For my research, I need everyone who reads this, and even people who don't, to LeaveAPosting, or ebf108@psu.edu email me if you'd rather it not be on the wiki, but i think it should be on the wiki, about when and how you found out/learned about HIV, AIDS or both. Who or where did you learn about it from? What was the attitude of the educator? Was your educator a primary, secondary or tertiary source? What are your source's sources?
Found a cool website that challenges the concept of what a university is... check it out for free music lessons
HelpMe!
checking in from manchester, UK
[The Adjective Follows the Noun, or Small World 5.18.04]
[Mundo Pequeno 16.5.04]
[Small World 5.10.04]
[Small World 5.2.04]
[Small World 4.21.04]
[Small World 4.19.04]
[Small World 4.16.04]
[Small World 4.14.04]
[Small World 4.13.04]
[Small World 4.13.04]
[Small World 4.12.04]
[Small World 4.7.04]
[Small World 4.6.04]
[Small World 4.5.04]
[Small World 04.04.04]
[Small World 04.01.04]
[Small World 3.31.04]
[Small World 3.30.04]
3.28.04
I have come to the conclusion that this class is making people, if not apathetic, then lose concentration. Its freeing attitude is not good for getting large quantities of work done, as most of our schedules dictate. Feel free to argue otherwise; this is just an observation of mine, and could be misguided.
3.25.04
yay. guess what everybody. just when emil was getting better from having the flu on monday, he came down with pinkeye. everyone beware. emil has pinkeye. you might even want to sanitize your keyboard after reading this.
Emil, for your research: AIDS Immunity and Smallpox - ChronicTronic
3.24.04
some organizational thoughts. thoughts on organization. doyle said once that organization comes on its own as you construct your argument. But, it must be easier to construct your argument if you have some order in mind before you start. One must find the beginning before he starts, no?
A paper that is inquisitive in nature about the causes and effects of AIDS must begin, as discussed in class, with the history of AIDS. The problem will be deciding how much detail is enough, which details are necessary and which are not, etc. I estimate 2-4 pages for this. Up to this point the paper is bland and boring because it's just like every high school paper on the tragedy of AIDS. Will include those details you wanted: amount spent on research, etc.
Next, move on to a definitional argument about AIDS, namely that AIDS is not so simple as everyone thinks. It's actually a "syndrome" made up of a wide variety of different diseases that can also happen when it's not AIDS. What is a syndrome, anyway?
Next introduce the possibility of alternative explanations for AIDS. Specifically the Duesberg Theory, which I sense is quickly becoming cliche, which is a pity. People should give it more credit. Although I can't prove the theory completely for everyone, my arguments from here onwards depend upon the possibility that it's right, or at least the possibility that the mainstream-accepted theory is wrong.
Now, the meat. Social psychology analyses. Why did it all go down that way? Because the people in charge were manipulative and self-centered. Who did they manipulate? Why/how did the checks and balances within the system break down?
3.20.04
well, this is mainly for CorruptionMagnet. The best way to make something a non-issue is to be able to talk about it without blinking an eyelash, just like you talk about everything else. Talking casually about being gay might attract attention, but that's not your problem. It's the best kind of interest you can get, because it isn't inherently biased, regardless of the personal feelings of whoever hosts that interest.
Someone in my parking lot left his headlights on. They've been on all afternoon, he must have a kickass battery. There are 3 million things going on tonight, it is insane.
3.18.04 PROPOSAL
I propose to propose an argument. I will now propose an argument. I am now proposing. Do you, WikiReader, take this wiki to be your lawfully wedded wiki for as long as you both shall wiki....
I am FASCINATED, truly fascinated, by AIDS. AIDS is a big mystery, which is all the more frustrating considering that the United States is supposedly the most technologically advanced country, with one of the best health-care systems. Billions have been spent on research over fifteen years have resulted in lots of little-picture answers, but no real answers. Medications prescribed still cause immensely damaging side effects (and may even be killing people), and a cure is nowhere in sight. The exact cause of AIDS is not really known.
Another fascinating aspect of AIDS is that a group of renegade scientists have dared to naysay most of what the majority believes and spends most of their money on. The dispute between these two groups brings to mind a bitter presidential political campaign. The hegemonic group naturally refuses to consider the opposing arguments, rather than working with them to refute them, which leads me to the suspicion that the little group of scientists might be onto something.
The potential misallocation of an immense amount of money is only the secondary issue, however. The real question is (since much of the money came from private donations) how the public was led astray. Money for AIDS research was only going to be spent if there was public backing, meaning that the public recognized a problem and the need for a solution.
What were the arguments presented to the public to convince them to support AIDS research? How was AIDS presented to the public, and by whom? Why haven't they latched onto the new opinion as presented by Dr. Duesberg, the alternative AIDS theory?
I am not a medical authority who can claim to be convinced for sure of the accuracy of one AIDS causation theory over another. However, I have heard with an open mind the best arguments of the two theories mentioned above (hegemonic and minority). I have been swayed toward that of the minority, not because of its novelty, but because of the logical progression of its arguments.
Dr. Peter Duesberg is one of the primary sponsors of the minority opinion; it is in fact named the Duesberg Theory. He presents much of his writing on the topic for free.
Another website, VirusMyth, is a conglomerate of sources related to the Duesberg Theory.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, within the National Institutes of Health, presents its official hegemonic opinion.
In order to prepare for class discussion, please read pages 605-607, an excerpt from the book HIV and AIDS: Questions of Scientific and Journalistic Responsibility by Serge Lang.
3.17.04
Talk about serendipity: the issue of the Columbia Journalism Review that arrived yesterday had an inserted booklet that was a study.. on AIDS in the media! Score! And then, yesterday I missed my first class so far this semester so I went to my prof's office hours.. only to find that I was right on time for a one-on-one meeting with him that I had scheduled and forgotten about! I feel that I'm forgetting one other cool thing that happened. Maybe I'll remember later.
Asforhavinga chatsessionon Wednesdaynight, Ilovetheideabut tonightisSt.Patrick'sdayand isanyonereallygoingtobesober? Parentsofchildrenexceptedofcourse. Ihaveaclassfrom 6to9that'salready infringinguponmyfrivolity. idd oyu owkn atht yuo nac rade sowrd eevn nwhe ethy rae bsrcamlde?
