Teach For America

A recruiter from Teach For America emailed me and a few other students, saying that she was "reaching out to us based on our achievement at USC and our roles as SI Leaders." The recruitment director for the program wants to come and talk to us on campus next week. Woo! Anyway, I started reading a little bit more about it, and it turns out there's this whole collection of blogs from current TFA corps members. After reading several of their posts, here's what I've learned:

1. Teaching is hard.
2. No really. Teaching is very, very hard.
3. Occasionally, teaching is extremely rewarding.
4. See numbers 1 and 2.
   

I still think I want to learn more about the program and probably apply for it. And maybe even be a teacher permanently. Maybe.

USC Ally Discussion: Pro-Gay Marriage and Anti-Homophobia Intervention Strategies

I went to this event today. Here's the full description:

Ally Discussion: Pro-Gay Marriage and Anti-Homophobia Intervention Strategies
Featuring Jade Agua, Assistant Director for Asian Pacific American Student Services and Rev. Jim Burklo, Associate Dean for Religious Life
12- 1 pm
WPH 403
On the day the California Supreme court begins to hear arguments about Propostion 8, USC Allies will learn intervention strategies on how to combat homophobia and also advocate for marriage equality. Some topics to be discussed how to use religion in favor of gay marriage and how to start these conversations with our friends and family.

Basically we just talked about the different anti-gay arguments that tend to come up a lot, particularly those that were used during the prop 8 campaign, and the best ways to combat them. I took some notes along the way, so I just wanted to post some scattered thoughts and good quotes.

• The first thing Jim talked about was how his own homophobia was cured over the course of about 20 minutes, as a result of a close friend coming out to him. It's important to represent ourselves and the gay community as real people so that people can't think of us as "those people up in the Castro"--we're just people like everyone else. Later on, someone mentioned that people associate homosexual couples with sex. They see gay families as an environment where innocent children are surrounded by sex all the time. Seems to me, the solution is probably to make gays seem like ordinary people.
  
• When he was growing up, gay rights was a nonissue, in the sense that it wasn't something people thought about or talked about at all. Sometime soon, it will be a nonissue, in that nearly everyone will just agree that same-sex marriage is okay.
• He believes that the people and the churches will lead this movement. (Obviously not all churches, but some of the more "progressive" ones.) Then the law will follow. This goes against the feeling I had recently, "There's no point in us fighting much more right now. It's the court's move at this point." That was largely an excuse I made to myself anyway, because I was sick of doing campaign work.
• Jim moved on to talking about the Bible. The type of same-sex relationships we're talking about (committed, monogamous) are never mentioned in the Bible. Jesus himself didn't mention homosexuality at all. He does, however, have something to say about divorce. In any case, progressive Christians are not required to believe everything the Bible says.
• Jim and Jade did a little role-play, Jade playing a yes-on-8 voter who is uncomfortable going against the Catholic Church. Jim reminds her that even the Catholic church admits that you must listen to your conscience--the voice of God within you--when it is in conflict with the Church.
• He also emphasizes religious freedom. No one wants there to be an official religion of the state. One of the students in attendance (who was half of an adorable gay couple) points out that this argument must be approached very carefully, because the yes voters want their children to be "free from having the beliefs of others forced upon them." A great point about that: Teaching kids about something is not the same as teaching them that it is good or they should do it.
  
• There are a lot of sins in Leviticus that no one would ever seriously suggest we legislate against. I didn't catch the title, but there's a book about someone who tried to follow Leviticus literally for one year. Supposed to be very funny.
• More on the Bible: St. Paul condemns homosexual relationships. But he also condemns heterosexual relationships, advises everyone not to have sex at all, unless absolutely necessary. He's also completely opposed to marriage and family life. (If I understood correctly, reproduction isn't necessary because the second coming of Jesus is only a few years away.)
  
• The slippery slope argument: If we let gays get married, how do we know this won't open the door to pedophilia, incest, etc. The key is to point out that we're talking about consenting adults. Children and animals are not in that category. Also, remind people that those are completely separate, unrelated issues.
  
