
This is sociologically useful I guess. I friended my aunt on Facebook, and after I posted one of those viral pro-health care reform things that was going around, she responded with notes equating health insurance reform with wanting a government handout because you are too lazy to work and then “everyone gets health care if [...]
September 15, 2009 – 11:04 pm
The task force report on addressing racial disparities in criminal justice is now officially done and voted on. Hurrah! There was a sense of euphoria, I think. I felt it . Some of us talked about how we really need a party. The head of the public defender’s office offered her home for this purpose [...]
September 6, 2009 – 12:19 pm
Reviewing articles makes me realize that people (including people who appear to be otherwise quite sophisticated in their methods) don’t know how to read tables for error and instability. Obviously, I just found a zinger. Details suppressed in the interest of the integrity of the peer review process. But if the author had really looked [...]
August 26, 2009 – 10:03 am
I’ve got to be careful how I say this. A future candidate for public office left a message on my home answering machine asking me to call. When I called back the cell phone number given, Candidate could not remember who I was, said “are you a lawyer, I’ve been calling a lot of lawyers.” [...]
August 11, 2009 – 3:39 pm
Somebody has to be last, and I don’t know whether my frequency of being the discussant at the last session on the last day of ASA is above average when controlling for the years I’ve been doing this and my popularity as a discussant, but this is for sure the third time, and I think [...]
Well. I just got an email. I’m editing the exact text to preserve anonymity. “Your work ‘Racial Topic’ is excellent. I would like your permission to use some of it.The screenplay I am working is described at (website URL). In one scene, the lead player, an 18 year old boy, is making a presentation to [...]
We are trying to get the task force report done. This is a ton of work. Lots of writing. But the most time-consuming part is the endless pre-meeting meetings and conference calls to discuss what to write, how to hold the meetings. Calls and meetings that seem to resolve nothing. There are some real substantive [...]
It is happening again. Lawyers who don’t know anything about data analysis make a request (often an official open records request) for information from agencies. Because I have gotten a reputation for analyzing public data and making it reveal previously-unseen patterns and I’m part of the commission or board or task force, they ask me [...]
Lots of folks are already on this, but I wanted to post about the police report for the arrest of Henry “Skip” Gates in Cambridge the other day. Here’s a copy of the police report on the arrest of Gates for disorderly conduct which was posted by BigSole whom I got to from Field Negro. [...]