3.15.04
My, has it really been that long? Time has this wierd quality of passing both quickly and slowly at the same time. Mostly though, I find that it passes quickly. Imagine how much more productive we would be if a second was 25% longer (and if we still had the same number of seconds in a minute and hours in a day and so on). Possibly as much as, but not limited to, 25%, I guess. Maybe more than 25%.. that would be interesting.
Unfortunately, there was only one other night over spring break that was as interesting as the one discussed on 7th March. This was Friday. I worked for two days in preparation for the dinner party I threw Friday evening for ten people. I made Mexican: tostadas (fried tortillas) with toppings like Seviche (fish with fresh salsa), fresh salsa, guacamole, bbq chicken, salsa, beef with onions, peppers and chard, salsa, poblano rice, and salsa. Oh, I also made mango-lime ice (has a sorbet-like consistency). I even made the tortillas themselves. So anyway I did all this work and it all culminated in everyone having a good dinner and all ten guests got along perfectly. Ok, so most of them were already friends. Where was I.
Oh, so somehow the conversation provoked the information that I intended to go to the club that night (see 6th or 7th March) and one guest, who shares my sympathies, said that She would like to go too, to which I of course readily agreed, neither having another choice nor desiring one. So I helped my dad clean up the dishes from the meal and got ready to go. The catch was that I had planned to meet this person at the club but now that my better friend was going, I felt torn and a little embarassed (it was going to be THAT kind of meeting). So I called him and left a message telling him I was leaving and was he still going? but he never called back and it turned out that he had fallen asleep. So I got to the club and my friend from dinner wasn't here yet so I danced by myself for a while until this drag queen in 4" heels, Savoy/John, (on her debut, no less) asked me to dance with her and her friend. Eventually my friend showed up with another friend. So I danced with them--a young-middle-aged Chinese lesbian and a 70-year-old Colombian straight man. It was quite comical. A group of bumpkin-looking girls dared one of their friends to dance with Aurelio. Twice. He was happy to oblige. Savoy pestered me every once in a while, but she was a regular and I didn't really care to be drawn into that circle. If you have never gone dancing with friends who could be your parents (and grandparents), you ought to try it sometime.
And it's a beautiful day outside! I must dress and go experience the sun. And call my friend in rome. That will be expensive.
3.7.04
OK so last night was just so interesting that I really have to write about it, bizarre though it be. So I found out about this club catering to the love-that-recently-dareth-to-speak-its-name-except-in-sanFrancisco, Portland and New York, and so I wanted to go there because dancing is my thing, you know, besides the whole love-that-dareth part, and I heard that this was a good place to go if dancing is your thing and all. So I went. By my oneself.
I smoked my anticipatory cigarette in the parking lot and went in. It was 10:45 and nobody was dancing yet so I bought myself a coke and sat down. After a minute I asked the chick/woman sitting next to me if she had been there before and she said she hadn't either, so we became co-commiserators for the evening and smoked and played pool and darts and danced in the same general vicinity. So we were in the smoking lounge and this guy came over and wanted to know if we wanted to come to his friend's house to drink (since the bar had to shut down at 1) so we said ok what the hell we'll drink your alcohol and crash on your beds and steal your tiffany ashtrays. So we followed him to the house and proceeded to learn everything we could ever want, and much that we didnt really want to learn about this guy who is a curator at a museum which makes him the Hot Shit. He invited us two club-virgins because he thought we "looked like interesting people." Did I mention this was probably a half-million dollar house? So we drank his expensive wine and criticized his expensive uncomfortable furniture and smoked more cigarettes and listened to Curator talk about himself and other than the fact that his philosophies seemed fucked up to me and he reminded me how money can make people so detached from reality.
3.6.04
Ahhhhhhh! Coming home always drives me crazy. Did I ever get a grade for my brand blog? My parents are so difficult for me to talk to and add to that, they are in the middle of a divorce and both are living in crappy old houses (one that i grew up in) and I, being the oldest child, have the honor of knowing what is going on in these people's minds so that I feel guilty if I don't spend the proper amount of time with them even though I want to be back at school already and I havent been here for more than six hours. My dad is a bornagain which is fine except that he gives money to organizations that are currently leading the fight to deny me the right to marry, so I'm having some issues with that, but at the moment religion is about all my dad has going for him so I don't have the heart to be so picky about details like that... if only it wasnt such a big detail though.
I went to the library and got a billion books out about AIDS and society, so I should be busy for at least a few days doing some research/figuring out what information is out there. I also have to work on the house so that I feel justified in asking my dad for money since I havent had a job yet this semester, thanks to my asshole-flake-of-a-boss at ben and jerry's.
The good news is I found out about this club I want to go to that's reasonably close to where I live, so tomorrow night I can go dance the night away and go home with some random stranger just for the fun of it. You laugh. It could happen. I don't have anything (or anyone) better to do right now.
3.3.04
Nope, it wasn't the third of march already. It was the second. Perhaps the little time/date thingy in the corner of my screen should be interactive and make horrifying mosquito noises whenever I type the wrong date. Someone invent that please.[this should be fun]
Are we allowed to vote for blogger of the year yet? Sorry, CMagnet.
I'm out of food. Yeah, I have paaasta (soft a, please). You can only eat so many carbs before you can't eat any more. And I lost my debit card so I can't go shopping unless I use my credit card which I hate doing or unless I use that antiquated methodology of financial exchange, the paper cheque. I can write it that way because I'm of at least half british descent. Once, I tried to pay my friend with a cheque for the alcohol I mean Is That What's In Those Bottles? that he provided to me. He laughed and said What is That? I had to explain that normal people use things like cheques to pay things like rent. Anyway, I shall have to invest in some peanutbutter and bread. By the time i'm sick of it I'll be home, bored out of my mind and willing to cook for the parents.
3.3.04
can it really be the third of march already?
the movie.. was boring. a failure. perhaps people who were so motivated could improve it, but without the original cast and set.. doubtful. It seemed to lack implications beyond those of its own plot. It didn't make a bold statement. Wait, it had a plot? I must have missed that. It went ON and ON, much like I imagine the third LOTR to, except that anything touched by Tolkien is holy. I thought it should be over around a third of the way through. Maybe you could take out the words and replace them with funnier ones.. like the skit in Whose Line Is It Anyways (THE game where the rules are made up and the points don't matter). Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles... awesome pair of comedians.