• Jade: "The traditional family is a myth. Somebody made it up in the 50's and they've been promoting it on TV ever since."
• This is important: According to some study, people don't vote for rational reasons. Their votes are usually based on emotional reasons. This of course goes back to the common complaint that the no on 8 campaign should have used actual images of gay couples. But with that in mind, what are the appeals to emotion that we can make? The suicide rate among GLBT kids is still relatively high. Not that we can change that overnight, but the way the government/society treats them might have something to do with it.
• http://www.soulforce.org/ is a resource for gay Christians. Jim described it as "PFLAG for evangelicals"
• Rick Warren is slowly beginning to change his stance. He's removed all the anti-gay language from his website and invited Melissa Etheridge to speak at his church. This was news to me!
• I think the most annoying argument I hear is that prop 8 is the "will of the people." Democracy is not the same as majority rule. There's a reason we have courts and a Constitution.
• Jade recommends talking to the yes voters you know, and who may be persuadable, not worrying about the far "right wing" people.
  

If you have friends who voted yes, and you probably do, talk to them. It's not easy, but it's necessary. No matter what happens 90 days from now, we should continue to fight, and dispell the myths from the campaign that many people still believe.

easy-to-use!

I'm beginning to think that Python being really easy to use is not a wholly positive feature. In a language where refactoring your code takes a long time, you're more likely to stop and think before you write something, like you're supposed to do. That's all for now.

Sierpinski Triangle

I've been playing around with Scheme (a dialect of Lisp (a weird language that I can't really describe)) by watching these videos and kind of just playing around. Today, I got a working Sierpinski triangle program. It's not particularly elegant, but it could be worse.

What's the best way to auto-convert spaces to non-breaking spaces?

; Draw a sierpinski triangle

; Get all six coords of vertices of equilateral triangle
; with tip at (x1, y1) and side length 'side'
(define (triangle x1 y1 side)
(let ((x2 (- x1 (/ side 2)))
(x3 (+ x1 (/ side 2)))
(y2 (- y1 (/ (* (sqrt 3) side) 2)))
(y3 (- y1 (/ (* (sqrt 3) side) 2))))
(list x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3)))

(define (draw-triangle g x1 y1 side)
(let ((tri (triangle x1 y1 side)))
(graphics-draw-line g (first tri)
(second tri)
(third tri)
(fourth tri))
(graphics-draw-line g (first tri)
(second tri)
(fifth tri)
(sixth tri))
(graphics-draw-line g (third tri)
(fourth tri)
(fifth tri)
(sixth tri))))

; Level-zero Sierpinski triangle is just a triangle
; Level-n triangle is three copies of level (n-1) triangle
(define (sier g n x1 y1 side)
(if (= n 0)
(draw-triangle g x1 y1 side)
(let ((tri (triangle x1 y1 (/ side 2))))
(sier g (- n 1) (first tri) (second tri) (/ side 2))
(sier g (- n 1) (third tri) (fourth tri) (/ side 2))
(sier g (- n 1) (fifth tri) (sixth tri) (/ side 2)))))

(define (new-sier g n x1 y1 side)
(graphics-clear g)
(sier g n x1 y1 side))

(define g (make-graphics-device 'win32 1000 1000))

;Call it like this:
(define side 2)
(new-sier g 6 0 (/ (* side (sqrt 3)) 4) side)


Note to Obama

I realize that Obama himself is unlikely to actually read this, but I'm submitting it on the change.gov website and I'd like to think that maybe some intern or assistant somewhere might read it and, you know, take a note. Hopefully it does some small part to counteract all the letters they're getting from the "EQCA Action Center."

I worked very hard during the summer and fall of last year for a political campaign--something I had never done before because no person or issue had motivated me. And no, sorry, it was not the Obama/Biden campaign. While I was quite happy to see you win the election, my efforts focused on trying to defeat California's Proposition 8. I appreciated both Obama's and Biden's opposition to that proposition, and I am very disappointed that it passed, not just for the thousands of devoted same-sex couples statewide, but because I might like to get married myself one day.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Equality California, asking me to write to Obama and his team, and express my intense outrage at his decision to allow Rick Warren, a vocal opponent of gay rights, to speak at the Inauguration. However, this is one of those times when I had to disagree with EQCA's views. In this case, I believe you have shown more maturity than many of the gay-rights leaders in this country. Rather than label our opponents as hateful, ignorant bigots, you have clearly expressed your disagreement with them on certain issues, but then shown them that you respect their views and do not think they are bad people just because they have such beliefs.

I see the passage of Prop 8 as a huge step backward for my state, and it angers and saddens me to know that people like Rick Warren are largely responsible for it. Nonetheless, I hope my voice will stand out as part of a minority within the LGBT community -- as someone who understands and supports the decision to allow him to speak.

It would be wonderful to have a president who agreed with me on everything. Instead, I have one who has committed to look at both sides of every issue. Realistically, that's probably the best I can hope for, which is why I look forward to hearing Rick Warren's comments on the 20th, and to the next four years.