3.1.04
Current Flavor: Key Lime
Current Clothing: Negligible
Current Music: None
Current Hair Style: Velma Meets Shaggy
Current Mean Fingernail Length: approx. 0.486257 inches (non-significant digits have been dropped)
Current Marital Status: Ineligible
Current STD: NOYB
Current Current: 120 AC in Europe
What should I do for spring break? I have a car to get me where I want to go but I can't afford to stay there. Toronto (again!) would be nice due to certain age restrictions that differ from the United States. Montreal is nice too, I've heard. I don't know anyone there though and hotels are too expensive. Anyone have ideas?
The Oh So Very 29th of February, 2004
I had to blog today just so I could write the date. Note to self, others, again: Gin, when consumed in quantities comparable to other alcoholic beverages, will kick your ass considerably more so. Witness: I wasn't even that drunk and woke up with a worse hangover than that night when I didn't know there was everclear in the punch. I once tended bar for some friends at their backyard lesbian wedding. The only drinks available were wine and gin&tonics. One of the brides finished that otherwise-perfectly-romantic evening hugging the toilet. What, was I supposed to cut her off?
AIDS as a disincentive. From irresponsible behavior? Treating AIDS as communicable may have reduced the spread of other STIs, even if it had little impact on AIDS. Fear of AIDS increased the percentage of sexually active people who use(d) preventative measures like condoms. Irrefutable Danger of the Duesberg Theory: If it's wrong, then it will be responsible for the death of those gay people who contracted HIV as a result of dicontinued safe sex, or who discontinued medication, after converting. Irony: unsafe sex itself was suggested to be a contributor to AIDS (semen as immune repressor).
AIDS as a distraction. From progress in gay rights. From the sex craze. Or did it focus attention on gay issues? Inside the gay community, I think it was a distraction from the political fight for equal rights; outside, it gave people a reason to care about gay issues, showed that gays are human too, provoked empathy, hmm what else?
2.28.04
Apparently it was not obvious that my reference to the StereotypicalAIDSPatients yesterday was talking about the beginning of the outbreak, when people were educated primarily by rumors.
"In those early years, the federal government viewed AIDS as a budget problem, local public health officials saw it as a political problem, gay leaders considered AIDS a public relations problem, and the news media regarded it as a homosexual problem that wouldn't interest anybody else." (Shilts, Randy. And The Band Played On. p.xxiii).
2.27.04
In my discussion of AIDS it will be important to distinguish between the StereotypicalAIDSPatients--homosexual men--and the general population. Strengthening the divide between those two groups, after all, was one of the first results of AIDS (causal argument, bling bling). Therefore an examination of the gay stereotype (at that time, and how it changed) will be in order. Those are the two groups that made up the "mean public opinion." Gay advocates primarily argued that AIDS was not a "gay disease," attempting to avoid further societal stigmas for a group already marginalized. Some people said it was a gay disease; these spoke mainly out of fear and a lack of understanding of the situation, and had no reason to doubt it. The average heterosexual citizen probably didn't really know what to make of the situation, and though hesitant to be labeled anti-gay, was more hesitant to somehow contract AIDS.
Perhaps most ironic is that if Duesberg is correct, then gays themselves were one of the reasons for AIDS not being treated correctly, by their forcing public officials to look for causes other than the gay lifestyle. A form of sociopolitical autogenocide. (this is an expansion upon my question from yesterday) The 70's and (to a lesser extent) the 80's saw a lot of free love among gay men, especially in cities like San Francisco, and many others in California, and New York City. [[This had to have tainted public support for gays among the majority who upheld traditional family values.]] Gays were willing to get easily offended by any questioning of their sexual habits. Calling AIDS a gay disease was seen as homophobic, critical of the gay lifestyle.
Gays were some of the biggest supporters of AIDS research. Today, more is spent on AIDS research than on most other diseases combined, despite the fact that prostate cancer kills more men in the United States than AIDS. AIDS research, like THON, is sexy and has become easily fundable. The CEOs of AIDS organizations in San Francisco are paid upwards of $100,000 per year. AIDS is big business.
2.26.04
Boom Boom, ain't it great to be crazy! Giddy and foolish, the whole day through.. Boom Boom ain't it great to be Crazy!
Eli Eli he sells socks, a dollar a pair and a quarter a box; The longer you wear them, the shorter they get, you put them in the water and they don't get wet! Boom Boom!
AIDS affects public opinion which affects public policy which affects what is done about AIDS which affects how much AIDS affects public opinion...
If steps are taken against AIDS and nothing happens, WhoseFault is it?
2.25.04 (pm)
Rather than LLIDS (see 2.19) I propose LRIDS (Lifestyle-responsive immune deficiency syndrome). For a simple explanation/support of Duesburg's ideas, go here. In case you missed it the first time, I'll remind you again to go here as well.
How about a fun little survey? Everyone who is reading this can [mailto: ebf108@psu.edu
- email] me and tell me the first five things they think of when I say the word AIDS. Ready? AIDS.
2.25.04 (12.30 am)
RE: some topics from class today. Evolution of the word Commentator. There was NoVerb Commentate until there were Commentators. The word used to be Comment. Commentators used to comment on sports. Now, they commentate. Interesting.
According to stories I've heard, it is possible to get drunk (scroll to bottom), i.e. feel similar effects to those of alcohol, on just water. You just have to drink a LOT of it.
2.23.04
When I look at the United States today, the biggest conflict I see is that between traditional Christian culture and Everyone Else (with the exception of certain other conservative organizations). This struggle isn't about who is the [minority or majority]; it's about whether anybody has the right to hegemonic power. In part because of its specific tenets, but mainly because of its general reliance upon dogmatic codes, it seems that religion is a foundation upon which much hegemony is built.
Hegemony, although defined simply as power of one group over another, further implies the repression of non-dominant values and the people who have them. Today, hegemony (at least within our country) is more about idealogical discrimination than physical. Social customs differ widely from American to American, probably more so than any other defining feature of this country. The life of a sincerely religious person is governed by that religion over any other authority, and that attitude tends to manifest in the person's day-to-day personal interactions. When being religious involves the acceptance and embracing of a hegemonic state (god's power over people), a religious person is conditioned to accept and even expect hegemony in all other governing bodies. This is how a religion gains influence in a civil governing establishment.
In contrast, the lifestyle of a less-or-non-religious person (see below for a comment on religion versus faith) may or may not be influenced by a hegemonic deity, but is much more likely to be individualized rather than taken at face value. Because of the individualization, such people are less inclined towards hegemonistic attitudes.
Faith is much more difficult to define than religion. Faith is a relatively intangible feeling that one has regarding one's connection to a force greater (or other) than oneself; it may range from pagan traditions through eastern philosophies to Christianity. Religion however refers to a set of traditions that define a certain spiritual path, or an organization that manages those traditions.
Faith and religion are personal decisions, and there is no purpose to saying that a religion is wrong. Each person knows what is right for him or her. Some people choose to follow a spiritual path that has a hegemonic leadership style; consequentially, hegemony is validated. If that spiritual path is chosen by enough people (and it will inherently appeal to those who enjoy the stability of submission) then its hegemony will spread to other spheres.
2.19.04
As Duesburg pointed out, one of the problems is with the definition of AIDS. There are 28 diseases that can qualify one as an AIDS patient, among them Kaposi's Sarcoma, pneumonia, tuberculosis, wasting syndrome, candidiasis, dementia, lymphoma, herpes, and various infections. One machine of the CDC in solving the "AIDS without HIV" problem was to rename the ailment of people in that situation. Therefore one might have the same symptoms, but without evidence of HIV it cannot be called AIDS.
In this situation, the causation of AIDS by HIV cannot be immediately disproven. Only if the definition of AIDS is broadened (as it used to be, and as common sense directs) does it weaken.
If Duesburg is correct, then the implication that AIDS is a "gay disease" is actually more accurate than the politically incorrect could dream, since lifestyle is the greatest factor. Of course it is not simply a gay disease, as everyone knows. LLIDS (Lifestyle Limiting Immune Deficiency Syndrome) might be a better acronym. LLIDS is thus the ultimate moral taskmaster, doling out punishments for behavior that is frowned upon by conservative culture.
LLIDS was attributed to the HIV virus because trends in virology, cancer research, CDC politics, and the general attitude towards diagnosis of diseases at the time, working together, caused researchers to bypass often their gut instinct in favor of the common perception today. Few people have access to information about alternative ideologies regarding LLIDS, or even realize that there might be such alternatives. The main source of information for people is the world wide web, which is dominated by predominant ideologies. In order to access sources like Duesburg, one must be looking for them. An example of the internet not expanding horizons like people said it would.
2.18.04
I want to write my paper on AIDS and how it has been misrepresented, based upon my research of Dr. Duesburg. My problems are that
- I am not sure how to relate that to analog and digital, and
- Because Duesburg's opinion is a minority, the availability of sources will be limited.
His book is already a very logical dissection of why HIV does not cause AIDS, so I need to branch off. I can't discuss the disease itself, due to not having gone to med school and studied virology. So, my study will have to be a social one, focusing on public opinion. I suppose one aspect that could be related to analog/digital ideas is how the threat has been perceived versus its actual impact. The idea of AIDS is a threatening one, a scary one that cannot be measured, while the actual impact of the disease, in terms of number of AIDS patients vs. number of HIV positive people, is quantifiable.
Emil:
Check out the work of root-bernstein on causality and aids, Paula Treichler, Blake Scott, and Act up. Many of these people have argued that rhetoric has played a crucial role in the way in which we have thought, and not thought, about aids. I would look at online sources to find out how Duesburg's ideas have been received. This is a beginning.
RD
2.17.04
I am selling Student Crew cards. You pay $10 and get a card that entitles you to a smorgasboard of free food from area merchants, free cover at the saloon and the crowbar, a free game of lasertag for five people, and other things. There are also weekly specials at each of the places, including 2-for-1 cover at the crowbar. I'll have the cards with me if you want to buy one after class.
Architecture as politics. The Ancient Roman architect Vitruvius wrote in his 10 Books on Architecture that three elements compose good architecture: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas. Strength in Construction, Function, and Beauty. If a building lacks one of these, then it is not true architecture. His books were the foundation for architecture through the rest of history and are still taught in introductory architecture courses.
A politician ought to have these same qualities. He or she must be strong, and not back down when confronted on important issues; must be able to get things done working with other people to produce results, and must be eloquent and present a unified, attractive face to constituents.
That being said, it's interesting that only one building was ever known to actually be designed by Vitruvius; he dealt mainly with theory. He says, in Book I, "As for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness. This is very important, for no work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptability... let him with dignity keep up his position by cherishing a good reputation." I laugh when I compare this to a modern politician.
One characteristic that architecture shares with politics is the demonstration of power. The Coliseum was built by the power of the emperor Vaspasian; it was the largest man-made structure of its kind at the time. When the giant cathedrals of France were built, they were manifestations of the power of God, tributes to God. The height of a skyscraper is equivalent to the power of the corporation inhabiting it.
Politics also relies a lot on power: those who have it can wield it to support others, to bring people aboard, or they can use it as a weapon.
If politics is interpereted broadly to include most or all non-violent decision-making interactions between people or groups of people (and certainly, such interactions are required in order to create architecture) then architecture is the place where those decisions are made.
2.16.04
To start off, I would like to encourage people, if they are so inclined, to go here and to sign their names, in order that such names will appear in a two-page spread of the Daily Collegian in April. I'm not saying what you are signing for, so that you must go there to find out. As an incentive, know that this will be so good for your karma as to offset at least three candy bars and a month's worth of swearing, I promise. And it only takes thirty seconds, give or take.
I am sometimes amazed, reading other people's blogs, at how funny some of them are, and it makes me rather jealous. They appear to be more skilfull bloggers, contradiction though that might be, but I imagine that in real life they are probably just funnier people to start with, whilst I am humble and a bit boring. Can I help it if my parents never told me a joke? Why must I suffer due to improper socialization as a young child?
I am sorry to hear of the unfortunate damage inflicted upon CorruptionMagnet's wooden floors, on which I myself once turned a hefty heel, and I hope that such blatant carelessness will not persuade him to cancel plans for future brain-expunging, and perhaps next time a collection ought to be taken towards the security deposit, and lest you were wondering, this sentence is what happens when one becomes uninterested in the use of semicolons.
Now, where was I? Ah yes, analog and digital. But first I will study this man Libet.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Foundations.Cognition/0126.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Thinking.Psychologically96/0051.html
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/libet1.htm
http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/hameroff/New/Time_Flies/Time_Flies.htm
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/LIBMIN.html
http://personal.bgsu.edu/~roberth/libet.html
2.15.04
One of the advantages of the Wiki is that changes can BeTracked.