"The politics of division"

I just got an email from Equality California, one of the big gay-rights groups in California. I'm getting increasingly frustrated with them, and the other groups that fought against prop 8 this year. The latest scandal is that Barack Obama has asked Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, and this has gotten the gay community into one of their big hissy fits, because he was a vocal proponent of proposition 8.

The email is actually from Geoff Kors, the director of EQCA, who apparently was invited to attend Obama's inauguration...

It is extremely disappointing and hurtful that President-elect Obama has chosen California Rev. Rick Warren, who actively supported Prop 8 and the elimination of existing civil rights for LGBT Californians, to give the invocation at his inauguration.

Accordingly, I have decided to decline the invitation to attend the inauguration as I cannot be part of a celebration that highlights and gives voice to someone who advocated repealing rights from me and millions of other Californians.

I was looking forward to hearing a speech by the new President about his vision of a new America and an end to the politics of division where one group is pitted against another.

I can't say that I'm particularly happy with Obama's choice, but I would definitely call this an overreaction, which represents my biggest problem with the gay-rights movement right now. People seem to be absolutely unable to see that just because someone disagrees with us, doesn't mean they hate us. I'm sure the accusations against Warren have some truth to them, and I'm sure if I did some research, I could find several things he's said which are extremely offensive to the gay community, and are probably flat-out lies. But if we want to end "the politics of division," how do we do it? Refuse to attend an event where someone who disagrees with us is going to speak? Accuse our opponents of "actively working to divide Americans"?

Obama and Biden were both on our side on the issue of prop 8. Let's not forget how meaningful that is. I doubt any politician could afford to oppose prop 22, and that was only 8 years ago. Now Obama is trying to demonstrate that he understands where the other side was coming from. He's trying to make those opposed to same-sex marriage feel like Obama is not their enemy. As hard as it is to hear, the people who are against same-sex marriage are people too. They're not stupid, or hateful, they just have differing opinions. And by the way, they also represent some 52% of California voters. The only way they're going to go away is if we can convince them to change their minds. For many people, this may impossible. Rick Warren may be one such person. But for the director of one of the biggest gay rights groups in the state to make a refusal like this... to me, it just seems like a huge step in the wrong direction.

Here's my prediction. Warren's invocation will include something like, "Let us unite as Americans" or "Let us put aside our differences, as we welcome a new era in American politics" or something like that, urging Americans to come together. That clip will be posted on youtube, and GLBT people will post the link over and over on their blogs, facebooks, etc., with comments like "Oh, how ironic. He wants us to be united, after he used his church to divide us," followed by some kind of insulting, divisive comment about Warren, his church, or Christianity in general.

Science TV

I feel like I've talked about this before, but I wish there was more TV out there for science-minded people. I'm a physics major, which of course means I'm more knowledgeable about physics and the terminology it uses than most people. But I'm no more knowledgeable than anyone else about, say, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, or any number of other disciplines. It would be nice to see some TV shows about those things that were aimed at a "science-minded" audience.

I was watching Discovery Science channel the other day (which, when I first heard about it, I thought might be the kind of sciencey TV I was hoping for) and they were talking about how a microwave works. They said something like, "the transformer and the capacitor cause the electricity to become supercharged before sending it along to the magnetron." I guess because "supercharged" supposedly sounds cooler than "high voltage" (if that is in fact what they meant). It's just imprecise and uninformative.

Not to mention the point later on where they talked about electrons moving back and forth in a circuit at "nearly the speed of light." (It turns out this is one area where Wikipedia appears to be weak, but see here for at least some kind of explanation.)

Americans are dumb, and I don't think Discovery Science is helping as much as it could be.

How they see us

Arianna Huffington was on the Daily Show last night talking about blogging and how great it is and how she has this new book out which is all about blogging. And one of the things she said is that blogging should be all about the first thought that comes to your head, rather than the conclusion you come to after lots of pondering.

I don't know how much I agree with that, but here's a thought I had today.

We get a lot of mail that's not for us, or at least that we didn't ask for, because of all the previous residents that have lived in our apartment. So today we got an envelope. The first thing I noticed was: "Your opinion matters!" and the fact that the return address was somewhere in Pennsylvania. The next thing I noticed was who it was addressed to: "Current resident"

I think that pretty well sums up the way that companies look at us. They want to know a lot about us: what we eat, what we buy, how often we buy it, what kind of stores we like. Basically, our opinion matters. But of course, what doesn't matter is our name. We don't want to know WHO you are, we just want to reduce you to a bunch of useful marketing data.

I feel so needed.