2.14.04
happy day of valentine. I'm going to this party tonight and people's hormones are going to be exploding like champaigne. It should be interesting.
I was at TJ MAXX yesterday picking up a red shirt, and I browsed their wallet selection. In amongst the ten-dollar J.C. Penny brand wallets were some little billfolds by Coach. I did not know that Coach was one of Those brands until I saw the price tag for this little flap of leather: $38, marked down from $78. It didn't even look particularly well made; it had no special materials and the stitching was coarse. Can you imagine paying eighty bucks just to have something to keep your money in?
Association with one of Those brands isn't always positive. There are people, rich and poor, who are practical and do not spend much more on a wallet than anybody else, because the normal ones work just fine. Even if you are wealthy, there aren't necessarily extra dollars laying around waiting to be squandered. Some people would rather support philanthropic organizations or causes than have twenty pairs of Kenneth Cole shoes. Such people (myself, for instance, who am neither rich nor poor) tend to be critical of the Gucci wearers (GW's) unless they redeem themselves through obvious dedication to helping those less fortunate.
Hey boys and girls! Are you bored with your vocabulary? Do "Cool," "Awesome" and "Sweet" fail to describe the intensity of your feelings? Well, my friends, allow me to introduce to you the next Adjective of the Year (AOTY): Tropical(tm). Tropical(tm) is the new word for anything on the top of your list. Suggested uses include: "That is a tropical(tm) song," "That hairdo is tropical(tm)," and "What a tropical(tm) view!" Within a few weeks of its emergence as the next icon of pop culture, look for the shortening to "Trop(tm)," which sounds incidentally a lot like "Tops" and "trope."
**note: due to copyright restrictions, the word Tropical(tm) may no longer be used as an adjective without permission and license. For a license, write your favorite thing about Emil Friend on the back of a $20 bill and mail it to:
AOTY c/o Judicial Affairs
529 W. Foster #14
State College, PA 16801
2.12.04
Apparently there are things that I am supposed to want to write about for 20 pages. Ha. This baby is going to come out kicking and screaming, and the one in all the pain will be its mother. I would link to an amusing photo at this point but it's on my hard drive not on a website so I don't know how. Perhaps someone will put a link here to explain the procedure.
There is some nice orchestral music coming from my internet radio, I'd downloading (non-copyrighted, of course!) music onto my computer, and I can see how long all my friends have been idle because they are off in the world doing important things. My away message, of course, says that I'm doing schoolwork. Now THAT's funny.
I feel that I should be preparing to pick a paper topic and thinking really hard about it, since I know that when the time comes I will probably have no idea what to write, so maybe if I have a kick-ass topic I'll get it at least half written by the end of the semester.
The requirement for the paper is to discuss something that has both analog and digital facets. These formats are not in opposition; they are simply alternate ways of expressing an idea or piece of information.
I just realized this evening/morning that my professor has been sending "course mail" over Angel and not telling anyone about it. Or maybe everyone elses gets forwarded to their webmail accounts? Anyhow, I suppose that I have perhaps been less prepared for class discussions because I did not see the links emailed over Angel. Information overload at work?
After I complained about the length of the paper (earlier today) the professor put up links that are supposed to help me with a topic. The first website has all sorts of extremely informative papers that are in tiny font and scanned in sideways in .pdf format, making them very fun to read. I am dubius as to whether I will understand them, but it will be doubly difficult reading them with my head craned sideways (perhaps I can rotate my monitor). Or I could bite the bullet, supress my environmentalist sympathies and print them off on that medium of antiquity, paper. Lest I sound cynical, for the record I am determined to do my darndest to rid the world of unnecessary alliteration, and to learn the material and all this rhetoric mumbojumbo.
2.7.04 blog
First rule of Fight Club: do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: do not talk about Fight Club. Those are the rules, designed to protect the members of the club. Yet only by breaking the rules could the club really succeed, adding new members to diffuse/dissipate/dilute the punches-in-the-face-per-person ratio (enabling longevity) and to spread to other places. It seems contradictory, or perhaps just ironic, that a man rebelling against the rules of society simply created his own society with the same kinds of rules. Different specific rules, but still restrictive of independent thought. What was Norton/Pitt really fighting? Mere consumerism? The inanity of the corporate environment? What?
PSU Brand Paper
What is the PSU brand? Simply, it is the reputation that the Pennsylvania State University has achieved based upon merit, renown for football, and the image it cultivates. I'm not sure how accurate any analysis of it by me can be, since I am inherently biased (either for or against) by my attendance at that very school. Still, I am better prepared to critique it than an outsider, and having no undue love for this particular institution, perhaps I will not be far out of line.
As a school in competition with other schools, the location of PSU gives it distinct advantages. The town of State College grew up around PSU and owes everything to it. In this situation, the civil governing body must be more hesitant to criticize the school, because what is bad for one is likewise for the other. In logical terms, if B follows A but A does not follow B, then B (State College) is subject to the will of A (PSU).
If A ---> B but B--/--> A Then A is more powerful than B.
How does this impact the branding of PSU? In cities, the municipality and the university are interdependent. In cities, where professionals exist for a multitude of reasons other than just the universities, it must be much easier to criticize a university, and to publicize such criticism, thus allowing the universities less control over their image. Of course, there are other schools that are not in urban areas and that are somewhat out of the public eye. Virginia Tech, for example, supports a downtown smaller than that of State College. Most state schools equivalent to PSU, however, are in cities, if not huge metropolitan areas. Arizona State is in Tempe. Michigan State is in Lansing. New York SUNY has some rural campuses, but they are small.
PSU has given itself a very useful name. The three letters say Pennsylvania very quickly, since no other states begin with the letter "p." Pitt State University has the same initials, but the immense majority associates PSU with Penn State. The only confusion people may have is between the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pennsylvania, the latter of which is a member of the esteemed Ivy League; association with it, even this casually, must do more good than harm. PSU is also unique in the way that it shortened the name of its host state; California (UC) and New York (SUNY), also top state schools, have developed other methods of shortening their state names.
These two items--location and name--are more incidental parts of PSU's brand/reputation management than intentional and planned. The PSU website is another method of brand management that is very explicit in purpose. It is enormously popular: almost 1000 other websites link to it. If you're just browsing, you'll find many interesting things to read; if you're looking for something specific, it can be difficult. The homepage is stoic and reserved; it is the headmaster. It does not change to break big news stories, and it is not filled with immediate links to all the pages commonly used by students. Students have their Portal; the homepage is too sacred to mar with useful information.
We Are Penn State, the slogan goes. We are the Nittany Lions (somehow, Nittany Pumas never caught on). Revere us, for our stadium snarls. We are a "drinking town with a football problem," as the other slogan goes. On football saturdays, fans (including minors) fill acres and acres of university property and imbibe, unmolested by cops. Our immense number of fraternities and sororities enhance your educational experience by emphasizing intellectual, interpersonal, and social development. "So that's what they call it these days...interpersonal development." With the exceptions of a few low-profile professional and honors fraternities, partying is the name of the game. Drinking at Penn State, many people say, relates to its location (see above). Specifically, there's nothing else to do.
For some people, football and beer are attractions. Others could care less how many running yards a rookie has, or how many more games PSU needs to win to get into a bowl. PSU seems to have balanced their priorities in terms of accomodating both types of people. A world-class library and teaching staff, and over $60 million in research grants per year, qualify it as more than just a football school. The football program is popular enough to probably be self-supporting, except perhaps for a few free rides I mean scholarships for players. It might even be a source of revenue for the university once the stadium has been paid for. Regardless, Penn State has an impressive academic record that, combined with the football and drinking, allows a wide variety of people to have a good experience. Penn State is a good school. That's what everyone says. Not just the jocks, not just the nerds. Everyone says it because like sex Penn State is good for everyone.
By "everyone," I mean either the 1 in 8 degree-holding Pennsylvanians who graduated from PSU, or their spouses, children, etc., or the other half of the graduates, who moved to other states and countries. Also included are the 20,000 employees of the Penn State system, the residents and businesses of State College, the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, the Four Diamonds Fund, thousands of children with pediatric cancer, and their families. It could even extend to watchers and listeners of (respectively) public television and radio that are based in State College.
There are a lot of Pennsylvanians at PSU. But Out-of-staters, who pay three times more tuition money, are not uncommon (click on Big Campus). This is a testament of some sort to this school's reputation. They could pay a lot less to go to their own state schools, but they see something in PSU that they can't get elsewhere. It's a lot to pay just to live as far as possible from parents; they come here because of perceived quality. The Princeton Review ranked PSU 18th nationally as Best Academic Bang for your Buck. It got the same rating for its fraternity scene. They also ranked it the #1 jock school. They also ranked it #9 for best college newspaper, a vital forum for college community. The average SAT score of PSU students, 1210, is higher than the majority of other state schools, according to that same website. Iowa was also 1210, and UC Berkeley was 1300. UC Berkeley is also considered one of the best schools in the country, public or private. What do these numbers mean? Penn State attracts qualified students that most other state schools can't, and this is a reflection of the PSU brand.
Much of Penn State's reputation is a result of the experiences that its students have and take with them across Pennsylvania and the United States. These experiences are very diverse. The stories you hear from an ex-football player will be a polar opposite from those of an engineering ph.d, which will be different from those of a social sciences major, and so on. Those three groups of people--and there are many, many others--live in worlds that have little in common, save that they all might have lived in the same building their freshman year.
If god isn't a Penn State fan, then why is the sky blue and white? What better warrantee could there be?
2.4.04 blog
It took a foot of snow to keep students out of classrooms on Tuesday. Most people with cars couldn't even get out of their parking lots. I shoveled for an hour around my car, and my tires aren't that old. Yet when I tried to drive, I just spun, the car didn't even move an inch. The timing of the storm couldn't have been better for me, though. I don't have class on Mondays or Fridays, and just a fun one Wednesday night, so basically I will have had a week without classes. How sweet is that. Of course I will probably have one or two profs who have decided that it was the students' fault that winter finally came to Pennsylvania, and will make us "catch up" on work. I do become rather upset when it snows, however, because there are no hills around here suitable and available for sledding down If only they didn't plow S. Atherton St. as it leaves downtown, we could all sled down it and have a good time. I asked someone about this once, and he said something about an ambulance and people needing to get to... what did he call it? oh yeah, a hospital, so that they didn't die or whatever.
I'm reading this book called Inventing the AIDS Virus by Dr. Duesburg (See below) (1996) that talks about the history of diseases and how the attribution of symptoms has always been difficult. Time after time scientists said that a disease was caused by a microorganism like a bacterium or virus, when in fact it has been a dietary or environmental issue. Well into the 1900's, it was still thought that Scurvy was a bacterial, spreadable disease. Vitamin C had to be discovered and purified before they found out that Scurvy just means you need more C. The same with B and niacin. In Japan, scientists prescribed an anti-diarrheal drug that actually caused diarrhea and other, much more severe stomach problems; it took them over ten years to figure out what was going wrong, because they kept looking for a virus.
More AIDS updates to come, this is as far as I've read so far
GuessWhat
2.2.04 blog
Is it February already? I feel like I'm still waking up groggy the noon after New Years Eve. It is strange that the more things you fill your time with, the faster it seems to go. Perhaps it has to do with how much attention you pay to time. I admit that when people talk about "space-time" I have no idea what's going on. But couldn't time be related to consciousness? For all we know, we could each experience one second or minute in entirely different ways. It seems unlikely, but that probably makes it all the more possible.
A classic example of human thinking: HIV and AIDS. HIV is a virus that causes the disease known as AIDS, right? People are tested for HIV when they get PCP, a kind of pneumonia, a common indicator. Their immune systems bounce back at first but gradually deteriorate as virus loads increase in their lymph system. Doctors prescribe cancer medications developed in the 1960's that were too toxic to use back then; only in the desperation of no cure have we resorted to them. They kill cells in the immune system. Quite a treatment for an immune system deficiency syndrome.
There is a new school of thought, pioneered by UC Berkeley researcher Peter Duesburg, and promoted by Science Nobel winner Kary Mullis. For circumstantial evidence, Duesburg points to the immense number of people who have HIV but not AIDS, and the small but growing number of people who have AIDS but not apparently without HIV. He talks about flu vaccines triggering false positives in HIV tests; as few as one in ten positives is accurate. Most of these are antibody tests, which would register a positive even if there was no more actual virus in the body. This skepticism is very tempting to believe, because although he does not claim to know what AIDS really is, at least he is giving us something to believe in, and he's an authority who is taken seriously by several other authorities. AIDS research is the most funded of all diseases in the USA; we have spent of billions of dollars on dissecting DNA and RNA strands to find the connection between the HIV virus and the symptoms of AIDS with few leads.
According to Duesburg, AIDS is not even an easily definable disease; some of its sufferers have Kaposi's Sarcoma (a cancer), others PCP, and some simply "waste away." AIDS sufferers in Africa primarily waste; PCP and cancer are found more in western Europe and the United States.
He believes that AIDS is caused by drug use, including the anti-viral drugs used to treat HIV. He points to high recreational drug use as a reason for the outbreak of AIDS in the United States in the late 1970's through the 1980's. He has other hypotheses as well, that fill in the holes I obviously left in describing his theory.
Most of his scientific papers are available to read on his website. For me, reading about this new outlook on AIDS was very refreshing and encouraging.
1.31.04 blog
We talked in class about how one trusts a recognizeable brand, and even tolerates a certain degree of failure of that brand as the cost of the supposedly higher overall quality. Once that degree of failure reaches an unacceptable level, however, we revoke our loyalty and repulsion supplants it. The failure might be a unique event, and not an indicator of performance overall, but if our expectations are not fulfilled, somehow it is a personal affront. Consider cars: there are people who only buy foreign cars because they bought a domestic once and it had lots of problems. Of course once in a while chance will cause a greater-than-average number of problems to occur in one car, but chance is a factor in every aspect of our life and we should be accustomed to it. There is another logical leap. Presume
1. that the quality of a new car is approximately equivalent to that of another new car of the same price.
2. that from year to year, the quality of a car model improves on approximately a linear scale.
So someone buys a domestic car and has a series of problems with it until they swear it off and get a foreign car. The foreign car is better, because since their last car purchase, the quality of cars overall has improved. However, this means that a new domestic car would also provide more satisfaction. Likewise, a foreign car purchased instead of the original domestic would have been of a lower quality and provided less satisfaction than the new one.
What's the difference between a brand and a name? It seems that once you talk about something and have named it, it becomes worthy of attention, which is arguably the definition of a brand. Brand does not carry a connotation; it can be positive or negative; you can be branded a fool as easily as someone can recognize the Nike SwooSh.
a tidbit I stumbled across in AIDS And The Law, by David Webber, p. 67:
"The Internet, or what the CDA defines as the 'international computer network of both Federal and non-federal interoperable packet switched data networks...'"
1.29.04 blog
Surely you wouldn't claim that all blogs are unequally bloggy? That claim would carry the same burdens as saying that all are equally bloggy, no? Regardless, my main objection was to the lack of \"definition\" to the assignment that gave me an idadequate idea of what was expected. I think the horse is dead, I hope, so I'm ready to move on.
Ok so brands and quote-unquote public institutions. A brand is good and you buy it. A brand is bad and you avoid it. No brand and you despise it. But did you ever buy the off-brand or no-brand things just to give the underdogs a boost? I know I have done this. I appreciate where they are coming from. Underdogs usually have a smaller market share, lower price and the quality is rarely that much worse. It can actually be harder to find products made by smaller companies because of the virtual oligopolies of the Big Players. Call it WalmartitiS, after the one big company that has replaced probably (at least) twenty thousand little ones. How did they do it? They replaced human values with capitalist ones. Replace: to place again, to take the place of, supplant, provide a substitute for or equivalent. Apparently, capitalist values cannot REPLACE human values because they would have to be equivalent. Substituted is a better word.
For me the word corporation has an inherent negative connotation because (most) corporations tend to not care about communities, sustainability or the environment. Because of this, in my mind, my support for a company ideally has an inverse relationship to its degree of corporateness. This is one reason for my lack of sympathy for the RIAA and recording industry. Music can be one of the strongest mediums of community, but when it's owned and distributed commercially with no respect for the wishes of the musician, I lose respect for the wishes of the distributor.
1.28.04 blog
Ok first of all, a GradeForBlogginess? Since when are there bad blogs? Tell me that my logic sucked, ok. So I didn't use my sources; I wasn't told to, the professor just said to post them and I wrote about my opinion. Apparently I was supposed to know that because this blog was graded, different standards applied. If he said write a paper and post it ON the blog, I would have known. He said to respond to each topic. I did. I don't know how much this grade is worth, whether it's replacing some other assignment, or whether I'm qualified to even be in this course.
If there are standards that our blogs are going to be held to, we need to know that in advance of writing them.
Everyone keeps complaining about the snow. "It's soooo cold!" Admittedly, in past years that's been me, whining every day about how sick of winter I am. Somehow this year it's not bothering me as much, so everyone (and some professors are just as bad as the students) is pissing me off. It's PENNSYLVANIA. It snows, and it's cold. Every year, it snows and it's cold. Get a warmer coat, a thicker hat and mittens instead of gloves. This is Pennsylvania, not Alaska, the winters aren't THAT bad, you can handle it. This is the 21st century, you don't have to walk five miles to school; maybe half a mile or take a bus. My friend from Arizona isn't complaining, even though it's 75 degrees and sunny where he's from. It's the damn Pennsylvanians. The snow may make you walk ten percent more slowly and make roads slippery for driving, but there is no reason for it to hamper your normal activities.
1.27.04 blog
As i sit here contemplating, wondering, thinking, debating, it is plain that i do not think in terms of logical sequences. My brain doesn't say, If this Then that, or use words like Thus and Therefore. I don't need to analyze dreams to figure out why I'm not a very skillful arguer. The synapses simply don't snap in the right directions without a catalyst. Someone else can present an argument and I'll understand it, and agree or disagree. But independent extrapolation any further than slightly less than obvious is a rare feat for my brain. Yes Yes I Know, I need to practice and How do I expect to improve with that pessimistic attitude.
I've found that my best writing, my poetry, is the result of not trying to force that sort of cerebral calculation, but is rather the result of (permitted because of) the relaxation of my mind. So maybe when I'm trying to "think" and just going nowhere, I need to change my entire outlook on the situation. I don't know though; I'm usually too busy wondering why I can't think of what I want to.
Being the lover of learning that I (claim to be/am), I try to (am I crazy?) pay attention to and even (yes, I am) understand what professors say, providing it is interesting or of perceived value.
It is very frustrating, given that I have the best of intentions, to be stuck repeating what they say rather than being able to interpret independently.
On a completely different note, regarding intellectual property: Once a listener has heard a song, the information that "is" that song has been copied, duplicated. To varying degrees of accuracy, it resides now independently in that person's brain.
What is the difference, in terms of Ownership, between hearing the song on your computer and hearing it in your head (after having heard it on the radio, for instance)? I realize that this question inherently disregards traditional copyright attitudes, but it's interesting for the sake of argument.
1.26.04 blog
When it's cloudy in state college, 40,000 students in their prime years of development get depressed. State College has fewer days of sun per year than SeaTtle, Washington. Even if the depression is only superficial, could it somehow relate to the stagnation and lack of student activism that many people notice pervading Penn State University Park? It must have some economic consequences at least. Maybe those consequences are even good. Depressed people tend to go on shopping binges to improve self-esteem.
Here at (apparently) one of the best state schools in the country, females cannot walk across campus alone at night. There were fourteen reported sexual assaults in the Fall 2003 semester. That means that the actual total is probably at least twenty. Are depressed people more prone to committing this type of violence? It wouldn't surprise me. The next most significant criminal-type activity is probably the drinking that goes on. True, it's actually only illegal for those under 21, but this is when the tradition of going out to party gets established, engrained. By the time they turn 21, many students here drink every weekend anyway. True, there's really nothing else around here on a saturday night to interest a college student. But perhaps the reason for the absence of those other things is related to the weather.
The saying goes that If god is not a penn state fan, then why is the sky blue and white. How ironic that the sky is only white (well, gray) most of the time.
1.25.04 blog
I went canning with my fraternity this weekend. There were six of us; we switched off and went three at a time. We drove to Murrysville where one of the brothers (actually a female; the fraternity is coed) grew up and used her home as a base. We collected almost five hundred dollars by simply walking past cars at one intersection, wearing huge poster signs and trying to appear cold so people would pity us. The temperature was never above twenty so looking cold was easy.
The concept of canning is interesting. You have signs that say Penn State Dance Marathon on them, but all people can really read are the big headlines that say Help Kids With Cancer. Essentially, unless they are familiar with the THON program (and a certain percentage of people are), the people who drop a dollar in your can (or five, ten or even thirty) are trusting a stranger. Individually they don’t give a substantial amount but it adds up quickly. We spent less than five hours at that intersection.
Advertisers know that one of the secrets to their profession is to use children. If you doubt this, watch television and see how many products are promoted by someone under the age of ten. Babies sell. It follows that if you’re going to raise money for cancer, pediatric cancer should be the easiest. Pediatric and breast cancers are "sexy," meaning that it's easy(ier) to find funding and get donations. Adults with cancer are not as sexy; they have probably already reproduced, and perpetuatrd their genes, and if they die the only material loss is an indeterminably small dip in the GNP.
Yet in towns across Pennsylvania, students get kicked off the streets by police. They may be a part of the largest student-run philanthropy organization in the world, but somehow it's not affecting the communities that support us, and they are shutting us down. I've never been on a canning trip (and I've been on six or seven total) during which we were not forced to leave at least one area. On this most recent trip, we simply returned the next day and raced the clock, waited for a bitchy cop to come by; it took an hour and a half. At least four other cops had driven by, but this one decided that if we did not get out of the street we would receive a citation. Okay, so we didn't have a permit. We didn't have a permit because permits are virtually impossible to get. As THON has grown, more and more towns have banned canning.
Here Goes Nothing
http://www.napster.psu.edu/
http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/effector-online/msg00063.html
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/sharealrt.htm
read the FTC's opinion
http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20031219/19dec2003091020.html
Legal in the Netherlands
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34472.html
Spanier has political career in mind?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33924.html
Conflict of Interest! Here's is the answer to what everyone wants to know: Why?
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/stories/storyReader$450 A Harvard Professor's Blog
NAPSTER: NAY!
A search of internet sites has shown that it is not possible to know whether students are getting ripped off or not by PSU's deal with Napster. Spanier, Napster (Roxio) and possibly the RIAA are apparently the only entities privy to the contract specifications. Why would PSU hide the details of their contract if there was nothing fishy about it, or if it wasn't in some way illegal? I cannot, should not, have to give PSU the benefit of the doubt that what they do is in my best interests. I pay tuition and therefore have a certain investment in the university as a business. Even if they tell me that my tuition money is not being used to pay for Napster, I should still care because that money could be used for other things.. like reducing the cost of tuition, etc.
A man named Robinson sits high in the chains-of-command of both the RIAA and Penn State. He said that he was not aware of the deal until 36 hours before it was officially announced--even though Penn State students had known for months before that, and even though he has an obvious vested interest in such a deal. This apparent evasion of the spotlight puts me on alert for other things PSU may be hiding. I favor p2p file-sharing of music as discussed previously, while the RIAA does not. Therefore, anything that the RIAA is willing to accept is probably a sub-par agreement in relation to my values.
I don't see the on-campus/off-campus issue as such a big deal, assuming the validity of the Napster deal in the first place (which is questionable). Creating an entire new program like this for Penn State is time consuming, and biting off more than the authors can chew could actually take longer in the... long run. The people on the business end probably went to the program writers and asked what would be the best (smoothest) way to make the transition, and I respect that decision. Especially since it rests in an area in which I am (and will be without year's worth of computer language education) unfamiliar.
The same is true for the issue with Mac compatibility. True, many other programs run across operating systems, but I don't know how that works. I think that they have to write a whole new set of code for Mac. It might cost more to pay the programmers to write the new program (a cost all students would have to bear, even if they used Windows) than what Mac users will pay for the patch. It would be interesting to hear a speech by a programmer about why compatibility is a problem in this case.
On the issue of University Liability, I don't see the problem. Am I, the individual student, liable if PSU gets sued or is found to have signed an illegal contract? I'm not sure, but I doubt it. I trust that Spanier's lawyers are intellegent enough to keep themselves out of jail. Speaking of which, who paid for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees that this contract negotiation must have cost?
What's a crime? Is it legal to keep a contract like this covered up? Isn't PSU a PublicInstitution? I guess that the precedent protecting them is the secrecy maintained in the past about university finances.
BlogGradingMatrix
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